Cara Steiner Kiggins graduated in May 2007 summa cum laude from Arizona State University with a B.A. in Anthropology. The same interests in people, culture and community that attracted her to anthropology also led her to join COAR in 2003 as a volunteer with a Somali-Bantu family. This experience cemented her commitment to working with and for resettled refugees.

As a founding member of COAR, Cara joined the team that applied for and won start up funding from the Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative, and became the team leader in the reapplication year. Cara was recognized by the U.S. State Department's National Security Exchange Program in 2005 as a David L. Boren Scholar and was awarded a scholarship to travel to Cairo, Egypt, for five months to develop her Arabic language skills and to further her understanding of the status of refugees abroad. In August 2006, after returning from her studies abroad, Cara was promoted to the position of Executive Director of COAR.

She has since served roles on the planning committee for the 2007 Arizona Refugee Resettlement Program Annual Conference and was recently elected to the board of the Arizona Refugee Advancement Coalition, a collaborative organization for refugee service providers in Arizona. In 2008, she received a Fulbright Fellowship to study at the Center for Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo.

 

After a rough start in a 'Frisco commune, Cara had a prosaic suburban childhood and then spent her teenage years brooding in a corner, convinced Scottsdale did not understand her. When that ended, she studied French and wrote essays about politics and economics at a small series of universities, leaving on occasion because West Hollywood, Ethiopia, Bangkok and Prague sounded like good ideas and, when given the option, chose to do something else, such as "not write essays." The sojourn landed her back in Arizona where she finished school and avoided trouble through too much geekery in her extra-curriculars. Somali refugees and the 2004 elections were involved, as was an intolerance for fellow students who didn't spend Saturday mornings posting fliers for next week's Important Issue film screen. Time passed and she added a few mountain villages and several East African bus lines to her list of places lived. Among other things she has been a waitress, an editor, a consultant, an event planner, a nanny, a fashion scout, a board member, a grant writer, a monitoring and evaluator, a tutor, a groupie, a program developer, and a guest speaker. Her interests include walking in mud and shady deals procuring esoteric health foods in remote locals. After completing her MPA, Cara hopes to do something very important that will positively affect mankind for eternity. She also hopes it will earn her an obituary in the Economist. She still thinks you should flier for the film screen, or, at the very least, donate to COAR's refugee scholarship fund.

Carolyn Manning-Giedraitis is the founder and current full time Executive Directo of The Welcome to America Project. The Welcome to America project is designed to build a bridge of neighborly understanding between newly arriving refugee families and volunteers in the Phoenix community. For the last seven years she has brought together hundreds of volunteers to deliver furniture and household items to over 500 refugee families in Phoenix. Carolyn Manning-Giedraitis also works 16 hours a week  at the Banner Helpline for Banner Health Systems as a crisis specialist.  Carolyn received a degree in Philosophy from the University of Notre Dame in 1987 and a Masters in Public Administration from Seattle University in 1992. Carolyn is most proud of her family. She and her husband, Phil, are parents to 5 children ages  17,17,13,11,and 8. Much of her time is spent enjoying her children and helping them prepare for life as adults with meaningful and happy lives.

Charles Shipman has worked on behalf of refugees and immigrants for more than twenty years and was appointed Arizona State Refugee Coordinator in May 2002.  Prior to this he was the Director of the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program and for one year served as Vermont’s State Refugee Coordinator.   Mr. Shipman has been a long-time advocate for equal access for refugees and has worked to develop comprehensive models for serving them; including the development of professional interpreter services, refugee-specific mental health programs, a refugee and immigrant state colleges scholarship program, and the development and implementation of a state-wide alternative project to provide integrated systems for cash assistance, intensive case management, training programs, and incentive-based support services to refugees.  He is currently the President of SCORR, the National Association of State Refugee Coordinators, and serves on a number of other organizations’ boards that aim to address the status and well-being of refugees and other immigrants in Arizona.  Before working in refugee resettlement, Mr. Shipman worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Ian is a founding member of COAR’s Board of Directors. Professionally, Ian works as a diversity/anti-racism consultant, facilitating workshops nationally for schools and organizations on issues of multiculturalism, combating racism, and promoting social justice. In addition to his work with COAR, Ian serves on Amnesty International’s Multicultural Assessment and Advisory Committee and has undertaken human rights work in Nepal, Tibet, Uruguay, and most recently, he spent several months in Phnom Penh, Cambodia doing work in international human rights law. Ian will take COAR’s mission of serving refugees and promoting refugee rights into the international arena, beginning a J.D. in International Human Rights Law and M.A. in International Peace and Conflict Resolution starting fall 2006.

Jessica is currently pursuing her Master in International Affairs at Columbia University. Before starting her graduate degree, she lived for one year in the Middle East, working for the Jerusalem Bureau of National Public Radio and taking graduate courses at Hebrew University. Though her career is in journalism, she has a strong interest in the plight of refugees, as her grandparents came to the United States as refugees in the 1930s. Jessica first became involved with COAR in 2003 as a volunteer, while she was working as a reporter for The Arizona Republic. She went on to serve as the organization's assistant director from 2004 to 2005, during COAR's transition from a student club to a ==501(c)(3)== non-profit organization. During this time she also developed and ran the Reaching Higher! program, to prepare refugee teens for college. Upon leaving Arizona for the Middle East she retired from the organization's day-to-day operations, but maintained her position on the Board of Directors.

As a co-founder of COAR, Justin graduated from the Barrett Honors College at ASU in 2007 with a B.S.E. in Bioengineering and a minor in music. He has studied Armenian and traveled to Armenia through the Critical Languages Institute, and has presented posters on topics in the neurosciences at a couple of national and international conferences. He currently lives in Cairo, Egypt, with his wife.

Noah graduated from Arizona State University in May 2006 and is currently pursuing a doctorate in cultural anthropology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.  Before enrolling in graduate school, Noah spent nine months in the Philippines, where he conducted preliminary fieldwork thanks to the support of a Fulbright-IIE Fellowship.  Noah first got involved with COAR as a Volunteer Anchor in the autumn of 2003.  In January 2005, he began to volunteer in an administrative capacity, signed on as a founding member of the Board of Directors in November of the same year, and later held a staff position as Business Manager.  Looking back, Noah remembers his involvement with COAR as a challenging but wonderful learning experience, one that he continues to draw on in his capacity as a member of the Advisory Commitee.

Sambo graduated in May 2005 from Arizona State University with a B.A. in political science, a B.S. in economics, a B.A. in Spanish, and a certificate in international studies. Inspired by her own experience as a resettled refugee, Sambo founded COAR as a student group when she saw that obstacles faced by her family continue to challenge those in similar situations today. She served initially as COAR’s President and later as its Executive Director through June 2006. Her primary responsibilities were developing and implementing a sustainability plan for COAR as well as training and preparing other leaders to assume leadership of the organization upon her departure. Having passed on the Executive Director position, Sambo continues to serve on COAR’s Board of Directors as she attends law school at New York University.