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Vanja Ilic: Helping refugees because "I've been in those shoes"
Vanja Ilic, with a painting of the Old Bridge in Mostar she did as a teen, and with Bosnian lace her mother made.
Photo: Lincoln Arts Council
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She came to the United States as a refugee herself. Now the head of a Church World Service resettlement affiliate, Vanja Ilic is helping other refugees build new lives in their new community.
Vanja is one of six former refugees who now head CWS refugee resettlement offices in Fort Worth, Texas; Columbia, South Carolina; Portland, Oregon; Harrisonburg, Virginia; Lincoln, Nebraska, and Denver, Colorado. Here is her profile.
Vanja Ilic
Site Office Coordinator
Lutheran Refugee Services (LRS)
Lincoln, Nebraska
Nationality: Herzegovinan.
Education: "When the war began, I was an agriculture student at the University of Sarajevo," preparing to go into the family winemaking business.
Refugee story: After trying to wait out the war in Mostar and on the coast, Ilic went to Germany to stay with an uncle. "My parents were still in Mostar, and for eight months, I didn't hear from them." She first volunteered, then worked full time for the Red Cross in Hamburg. That's how I got started with refugees."
Arrived in the United States: April 15, 1999, to Lincoln, Nebraska, with her husband and three-year-old daughter.
Sponsor: Church World Service, through Heartland Refugee Resettlement (now LRS).
Congregational cosponsor: "None, unfortunately. When I see what the churches are doing, its just amazing. It's good for refugees to have a church sponsor. I call it a little triangle: the resettlement agency, refugee family, and a church."
First big surprise: "None, really. We had excellent orientation. What we were told scared us so much for example, 'You'll apply for 20 or 30 jobs and no one will call you' and it was true."
Most challenging: "I wasn't patient at all. This was my fourth or fifth country and language in 10 years. I'd been patient for 10 years." Also: learning the culture.
What you still laugh about: "People staring at us simply because we were walking with an umbrella in the rain. Because people don't walk here, they drive. We walked everywhere."
First U.S. jobs: Custodial cleaning at a university (1999), English as a Second Language para-educator and interpreter for Lincoln Public Schools (2000).
Jobs with Lutheran Refugee Services: Volunteer and then paid interpreter, sponsorship developer and Match Grant coordinator (2001), current position.
Languages: Serbo-Croatian, German, Russian, English.
Countries visited: Canada, Mexico, England, France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Greece, Hungary, Russia, Denmark, Turkey, Poland, Czech Republic, and Switzerland.
Country you most want to visit next: Ethiopia, other African countries, "after my daughter is grown, to do some humanitarian work for a few months."
Heroes: "My mom, the second Mother Teresa in the world. And my father. He works with refugees and returnees. All their lives they have been helping others."
Favorite books: Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown.
Favorite movies: Gone with the Wind, Doctor Zhivago.
Favorite music: Classical and instrumental.
Interests outside of work: Art, especially painting; interior design; music; dogs "We are members of the Pug Club; we have five."
Why should the United States welcome refugees? "It brings diversity. And it increases our children's knowledge about new cultures, and about what it means to be poor and hungry."
Why do you help other refugees? "I've been in those shoes. Also, my family always helped others. And, nothing is better than seeing a family smile."
What is your first counsel to a newly arrived refugee? "Please listen to me, and trust me, and be patient."
Third in a series of articles profiling former refugees who now head CWS resettlement affiliates.
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