By Jamie Brian

Tamana Ziar, IIA Resettlement Case Manager

After six years of waiting, Tamana Ziar and her family emigrated from Afghanistan to the United States in July 2021. Her father, who had worked with the U.S. government’s USAID program, applied for a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) and brought his family to Akron a few weeks before Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. Tamana left her hometown of Kabul in her last semester of college. She had been pursuing a bachelor’s degree in international relations at Kabul University, but her plans changed as the situation in her home country escalated.

Now, she is focused on building a new life in America and giving back to Akron's refugee and immigrant communities.

“Once you’re an immigrant or refugee coming to a new country, you feel like you have to help the other refugees and immigrants by sharing your experiences with them,” she said.

In Afghanistan, Tamana was vice president of programs for Kabul University’s student union, where she represented 23,000 students. Her case manager at the International Institute of Akron noted her experience with social work and encouraged her to apply for a community support specialist job. Tamana worked as a community support specialist and interpreter at IIA before being promoted to a resettlement case manager role.

In this role, she supports refugees by finding housing, arranging health screenings, and applying for social security cards and government identification. The main goal of her job, Tamana says, is to help new arrivals navigate their communities.

“Once they are arriving in the airport in a country that they don’t know very well, and they see there is somebody there to help them, that is the most rewarding part of my job,” she said.

Aside from her work with the International Institute of Akron, Tamana enjoys driving and playing volleyball. She also wants to continue her education.

“In my hometown, a lot of women are not allowed to go to school, but I was,” she said.

One of the biggest challenges that Tamana faced after leaving Afghanistan was being unable to complete her degree, but now that she is settled in the United States, she plans on earning a Ph.D. in cyber security and becoming a professor someday.

She wants to ensure that all refugees and immigrants have the necessary resources to achieve their dreams in America.