Stories As We Move: A HOME Interview Series 2022/2023

Melisa Hodzic (Bosnia/Milwaukee, WI) in conversation with Karina Tweedell (Ukraine/Milwaukee, WI) on April 20, 2023

Stories As We Move: A HOME Interview Series is an ongoing project that launched in 2020 as part of Lynden's HOME virtual platform. Previously named HOME Conversations with Ourselves, the series pairs individuals that have faced forced displacement and its changing forms in a conversational setting that is both purposeful and informational to interviewer, interviewee and their audience. Refugees, asylum seekers and migrants interview those that have resettled to the United States, including friends and family that are based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, as well as those that remain overseas, covering various backgrounds and narrative identities, and professions, expertise and interests, including but not limited to artists, community members, advocates and leaders, healthcare workers, caseworkers, interpreters, and students and educators. These interviews are reflections of relationships and conversations that we continue to have long after resettlement; they explore issues that our refugee friends and family members continue to face as they remain in their country of origin or interim country.

About Melisa Hodsic
Melisa Hodzic joined the Office of Global Health as a Program Coordinator in January of 2022. She most previously worked for Froedtert Hospital’s Language Services Department with a globally represented staff of medical interpreters and external agencies to ensure quality patient care. She also worked for their Food and Nutrition Services Department to help patients with nutrition and diet related questions. She was also a membership director for Healthcare Business Insights. She monitored projects with their research teams to implement policies, procedures, and protocols for healthcare organizations nationwide. As a refugee from Bosnia, she lived in Germany prior to being resettled to the United States. For her community service, she remains active with global and local non-profit organizations volunteering her time and collecting donations. She speaks and writes fluently in Bosnian, Serbo-Croatian, and German. During college, she completed an internship in Istanbul which resulted in publications and a semester abroad in Rome. At the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she earned a certificate in Peace Studies and a Bachelor of Science degree in Global Studies and Communication with a minor in Marketing.

About Karina Tweedell
Karina Tweedell is an activist and a volunteer with Milwaukee Ukrainians. She immigrated to the US from Donetsk, Ukraine in 2007 after first arriving here as a high school exchange student and then studying at Purdue University and then Cardinal Stritch University. She is now a Milwaukee Public Schools teacher and an avid volunteer with Wisconsin Ukrainians, a non-profit organization helping the people of Ukraine with humanitarian and medical aid. Karina manages a Telegram channel for Milwaukee Ukrainians, where she shares about the organization's upcoming events.

Check out the entire collection of Stories As We Move: A HOME Interview Series here.