IRIS: Migration in New Haven

In partnership with Artspace New Haven

Join Artspace New Haven and the International Festival of Ideas for a presentation by Executive Director of the Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS) Chris George and IRIS Ambassador Gladys Mwilelo about the work of IRIS within the greater New Haven community. George will share their mission, casework with various intersecting immigrant groups, and the legal aid services IRIS provides. Mwilelo will share her personal experience as a refugee and current work with refugees in the New Haven area.

This event is part of the programming series for the exhibition Dyschronics, on view February 11–April 16, 2022 at Artspace New Haven and is part of the One City, One Read initiative. This is an in-person event and will be limited capacity in compliance with COVID-19 safety. 

Presenters

Chris George is the Executive Director of Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS). For the past 15 years, Chris George has been the Executive Director of IRIS, Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services, Connecticut's largest refugee resettlement agency. Chris has spent most of his professional life living in, or working on, the Middle East. He spent a total of 12 years in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Chris was Executive Director of Human Rights Watch—Middle East for two years. He worked nine years with Save the Children (mostly in the Middle East) and three years with the American Friends Service Committee. Chris began his international career in 1977 as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Muscat, Oman. He speaks Arabic.

Gladys Mwilelo is an IRIS Ambassador and a recent graduate of Central CT State University where she completed her B.A. in Strategic Communication. She came to Connecticut as a refugee with her family in 2013. She was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Due to war in her small village, Gladys and her family were forcibly displaced to Burundi, where they lived as refugees for 13 years. They became U.S. citizens in 2019. Gladys has published articles in The Hartford Courant and the New Haven Arts Paper. She does speaking engagements throughout CT.

About One City, One Read

Join the International Festival of Arts & Ideas, the New Haven Free Public Library, Yale Schwarzman Center, and partners across the city in celebrating the magnificent work of Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower as One City, One Read. Featuring events citywide inspired by and related to the core themes and values of Parable, there will be something for everyone: from performances and screenings to lectures, panels, and guided discussions.