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There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
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Atlanta, GA | Posted: August 20, 2018
Summary Sentence:
Soleen Karim, alongside her sister Kurdeen Kiram, co-founded Design4Refugees Corp, an organization that helps provide for people living in refugee camps.
Full Summary:
Soleen Karim, graduate of the Dual Master of Architecture and Master of City and Regional Planning (’15) program at Georgia Tech, was featured in this summer’s edition of the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine. Together with her sister, Kurdeen Kiram, she co-founded Design4Refugees Corp, an organization that provides for the needs of people living in refugee camps in her family’s native Iraqi-Kurdistan as well as here in the U.S.
Soleen KarimThe refugee crisis in Syria hit close to home for Soleen Karim, graduate of the Dual Master of Architecture and Master of City and Regional Planning (’15) program at Georgia Tech, who’s family fled from Iraq in the time leading up to the Gulf War in 2988. Together with her sister, Kurdeen Karim, she founded Design4Refugees Corp to provide for the needs of people living in refugee camps in their family’s native Iraqi-Kurdistan, as well as those already working to rebuild their lives in America.
In an article published in the Summer 2018 edition of the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine titled, “Helping Strangers in a Strange Land” by Melissa Fralick noted that Karim started Design4Refugees while in graduate school at Tech in 2014. The organization was designed to build shelters that could be implemented in the Iraqi camps serving refugees as they were fled war-torn Syria. Collaborative design and labor supported by a modest crowdfunding budget of $4,000, a community center began to take shape. “It wasn’t me watching and directing—it was me in the dirt with them laying brick,” Karim said. “From that, they developed a trust and connection with us.”
Click here to view Karim's story featured in the Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine.
