Empower a Refugee (Peace of Thread & the Backyard Humanity Movement)

Refugees from the Middle East and Asia who have fled famine and violence and resettled in the US too often are isolated, disconnected, living in despair. Will their lives disintegrate?

Enter a group of ordinary Americans who recognized the need, created a solution, got results—and found their own lives uplifted in the process.

Author Patricia Martin Holt reports on Peace of Thread, a non-profit founded by Denise Smith, an Evangelical Christian who lived in Clarkston, an Atlanta suburb with refugees from 51 nations in a single square mile. Smith had previously learned Arabic during six years of mission work in Lebanon. She befriended refugee women and built on the fabric skills that many women brought with them.

Now the women are creating handbags and accessories and selling them on ESTY and in specialty shops. They are now feeling much more at home and credit their fabric work for helping them transition to stable lives.

Patricia Martin Holt demonstrates that good-hearted people, including Evangelical Christians from the South, are actively overcoming the national climate of fear and bigotry toward refugees—and are taking practical steps to overcome the problems of refugee resettlement. It turns out that we can work for world peace simply by lending a hand to those in need—in the same cities, counties, and neighborhoods where we live.