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

Stories As We Move: Tessy Sheidun (Rwanda/Milwaukee) in conversation with Kassim Rahab (Congo/Madison) on March 25, 2022

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 Tessy Sheidun
Tessy Sheidun works as a refugee health coordinator for Aurora Walker's Point Community Clinic. She emcees and dances for the HOME Dance Day, a celebration in conjunction with World Refugee Day at Lynden.

About Kassim Rajab
Kassim Hussein Rahab is from Uvira, the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. At a young age of eight, his parents had left with his other siblings to flee the war in his country, leaving him and his younger brother to survive on their own. After sheltering at their uncle's home, they fled to the forest and spent months in distressing and inhumane conditions. He never saw his parents again. This fleeing and displacement occurred more than five times as more wars were waged around him and his people. Rajab would then be witness to violence occurring to those around him, including his family--in 2005, his brother was murdered by a rival ethnic group, and in 2008, his uncle was killed by the military. These unforeseen circumstances led Rajab to continue running, and eventually returning home became too dangerous for him and many more in his predicament. In 2008, Rahab managed to cross the border into Uganda and thus began his life as a refugee. After 10 years living in Uganda, he finally resettled to the United States in December 2018. Since then, Rahab has set himself to become a voice for his people. He has twice visited the halls of congress in Washington DC to speak of the atrocities that are happening to his people and in his country of origin, including dire health conditions such as cholera. He hopes that US law and policymakers can draw from his stories and act upon what might stop further horrors from happening in this world.

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