Meet our Advocates
Over the coming months, Refugee Pathways will highlight its team members through our “Meet our Advocates” series, which includes the publication of various engaging Q&As with our staff. Enjoy!
Q&A with Caleb
Caleb Guedes-Reed is a journalist and human rights advocate based in Florida. At Refugee Pathways, he provides research support and advises on all things advocacy, outreach, and fundraising. After volunteering with his community’s refugee partnership in Virginia, Caleb wanted to have an even more significant impact on refugees’ lives. Caleb met Refugee Pathways founder Julie while studying in Oslo in 2013 and joined Refugee Pathways in October 2019. Here’s a little bit about him.
Q: What caused your initial interest in working to support refugees?
Initially, I was looking for ways to plug into humanitarian volunteer work in my hometown. However, I fell in love with the work and decided to commit more time to it and make a more significant impact. Now I continue working to support refugees because I think it’s essential and that the consequences of not lending a hand are too great. Refugees aren’t just a headline and they’re definitely not a population reserved for history books. The UNHCR estimates there are 26 million refugees around the world, which’s insane and has horrendous implications like collective trauma, for example.
Q: Why are you working specifically with Refugee Pathways?
I was connected with Julie for years and saw overtime the great work she was doing. So, that’s one reason. Another reason is that I believe that information is power, and that’s what Refugee Pathways is doing. We aren’t providing direct care, we aren’t lobbying, and we aren’t trying to run programming. We are simply taking the opportunities that exist for refugees and their families and putting them into a format that is easy to follow and updated.
Q: What is your favorite right?
The first thing that comes to mind is the freedom of the press. In the United States, freedom of the press is legally protected by the First Amendment in the constitution. As a journalist, I can tell you right now that there is no democracy without freedom of the press. No matter what your conspiracy theorist uncle posts on Facebook.
Q: What’s your favorite book about refugees/migration/immigration?
Tell Me How it Ends by Valeria Luiselli, without a doubt. It’s a collection of essays and should be essential reading for everyone. If I were a teacher, I would make all of my students read this, and if I were a billionaire, I would send a free copy out to every mailing address (the same way credit card lenders do, except this, would actually provide value to people).
Q: What’s one thing you wish people understood about refugees?
I think a lot of us have this image in our minds of who is a refugee. I think people need to consider that any of us could become a refugee in our lives. No one is immune from this because we live in a constantly changing world. Politics shifts, economies weaken, and, as we see right now around the world, xenophobia and nationalism are flaring. If one day I needed to flee, I would hope there are systems and organizations in place to help me resettle safely.
Learn more about the work of Refugee Pathways here!
