DOMINIQUE MARIA BONESSI

Security is a relevant pronoun, holding significance only when someone attaches meaning to it. What most drives my curiosity is the need for human security of those effected by armed conflict and violence.  When people are fleeing--or living amid--war and violence their basic necessities must be met in order to feel safe including water, food, shelter, connection to their family, medical attention, and educational opportunity. These are just some of the topics I currently cover while working with the US & Canada Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross to produce the Intercross Podcast. But my concerns for those fleeing--or living amid--war and violence don't end there, fresh out of college I took a leap and became a freelancer in Istanbul, Turkey covering the lack of mental health and educational resources for Syrian refugee children and their families. I've taken the study of human security, especially for refugees and asylum seekers, more seriously in my master's studies focusing on how immigration policy affects peoples' ability to migrate. Issues related to political violence are also personal to me. As a second-generation Cuban-American, my mother and abuela came to the US in 1971 as political refugees.  In my spare time, I work to write my grandmother's legacy and hope to publish a book about their journey to the U.S. in the coming years. 

 

As a multilingual storyteller I believe, like Nelson Mandela, "if you talk to a [person] in a language they understand, that goes to their head. If you talk to them in their language, that goes to their heart."