Reflections on the ORR 2011 Consultation
Reflections on the ORR 2011 Consultation
It was our great pleasure to speak at the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s 2011 Consultation last week, presenting a workshop called Helping Refugees to Achieve the American Dream along with Belaye Embaye, Senior Principal Analyst at ORR, Marijana Ababovic, Senior Project 
Manager at ISED, and John Scribner, Director of Start Smart, in Maine. The presentation focused on the success of ORR-funded microenterprise and IDA programs as well as profiling the success stories of some of Start Smart’s and BCNA’s clients.
The client stories that we profiled in our presentations reinforced the point made by Quintan Wiktorowicz, Senior Director for Global Engagement at the National Security Council, in Tuesday morning’s keynote, when he said that what the rest of the world envies above all is American entrepreneurship and the opportunities this country provides for newcomers. That is why it is so critical to continue to support the efforts of refugees and other new Americans to achieve their dreams of a safe and financially secure life for themselves and their families here in the United States.
New Americans like Henok Tesfaye, who spoke at the conference, build businesses which in turn provide the jobs that politicians talk about but are unable to create. Henok Tesfaye started as a parking valet in downtown Washington two decades ago, saving a few hundred dollars each month to pay for business classes and start his company. Today, his company, U Street Parking (named after his first parking lot, at 12th and U streets NW,) ranks among the biggest parking companies in the region and hires hundreds of people.
It was a pleasure to see so many familiar faces as well as new ones at the ORR 2011 Consultation and hear about the many different and innovative ways they are supporting refugee entrepreneurs.
The most important and resonant conviction I have taken back to New York with me is that the US must somehow continue to be a what it’s always been: a beacon of hope for refugees.