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Gordon, Krause join OPE/Accra and Vicky Knight moves up
CWS Immigration and Refugee Program Director Joe Roberson presents OPE/Accra's Vicky Knight with a certificate marking her first five years of service with CWS.
Photo: Carol Fouke-Mpoyo
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Vicky Knight, who joined the Church World Service Overseas Processing Entity in Accra, Ghana, in 2002 as a caseworker, now heads the OPE.
She and her nearly 100 staff carry responsibility for processing the cases of refugees in 21 West and Central African countries who are being considered for U.S. resettlement, then provides cultural orientation to departing refugees and prepares travel documents for those accepted into the U.S. Refugee Program.
Since 2001, the OPE has assisted more than 25,000 refugees of 17 nationalities to resettle to the United States. In FY2007, OPE/Accra facilitated the departure of 2,192 refugees for the United States.
Along with Sierra Leoneans, Liberians have constituted the majority of OPE cases over the past several years. Today, thanks to peace accords and democratic elections in those two countries, those resettlement efforts are winding down. Now the OPE is processing more cases from French-speaking countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Congo-Brazzaville, Rwanda, Ivory Coast, Togo and Senegal, Knight said.
Knight succeeded Emily Russ as OPE/Accra Representative in September. Russ is now Deputy Director for the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS) OPE in Vienna, Austria.
Noting that Knight has served the OPE as a Caseworker, Information Officer, Operations Coordinator, Deputy for Operations, and Acting Representative, CWS Immigration and Refugee Program Director Joe Roberson praised Knight's versatility.
"She had done every job at OPE," he commented. "She is a model for working your way up." For her part, Knight said, "It's a great feeling to be part of a team whose members are all pulling in the same direction."
 Sarah Krause Photo: Carol Fouke-Mpoyo
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Succeeding Knight as OPE/Accra's Deputy for Operations is Sarah Krause, who took up those responsibilities in November. Previously, she was Director of Refugee and Immigrant Services for Lutheran Social Services in Falls Church, Virginia, and Sponsor Developer, Caseworker, and Program Coordinator for CWS's New Windsor, Maryland, refugee resettlement affiliate.
Krause "has domestic experience from the absolute ground level up," Knight said, and has helped welcome refugees to the U.S. from Liberia, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Burma, Vietnam, former Yugoslavia, Belarus, Iraq, Colombia, Afghanistan, and Iran.
"Most important," Krause said, "is for me to learn from the OPE's already knowledgeable staff and to help strengthen them in their work. I can share more about how the OPE's work is so crucial to preparing a refugee for successful U.S. resettlement."
Amanda Gordon is the new Cultural Orientation manager at OPE/Accra, succeeding Kristie Bailey in November. Gordon worked previously as Caseworker and Team Leader for the OPE and as English as a Second Language and Employment Supervisor at Community Refugee & Immigration Services (CRIS) in Columbus, Ohio, a CWS affiliate.
Among Gordon's first assignments, Knight said, is to develop a cultural profile of refugees from Darfur and to continue to develop gender and age-specific cultural orientation; for example, to prepare youth to enter U.S. schools, adults for the job search, and refugee elders to find community in a new culture.
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