Facebook photo via Canopy

alumni news

Alum Leads Refugee Resettlement Efforts in Northwest Arkansas

Joanna Krause (SPH’14) is the executive director of Canopy, a refugee resettlement agency in Northwest Arkansas, whose work was recently featured on Hillary Clinton’s new AppleTV show, Gutsy.

As of 2021, over 89.3 million people around the world have been forcibly displaced from their homes as a result of persecution, conflict, or violence. While the majority of these people are internally displaced, over 27 million are refugees, living and seeking safety beyond their country’s borders, including in the United States. In 2022, the US has already welcomed over 25,000 refugees, and refugee resettlement agencies across the nation have been working overtime to help them find safety and security in a new country.

School of Public Health alum Joanna Krause (SPH’14) is the executive director of one such resettlement agency based in Northwest Arkansas (NWA), called Canopy. Founded in 2016 in response to the Syrian refugee crisis, Canopy is the first refugee resettlement agency in the NWA region. They aim to not only meet the basic needs of newly-arrived refugee families, including helping them to secure safe and permanent housing, but also equip them with the tools necessary to thrive as active members of the NWA community, such as helping them enroll children in schools, access healthcare, secure employment, and participate in cultural orientation classes, such as English language learning.  

“At Canopy, we are doing everything we can to put support systems in place to ensure that refugees, immigrants, and people with additional vulnerabilities can navigate the challenging process of resettlement with as little stress as possible,” says Krause. “It is such a privilege to do this job and connect with the individuals and families who have resettled through Canopy. It is no surprise to see the many ways they contribute to the community by simply being caring neighbors and bringing their arts, food, and perspectives into the region. Northwest Arkansas is better for it; I will say it every day.”

Krause has been working with refugees and global populations since she was in undergrad at New York University. Throughout her career, she has held numerous positions helping newly arrived refugees secure employment and achieve financial self-sufficiency. During her time at Jewish Vocational Services in Boston, Krause says she began to see and understand the toll of structural and systemic inequities on the health of refugees and their families. This experience pushed her to pursue her MPH at Boston University, where she studied social and behavioral sciences and gained concrete skills in program management and design that she continues to lean on in her work today.

When she first joined Canopy as the refugee health coordinator, Krause used her expertise and background in public health to partner with the Arkansas Department of Health to launch the first refugee health promotion program in the state. The program aims to increase refugees’ access to healthcare and other essential services, as well as offer health literacy trainings for those navigating the health system with little English proficiency.

Krause transitioned into her current role of executive director in 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout this time, she relied heavily on the background in health communication that she gained throughout her time at SPH to translate and disseminate accurate health information into a number of languages that the communities she works with needed, including Swahili and Kinyarwandan.

“We quickly realized that no one in the state was making any effort to translate health information beyond English and Spanish,” she says, “so we knew that our communities would not have access to the information unless we stepped in to fill those gaps.”

While certain state-wide policies can make resettlement work in NWA challenging, Krause says she is continuously encouraged and motivated by the support that members of the community give to both Canopy and the individuals and families the organization works to resettle. This, she highlights, is exactly what Canopy envisions for their work: refugees, immigrants, and communities thriving together.

“Arkansas is definitely a red state, but the number of people who live in the community that believe in our work and step forward to volunteer with us continues to surprise me,” she says. “It really boosts our spirit as an organization, knowing that we are not alone in this work and are well-supported by those around us.”

The inspiring work of Krause and her team at Canopy has touched those beyond the NWA community, as well, recently having gained the attention of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her daughter Chelsea Clinton for an episode of their new AppleTV show, Gutsy. The show follows Hillary and Chelsea “as they go on adventures with some of the world’s boldest and bravest women—from household names to unsung heroes.”

During the episode, the Clintons traveled back to their home state of Arkansas to meet with Canopy at the height of a national effort to resettle more than 76,000 Afghan refugees who were forced to flee their homes after Kabul, the capital city of Afghanistan, fell to the Taliban in August 2021. They assisted the Canopy team in setting up a house for a family of five that was arriving in NWA later that day, helping put together beds, hang curtains, and make the family’s new house feel more like a home. Hillary and Chelsea also met with an Afghan family that Canopy had helped resettle in the area, sitting down with them over tea to hear more about their incredible story of bravery and resilience.

Krause says she and the entire Canopy team are honored to be featured on the show, and are thankful that the heart, soul, and sheer volume of the work that goes into resettlement was highlighted throughout the episode.

“The work that we do is not glamorous, and it often goes unnoticed,” Krause says. “To have the team recognized in this way is incredible. I hope it can shine a light on all of the people who work in resettlement.”