Join Artspace New Haven and the International Festival of Art & Ideas 2022 for a presentation by Executive Director of the Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services (IRIS) and IRIS Ambassador Gladys Mwilelo about their work within the greater New Haven community. George will share their mission, case work with various intersecting immigrant groups, and the legal aid IRIS provides. Mwilelo will share her personal experience as a refugee and current work with refugees coming to the New Haven area. Following the lecture, food will be provided by Orchid Cafe and discussion welcomed.
This event is part of the programming series for the exhibition Dyschronics, on view February 11–April 16, 2022 at Artspace New Haven. This is an in-person event and will be limited to 70 audience members in compliance with COVID-19 safety. Please register for this free program at Ticketleap here.
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.
