Refugee Medical Care

dsm magazine 4/27/2010 5:00:00 PM Passions By Mary Challender Josie Mwirotsi Shaw doesn’t consider her work as a Swahili interpreter for the Iowa Council for International Understanding (ICIU) a part-time job but a calling. Josie a Clive mother and Kenya native spends her days ferrying Swahili-speaking refugees to doctor’s appointments, court, landlords & Human Services Offices then interpreting for them and advocating for them when appropriate. She’s helped families sitting in dark homes get their electricity reconnected, bought hats and gloves for children without winter clothing and made the co-payment for women who needed medicine but couldn’t talk their husbands into giving them $3. An energetic woman with gold-painted fingernails and a hidden stash of peanut M&M;’s, Shaw admits that the first time the ICIU asked her, in 2008, to become an interpreter, she said no. And the second time. And the third time. Back then, she says, she was trying to climb her way out of grief and depression, following the death of a sister in 2006 and her father in 2007. The ICIU didn’t give up. With the number of African refugees in Central Iowa growing, the organization desperately needed Swahili translators who knew the language and understood culture. Shaw grew up in that culture, in the small Kenyan town of Kapsabet. In 1989, she landed at Central Missouri State University as a Communications major and wanted to be the next Oprah Winfrey in Kenya. Josie Shaw met her husband, Reggie, and they married in 1997. They have a 7-year-old son, Kai. Reggie finally persuaded her to give interpreting a try. She spend time with clients in settings like medical clinics, courtrooms and Human Service offices. It’s what Shaw does for her clients outside those hours, on her own dime, that have led to some refugees nicknaming her “Mother “. She knows where everyone is living and their needs,” says Judith Conlin, executive director of the ICIU. “When someone donated a set of silverware, she said, ‘I know where these need to go.’ She gave it to one of her families who only had three forks.” Many of Shaw’s clients are refugees of war, rootless for a decade or longer. After what they’ve seen of human nature at its worst, trust doesn’t come easily to them. “I could see them for the longest time, trying to figure me out,” Shaw says. Today, she has more than 100 clients, often juggling three to four assignments a day. Recently, Shaw took on yet another responsibility—advocator and ac