Additional information
by Patricia Martin Holt (Author)
Refugees from the Middle East and Asia who have fled famine and violence and resettled in the US too often are isolated, disconnected, living in despair. Will their lives disintegrate?
Enter a group of ordinary Americans who recognized the need, created a solution, got results-and found their own lives uplifted in the process.
Author Patricia Martin Holt reports on Peace of Thread, a non-profit founded by Denise Smith, an Evangelical Christian who lived in Clarkston, an Atlanta suburb with refugees from 51 nations in a single square mile. Smith had previously learned Arabic during six years of mission work in Lebanon. She befriended refugee women and built on the fabric skills that many women brought with them.
Now the women are creating handbags and accessories and selling them on ESTY and in specialty shops. They are now feeling much more at home and credit their fabric work for helping them transition to stable lives.
Patricia Martin Holt demonstrates that good-hearted people, including Evangelical Christians from the South, are actively overcoming the national climate of fear and bigotry toward refugees-and are taking practical steps to overcome the problems of refugee resettlement. It turns out that we can work for world peace simply by lending a hand to those in need-in the same cities, counties, and neighborhoods where we live.
Author Biography
Patricia Martin Holt was awarded first prize in investigative journalism by the Chanticleer International Book Awards Competition.
She was also named a finalist for Georgia Author of the Year and awarded an Independent Publishers Association Bronze Medal for her first book, Committee of One, an account of a fabric project in Amman Jordan involving Palestinian refugees. In Jordan, Holt got to know refugees and saw how they could blossom in the right conditions. Later, after moving to a Georgia suburb, Holt was drawn to the community of Clarkston, a local hub of refugee resettlement. In Empower a Refugee, we hear the voices of refugee women in Clarkston and learn about Denise Smith, a woman whose faith compels her to help these women gain vital income and self-esteem by sewing and selling one-of-a-kind handbags.
