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A refugee's daughter, Ann Marie Winter named JVA/Nairobi Representative
Ann Marie Winter, Representative, JVA/Nairobi
Photo: Carol Fouke-Mpoyo
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Ann Marie Winter not only took her parents' teaching to "give back" to heart. She also took their teaching literally. The daughter of a post-World War II refugee from what is now Croatia, Winter literally is giving back what her family was given.
With 11 years' experience in four countries, Winter took up her new duties in August as Representative of the CWS-administered Joint Voluntary Agency in Nairobi, Kenya.
"The JVA helps resettle thousands of vulnerable refugees to the United States every year," she said. "It is an honor to be able to affect the lives of so many people in such a positive way, and to give them and their families a safe future."
Born and reared in New York City, Winter is a New York University graduate in political science and economics. She negotiated contracts for the A&E Cable Network before heading to Bosnia to use her Serbo-Croatian mother tongue in her first refugee-related assignment, with the United Nations. From 1993-1996, she conducted training that included a human rights component for the international police force that came in during and after the Bosnian and Croatian wars.
From 1997-2001, she coordinated the Istanbul Interparish Migrants Program (IIMP), whose supporters include the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church General Board of Global Ministries.
The program extends friendship, legal counsel, and material assistance to refugees in Turkey, mostly African and Iranian asylum seekers. "It's a small program with a big impact on people without access to services, who risk being arrested and deported at any time," she said.
While there, Winter helped organize the CWS Immigration and Refugee Program Committee's visit, in 2000, to refugee camps in Turkey. She also served the International Catholic Migration Commission's Istanbul Overseas Processing Entity as a caseworker.
Then ICMC deployed her to Gabon, where, from 2001-2003, she directed a program that served 18,000 refugees through 26 sites with food and non-food aid, micro-finance loans, agricultural assistance and training, medical and psychosocial services, education, and safe, voluntary repatriation.
In 2003, Winter transferred to ICMC's offices in Geneva, Switzerland, where she managed the resettlement program, including secondment of resettlement caseworkers from non-governmental organizations to UNHCR offices around the world. Her focus was Africa, and last year, on a trip to Tanzania and Kenya, she stopped in at the JVA compound in Nairobi.
"We have an excellent, dynamic and effective team," Winter said. "Church World Service is highly regarded, and the Nairobi JVA is among the best in the world. I look forward to working with them to help make the program even stronger."
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