Helping Chicago's Former Refugees Find Each Other On YouTube
by Emma Yaaka, Refugee Congress Delegate for Illinois
I'm a former refugee from Uganda. I've been in Chicago for four and a half years now, and I work in the health field as a medical case manager.
It's one thing to be a former refugee yourself and another thing to work in a job trying to help other people like you. These are situations that pose different challenges. Meanwhile, the pandemic posed unprecedented challenges for connecting with people about their health. It also provided the spark for me to get creative and figure out a new way to connect.
That’s why I started broadcasting public health information from my closet on a YouTube channel I created called WordOut.
When you come to the U.S. from another country, many former refugees and new arrivals avoid watching TV. We don't watch CNN or NBC. What we do is use our phones to watch videos from our home countries on YouTube. It is remarkable how often I've seen this, and I know it's true because it was true for me, too.
Refugees arrive in this country suffering a combination of difficulties. But we do often have some time on our hands. We don't buy televisions. Instead, we scroll through YouTube for anything that connects us to where we came from.
I saw a public health challenge in this phenomenon before the pandemic. Studies show that people do better on arrival when they engage in local communities. Yes, that can happen online. It can also be face-to-face. But I also realized that if I was going to connect with former refugees and new arrivals in Chicago, I needed to find them where they were. So, when COVID-19 struck, I used the opportunity to start connecting on a local level. I started making YouTube videos for refugees in Chicago about how to avoid the virus.
Hundreds of people have watched them now, and I'm inspired to keep my YouTube career going! I asked a local doctor, Dr. Gary Kaufman, if he could appear on my channel because he had worked with refugees in Chicago for some time. He knew people trusted me and that if he talked with them about the science, they would listen to him. So he appeared in four videos on the channel about how to avoid getting COVID-19.
Having produced the videos, I shared them with my networks on WhatsApp. At a time when people were getting a lot of disinformation about the virus, people wanted more trust. My videos weren't produced by any government agency. Instead, my community could hear from somebody with similar experiences. They could hear from somebody who looked like they do.
It's been a learning experience. I worked with a friend to shoot and edit the videos. We had to rent a camera and sound equipment. And yes, we even managed to shoot videos outside the closet. The experience taught me about the importance of refugees speaking up for ourselves. Often when we engage with media, we're asked to repeat the most traumatic thing we went through. But we have vital and engaged lives here in America, too. And online platforms like writing for ourselves and making videos are more direct. We don't have to depend on hooking media interest to get our voices shared.
I've started interviewing people about their experiences in America. Asking them to share their stories. The media doesn't have many former refugees steering production. I'm hoping that by getting the WordOut about the pandemic, I've built a platform. People can get their word out about other issues through this and similar channels. And they can connect with each other here in Chicago, and beyond.
Emma’s most recently video, with recommendations on how to find a professional job in the U.S.
The opinions of Refugee Congress Members expressed in articles authored by them on the Refugee Congress Blog are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the entire organization.
