Safe Haven: Helping Refugees and Immigrants Navigate Mental Wellness

Join Kristin as she speaks with Egette Indelele, the founder of Safe Haven and a Tanzanian child refugee whose family escaped the Rwandan genocide.  Egette founded Safe Haven in order to assist refugee and immigrant students and their families with mental health and mental wellness.  They discuss Egette's life as a refugee and the difficulties that come with the transition to American life. The lives of refugees and immigrants often have unique experiences that can be traumatic for many. Safe Haven strives to assist by not only helping students with their mental health, but bringing their families in as well, and helping remove some of the stigma surrounding mental health, in order to help provide family support.

Egette Indelele was born and raised in a refugee camp in Tanzania. She is the oldest of five children and a first-generation honor college student at George Mason University. She is studying Psychology with a concentration in Cognitive and Behavior Neuroscience in hopes of opening her own practice in Burundi and emphasizing the importance of mental health while serving children with the hope of healing their traumatic life events. Egette’s work with Safe Haven was inspired by her experience as a refugee. She founded Safe Haven to help refugee students resettle in a new world while having access to mental health services. Aside from mental health, Egette has a great passion for children around the world. With the passion to help children, she became the President of a UNICEF club at George Mason University. The club gave her the opportunity to advocate for children’s rights and educate her university community on the importance of helping the younger generation. She extended her passion and is now serving on the United Nations International Children Emergency Funds USA National Council. She also manages a program where members and volunteers mentor and tutor elementary-aged children at a local community center that serves refugees transitioning to life in America. With mental health being a stigma around the world, specifically in refugees and immigrant families, she believes that Safe Haven will ease the transition to American life. She also believes that it will help students perform better in school overall while working on solving unresolved trauma.

https://safehavenspace.com/  

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