Afghan Outreach Project

Our immediate priority is to assist refugee-lawyers in San Diego in securing meaningful employment in the legal sector as case assistants, file clerks, or legal secretaries at law firms, non-profits, and educational institutions. We pair each person with a mentor, help update CVs and reference lists, search job boards, schedule mock interviews, and reach out to our networks to find and create opportunities. For Afghan refugee-lawyers outside San Diego, we connect them with mentors from other SABA chapters who can assist with the job search process.

Through our ongoing efforts, we have learned the landscape of refugee assistance programs and recognize the extraordinary challenges of finding housing and employment in three short months after arriving to a new place without family ties or networks. Even for refugees with job-ready skills and work authorization, the challenges can be daunting.

Making a difference will require employers to lead by creating roles for refugee-lawyers and accelerating the hiring timeline to respond to their financial realities. The individuals in our network are bright, highly skilled, fluent in English, extremely hardworking, and eager to learn. They will add value to your organization and to our legal community.

Beyond addressing the immediate needs of resettled Afghan judges and lawyers, SABA San Diego seeks to learn from their stories to foster dialogue and exchange. Through virtual presentations, we aim to provide refugee-lawyers with a basic introduction to the state and federal court system and explore the life of a civil or criminal case. We hope that in the future, we can also host events to learn from our Afghan lawyer counterparts how best to uphold the rule of law.

• Affiliated SABA chapters
• International Association of Women Judges (IAWJ)
• National Association of Women Judges (NAWJ)
• Upwardly Global
• Resettlement agencies and their volunteer partners (including Helping El Cajon Refugees and License to Freedom in San Diego)
• San Diego Refugee Forum
• Friends of the Public-Private Partnership for Justice Reform in Afghanistan
• ECE, Inc.

Click Get Involved to start the process!