FROM CRISIS TO OPPORTUNITY:
STORIES OF REFUGEE ENTREPENEURS
video production, editing, community impact
WORLD REFUGEE AWARENESS WEEK 2021
Timeframe: May - June 2021
Client: St. Vincent Catholic Charities
Collaborators: Meredith Bieber & Yusuf Sultanai
Overview: “From Crisis to Opportunity: Stories of Refugee Entrepreneurs” for World Refugee Awareness Week 2021. This three-part short video series showcased refugee entrepreneurs in the Lansing area. Collaborating with the film student Yusulf Sultanai, I interviewed, edited, and published the series on STVCC social media channels, to an audience upwards of 5,000 followers.
May and Paige Anayi
Meredith: Content, Producing, Editing, Interviewing
Yusuf: Filming, Color Grading
Impact: 1,374 reached on Facebook
Social Media Caption:
Our first spotlight in the video series “From Crisis to Opportunity: Stories of Refugee Entrepreneurs” are Paige and May Anayi. The sisters came to Lansing in 2007 as refugees from Iraq. Fourteen years later, they run a thriving business - Cozy Bear Childcare Home. Learn more about their story and passion to take care of children!
Alex Rugurika
Meredith: Content, Producing, Interviewing
Yusuf: Filming, Editing, Color Grading
Impact: 1,300 reached on Facebook
Social Media Caption:
As a newly arrived refugee, Alex Rugurika encountered an obstacle many newcomers face. While grocery shopping for his family, he found it very difficult to find familiar food and ingredients from his home country of Burundi. This experience gave him the idea to open a grocery store providing international foods typically inaccessible to Lansing residents. Now, thanks to Alex and Top Line Food Market, Lansing residents can converse in a familiar language and easily buy food and ingredients like cassava flour, fufu, and Migebuka, a fish imported from Lake Tanganyika in East Africa.
Farhad Ibrahim
Meredith: Content, Producing, Interviewing
Yusuf: Filming, Editing, Color Grading
Impact: 700 reached on Facebook
Social Media Caption:
Farhad Ibrahim came from Iraq as a Kurdish Refugee, and has fully embraced his new Lansing home as an entrepreneur and businessman. Running both a cleaning franchise and the Lansing Fish and Meat Market is no small feat - learn how Farhad has navigated through obstacles and pursued opportunities here: