Photo: East County Magazine Radio Show host Miriam Raftery, Dilkhwaz Ahmed, CEO of License to Freedom, and Bob Gan, Co-Chair of Welcome Home in San Diego
June 3, 2023 (San Diego) – San Diego is a national hub for refugees fleeing war and persecution from nations around the world. Welcome Home in San Diego and License to Freedom in El Cajon are two organizations helping people who have been legally designated as refugees.
Recently, ECM Editor Miriam Raftery interviewed Bob Gan,Co-Chair of Welcome Home locally and Dilkhwaz Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer of License to Freedom.
You can hear our full interview, originally aired on KNSJ 89.1 FM radio, by clicking the audio link, or scroll down for highlights to learn how you can help these nonprofit organzations welcoming new Americans.
Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.
September 4, 2022 (El Cajon) – The El Cajon nonprofit License to Freedom has been counseling nine children in a Syrian refugee family traumatized first by war in their homeland, and now by the death of their mother, who was found shot in the family’s home. In an interview with East County Magazine originally aired on KNSJ radio,
Dilkhwaz Ahmed, founder of License to Freedom, provides an update on the children’s situation, also sharing information on the stresses facing refugee families. The children’s father, Abdulhannan Abdurazaq Al Rawi, has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge.
“It’s so hard,” Ahmed says, when asked how the children, ages 2-17, are doing. “In a situation like that, the community gets together.” She says other Syrian refugees in the community worked to help the children, as did people in the Sudanese community, since the babysitter is from Sudan. “One of their close friends, a family from Syria, decided to take the kids, and they have seven kids,” Ahmed said. “The wife was best friends with the mom…it’s heartbreaking.”
Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.
“The quarantine has created a lot of problems…A safety plan is no longer available [for some victims].” – Dilkhwaz Ahmed, License to Freedom
May 26, 2020 (San Diego’s East County) — After weeks of stay-home orders during the COVID-19 pandemic, two local organizations supporting victims of domestic abuse are seeing a sharp rise in people seeking services for the first time.
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Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.
Jonathan Goetz and Nital Meshkoor contributed to this story
Photo: These 13 students are helping to help make America great.
August 11, 2018 (El Cajon) – Sharp Grossmont Hospital, the Grossmont Healthcare District and License to Freedom are preparing some promising young bilingual refugees in east county for nursing careers.
Thirteen high school juniors with good grades graduated earlier this month from a one-week intensive program at Sharp Grossmont Hospital. Ten of them still plan to pursue nursing as a way to help their community and the community at large.
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Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.
August 7, 2017 (El Cajon) -- Medical handouts, translated to English and Arabic, are strewn across the table at St. John’s Church for Syrian and Afghan refugees. Health organizations around San Diego participated in an educational meet and greet to introduce the differences in urgent and emergency care, proper nutrition and disease prevention.
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Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.
February 7, 2017 (East County) – The Grossmont Healthcare District (GHD) has awarded a $10,000 grant to License to Freedom, an El Cajon-based nonprofit that assists Middle Eastern refugees and immigrants with cultural assimilation and health education.
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Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.
Hear our interview with Dilkhwaz Ahmed by clicking the audio link.
East County News Service
December 10,2016 (El Cajon)—In an interview on KNSJ Radio, Dilkhwaz Ahmed with License to Freedom offered an urgent plea for help. Hundreds of Syrian families have just arrived in East County – with 50 to 60 more flooding in each day.
The refugees fled a humanitarian crisis in their war-torn homeland, relocated here by the U.S. government at the request of the United Nations. Other countries are also offering shelter to refugees. But many who came here have large families, so their modest aid funds are scarcely enough to cover rent and food. They need help to overcome trauma and learn how to build new lives in America. But there are not nearly enough people or resources to fill the desperate need.
Support community news in the public interest! As nonprofit news, we rely on donations from the public to fund our reporting -- not special interests. Please donate to sustain East County Magazine's local reporting and/or wildfire alerts at https://www.eastcountymedia.org/donate to help us keep people safe and informed across our region.
By Miriam Raftery
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