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Refugees featured in 2005 CWS calendar now resettled in Virginia

Marwah with Hamida, then 3, at Kakuma Refugee Camp in 2004

Photo: © Annie Griffiths Belt for CWS - not for reuse

September 18, 2006

In 2004, National Geographic Photographer in Residence Annie Griffiths Belt traveled under Church World Services auspices to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. Several of the photos she took there have been used in CWS calendars, including one of Marwah, a Somali Bantu, and Hamida, her daughter.

While Belt was in Richmond, Virginia, this summer to photograph resettled refugees for the 2007 CWS calendar, host John Javed mentioned that Marwah, her mother, her husband, and their children had subsequently resettled in Virginia.

They were sponsored by CWS and the Virginia Council of Churches Refugee Resettlement Program, a CWS affiliate. Program Coordinator Javed has the CWS calendar photo on his office wall.

"When I told Annie the family was now living in Virginia, both parents are working, and the family is self-sufficient, she was so thrilled," Javed said. "She remembered very clearly meeting her."

Marwah and her mother fled Somalia in the late 1980s after being attacked and beaten. All the other members of their family were killed. They spent the next 16 years in Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps in Kenya.

Marwah with her family
Marwah and her husband, Ibrahim Tifow, in 2006 outside their apartment in Richmond, Virginia, with their children (left to right): Mariam Yussuf, Hawa Ibrahim, Hamida Yussuf, and Omar Yussuf.
Photo: John Javed/VCC

Son Omar was born in Dadaab in April 2000, and daughter Hamida in November 2001. Daughter Hawa was born in Kakuma in October 2003, and daughter Mariam in Richmond in January 2006.

While still at Kakuma, Marwah told Annie, "I pray to go to America. In my heart I feel that I know America." In September 2004, she and her family joined Marwah's mother in Richmond.

Now, looking back on her life in Somalia and Kenya, Marwah says, "It would be a sin to compare my life in America with what we had in Africa. In Africa, we were there for people to abuse, insult, torture us, and kill our relatives.

"I was nothing and could do nothing but in America I work with other Americans and earn a decent living. I go to my job at the Omni Hotel in the morning and my husband goes to Chick Fil-A in the evening. I feel like we are an American husband and wife. I know that my children will get an education and will become something. How can I compare this life with our lives in Africa?"

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