You may have noticed that I’ve been posting less often over the past few weeks.  I’ve been swamped with other projects and school.  Fortunately, some of that is clearing, so I’ll have more time to get back to the Eagles.  First, though, I wanted to briefly talk about one of the things I’ve been working on.

As part of the Penn Law curriculum (which is not altered at all for JD/MBAs), every student has to complete 70 hours of pro bono work.  I’ve chosen to fulfill my requirement by volunteering with the Iraqi Refugee Assistance project.  Over the past few months, I’ve been working with a client in Baghdad, helping him and his family apply for resettlement in the U.S.   He and his family have been the victims of severe persecution (attacks, kidnapping, threats, etc…) and have no other choice but to flee the country.  As you can imagine, the red tape involved in U.S. resettlement is immense; that’s where we come in.

This March, six other students and I will be traveling to Kurdistan (Northern Iraq) to conduct in-person interviews with Syrian and Iraqi refugees.  To that end, we’ve started an online fundraising drive to help cover the costs (flights to Erbil ain’t cheap).  If you can help out, please do.  If not, no worries, but at the very least, please watch the video below.  Awareness is a big part of the problem, so just taking 3 minutes to learn more about the situation is helpful as well.  UPDATE:  Video below is not my client, he’s just a good example of the type of people we’re helping.

Help Out

Thanks in advance.  I promise this won’t become a habit (I think this is the first non-sports post I’ve done actually), and I’ll get back to the Eagles soon.

– Brent