Young adults, including refugees, join Iskashitaa staff

First of all, Plotas, 24, had never before seen a Tucson sunset. Second, her previous experience working with refugees was limited to a semester of tutoring in college.

At Iskashitaa, Plotas coordinated food workshops and made connections with faith-based communities, all of it intended to help refugees.

Because the United Methodist Church sponsored her two-year employment, she was able to join the ranks of other young adults and teenagers who gain professional experience at Iskashitaa through a third party.

In January, two 21-year-olds from Sudan became the first refugees to work with the nonprofit not as volunteers, but as interns paid by a Goodwill youth program. They just completed their second paid internship at the nonprofit, and now three new refugees will start work, helping with anything from data entry to translation to harvests, said Barbara Eiswerth, Iskashitaa’s director and founder.

“Having them in our office is like a breath of fresh air,” Eiswerth said of the perspective they bring to the staff. “They have that experience and know that experience and can help us.”

Asha Adam, one of the original Goodwill interns who began in January, came to Tucson from Darfur, Sudan more than two years ago with her family. In May, she graduated from Catalina High School and wants to become an immigration lawyer someday.

“It was a great experience,” Adam said of interning with Iskashitaa staff. “They are very understandable people. Even though my English is a second language, they can still understand what I say, and I feel very confident.”

At any given time, the organization works with 10 to 30 young staffers sponsored by organizations such as religious groups or AmeriCorps Vista, Eiswerth said. She calls it “staffing on a shoestring.”

“We really want them to process who they’re meeting and what they’re learning about themselves,” Eiswerth said. “Every ethnic group that we work with is different, and it’s like going back to the drawing board and just getting over the trepidation of meeting people who don’t look like you or have your background.”

And that’s what Plotas will remember as she finished her two years with Iskashitaa on Wednesday and prepares to move back home to Battle Creek, Michigan.

She will remember the people — the Iraqi man who promised her father he would look out for her and the Sudanese family who asked her to bring back to them their sister who lives in Michigan.

“I always cared about what was happening, but it makes it a lot more real when I know so-and-so from Syria and so-and-so from Iraq and so-and-so from Burundi,” Plotas said. “When I see things happening, I think of these people that I know, and I think that makes it more urgent for me and harder to ignore.”