As the Treasure Valley community came together on June 19th to celebrate World Refugee Day Boise, we were honored to hear from Eliza Shabire, who shared her story of resettlement, and Boise City Council President Pro Tem Meredith Stead, who read the city's World Refugee Day 2025 proclamation. We also heard reflections from Tara Wolfson, director of the Idaho Office for Refugees, who shared: I want to thank the City of Boise for their proclamation. We know that welcoming folks through the refugee program is the smart choice, the right choice, and it is who we are as Idahoans Pictured above from left: 1) Tara Wolfson, director of the Idaho Office for Refugees, and Safiya Abdi, a farmer with Global Gardens. 2) Eliza Shabire at World Refugee Day Boise 2023. 3) Boise City Council President Pro Tem Meredith Stead holds up the city's World Refugee Day proclamation with Dave Morris, resettlement services manager at the Idaho Office for Refugees.
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 Idahoans will come together this month to honor World Refugee Day in Boise, Twin Falls, and Pocatello, drawing on community joy and strength as the national resettlement program remains paused. Idaho has had a strong and widely supported tradition of welcoming refugees since 1975.
The World Refugee Day event in Boise on June 19, organized by the Idaho Office for Refugees, is themed Community as a Superpower. In the past few months our community has seen just how true that is.  Eliza Shabire - pictured above at World Refugee Day Boise in 2023 - resettled in Boise five years ago to reunite with her dad after years apart. She was born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but her family was displaced to Rwanda when she was 6. Eliza is now raising a young daughter with her husband and going to school to become a clinical social worker. Eliza shares: Resettling here in Idaho gave my family and me our lives back. It gave us peace, safety, and the opportunity to dream big and achieve our dreams. Before we came here, we couldn’t dream big because we didn't know if we were going to wake up alive the next morning due to war, disasters, hunger, and all other bad things that were against us. When I came here in 2020, I felt like I was just entering a small paradise, and then the way people welcomed me and helped me to thrive, I realized that it was not just a small paradise, it was actually a big one. From that day forward, I promised myself to work hard so that I could leave Idaho better than I found it. Now I am fulfilling my promise by going to school to become a clinical social worker. I am proud to say that this May, I earned my bachelor’s in social work, and I am starting my master's in social work this June. I believe that a healthier community creates a stronger community and a strong country, which is why I dedicated my life to helping people with mental health challenges as well as connecting them with available resources. Currently, I am working at a behavior hospital as an activity therapist and at an early learning center as a preschool teacher. It makes me happy and proud to help people to live better lives as well as raise future generations of this country. Together, we can achieve more. Thank you to the United States for resettling refugees and giving them a place to call home. Refugees are strong, hardworking, intelligent, resilient, innovative, and so much more. All they need is safety, a home, and opportunity, and they will give back and contribute to the best of our country, if we allow them to. World Refugee Day Events in Idaho
Please find translated materials here to spread the word about the Boise event! |
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December 2025
Author: Holly BeechIdaho Office for Refugees Communications Manager 
Thank you to the generous organizations who
support our outreach: 
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Idaho Office for refugeesPhone: 208.947.4296
Email: [email protected] |
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