From there, I received the Congress Bundestag Youth Exchange Fellowship and moved to Germany for the next year. My time abroad was filled with two amazing sets of host parents, one in the city of Köln and the other in the city of Leipzig. I was in language school for the first two months and then attended classes at the University of Leipzig, and the final phase was the internship phase. Having witnessed repressive U.S. immigration policies, I was curious about the treatment of migrants in other parts of the world. My internship with a search and rescue boat brought me to the Greek island of Lesvos. We captured stories of Afghan, Syrian and African asylum seekers stranded at a camp known as New Moria. At the time of our arrival, the invasion of Ukraine was just a month old. The media quickly showed Ukrainian refugees being met with open arms. Europeans waited at train stations to offer free accommodation in their homes, and countries who claimed they had “no more room” suddenly found that they did. Back at New Moria, this enthusiasm was not matched. Those I had met said they felt forgotten.
When I returned to the United States in 2022, I was hired as the Communications Coordinator for the organization Haitian Bridge Alliance. Here, I document the team as our work stretches across the borderlands and into the White House, and several times a year, I travel to different parts of Mexico or across the country, capturing the stories of this amazing team. But my colleagues at the Alliance were also aware that I was in the process of applying to college and would have to switch to a more remote role if I was accepted to go to school.
