Campus organization Mizzou Empowers Refugees and Immigrants held the first of two info sessions on Feb 9. Their first official meeting in three years will be held on March 9.
MERI fizzled out in 2022 when executive members graduated, but was reinstated this semester after a group of students wanted to create their own organization and found MERI instead.
“(We) all worked together over the summer to create an entirely brand-new organization supporting refugees and immigrants, and then back in August, (MERI President Jack Dougherty) actually found out (about) MERI, whose mission is pretty much what we want to do,” said Emma Crowley, vice president of internal communications.
According to Dougherty MERI’s purpose is to foster belonging, build supportive relationships and create meaningful opportunities that help youth reach their full potential. The organization plans to execute this by partnering with other organizations on and off campus, specifically the local nonprofit City of Refuge.
“City of Refuge is the main nonprofit we want to connect with,” Dougherty said. “We have not officially reached out with anything concrete to them, but a lot of us — Ian, myself and Abel — all volunteered at City of Refuge separately from this organization, but what we want to do is exactly in line with their mission and the things that they do.”
City of Refuge works with refugee and immigrant communities in Columbia. MERI plans to work closely with them to connect Mizzou students with the youth City of Refuge works with.
Most members of MERI’s executive team already have experience partnering with City of Refuge. One outlet that City of Refuge has is its City Boutique.
“City of Refuge has a lot of different volunteering programs that they offer, and the City Boutique is one of them,” Crowley said. “It’s a thrift store where people can donate their items, and either the items go into the thrift store where people can purchase, and all that money goes directly back into youth support, education and immigrant support and education as well.”
MERI’s executive team has already learned more about themselves through their volunteer work with the organization.
“Aside from even current events, aside from City of Refuge, I know that whatever I do career-wise, whatever I do for the rest of my life, I need to be helping people,” Dougherty said. “I am not meant to be at a desk filing things away. I know that my purpose is helping people in whatever way that I can, and right now, that very much looks like being with MERI and doing all of the things involved.”
Ian White, MERI vice president of operations, feels the same.
“All the students are amazing, and they’re all great kids,” White said. “Being able to just spend time with them and help them with, even if it’s homework or just talking about their day, I find it incredibly enjoyable. Now I know this is something I want to do for the rest of my life.”
White believes that there is a great need for this kind of help in the Columbia community.
“I think just the political environment … I’ve been kind of aware of everything around me and then growing up and watching the world and things happen,” White said.” How could I not?”
MERI’s executive team wants to help create a safe and loving environment for as many young students as possible.
“I just want to do anything I can to make it easier or help them not feel so alienated,” said Mia Abnos, vice president of marketing.
Abnos added that she wants MERI to be a way to bridge understandings of different cultures.
“Hopefully, when we grow MERI to an org where we can be informing them about common things, but before it’s an awkward thing for them to learn the hard way,” Abnos said. “I want to have them learn it before they have an awkward interaction.”
Dougherty is looking forward to the work this new version of MERI will do in the Mizzou and Columbia communities.
“As far as what I’m most excited for … probably be the things that we don’t know that we’re going to be doing yet,” Dougherty said. “We really just are so new, there’s going to be some sort of opportunity that’s going to come up, and it’s going to be something that we never thought of before.”
