Contributors

Lena Siemers

Thought Leadership Researcher

Lena is a multilingual international student from Germany, with extensive international experience gained while living in Germany, France, and the United States. She has been living in the United States since 2016 and has pursued her B.A. in Foreign Languages and Literature at the University of South Alabama, and her M.A. in International Affairs with a concentration in Security and Diplomacy studies at the University of West Florida. Following her graduation in 2023, Lena joined the TSOS Thought and Leadership Team as a volunteer in the Spring of 2024, while simultaneously working as a refugee caseworker in refugee resettlement. Her first-hand experience of the Syrian Migrant and Refugee Crisis in 2015 in Germany has driven her passion to work in the immigration field. Lena will be starting her PhD in Global Studies at UMASS Lowell in the Fall of 2024.

What would you do if you had to leave everything behind?

By the end of 2025, more than 117.8 million people worldwide had been forcibly displaced by war, persecution, or human rights abuses — and 45 million of them are children.

They arrive in refugee camps and countries seeking safety and carrying little: legal papers, if they're lucky. A backpack. A child's hand in theirs.

What they carry that we can't see is heavier: fractured families, homes they'll never return to, professions they loved, friends and relatives they may never see again.

In a climate where immigrant stories are often ignored or twisted, we believe stories are a form of justice. When someone shares what they survived, they reclaim their voice. When we amplify it through film, photography, and advocacy, the world listens. Hearts soften. Policy begins to shift.

Because when a lawmaker sees a person instead of a statistic, and a neighbor understands instead of fears, rebuilding becomes possible.

Your support helps us share these stories where they matter most.

— Kristen Smith Dayley, Executive Director, Their Story is Our Story

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