With her experiences working with communities, her passion for helping others deepen, especially when she thinks of her life in refugee camps. In the refugee camps where she lived for many year, she watched how often death would occurs. Death in the refugee camp occurs to a point as if it was a norm to watch people died. Even though we were not on the ground where war was being fought, we continued to die almost daily. Mercy beliefs that people in the camps were dying because besides the lack of basic needs such as food, water, proper sanitation, medicine, housing and the stress of living in refugee camps, it was simply due to the lack of people who care.

In our communities here in Portland, she has also observed and learned that people are still faced with lot of other challenges in the African refugees and immigrant communities: many have no health insurance, they lack of culturally specific education on the harmful use of tobacco and various other drugs, someone to advocate for the older adults, families and individuals who cannot, especially in the doctor’s office. In addition, she has also observed that many young people do not see or go beyond high school education.

She love to work with these communities to change that by seeking information and connecting people and resources. Because of her lived experiences and passion, she understands that after a person has experienced a real life trauma for many years as a refugee, it is not easy to simply unwind from those experiences. It takes people who care and understand (mentors, coaches, teachers and social workers) to help manage those experiences. As a result, she loves to work with adults, families and individuals in communities, especially the refugees, immigrant and non-immigrants communities to understand their unique needs and to help them find healthy perceptions of themselves to strengthen their ability navigating the system for resources, which many times is not easy to navigate.