Video: ‘We are all descended from refugees’ President Oaks says as center in Rome works to help refugees there

The Joel Nafuma Refugee Center serves refugees with the help of partners like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

29 July 2022, 11:36 a.m. MDT

Group of people of various nationalities sit in a classroom with a yellow wall; all hold guitars as they practice — Ghana refugee Martwi Muhammed, right, practices guitar during class taught by Steve Waddington, left, at Joel Nafuma Refugee Center at St. Paul’s Within the Walls Episcopal Church in Rome on Tuesday, July 19, 2022. Jeffrey D. Allred, Deseret News

Sarah Jane Weaver is editor of the Deseret News.

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints respect and believe in helping support and improve the lot of refugees, said President Dallin H. Oaks while in Rome, Italy, in July 2022.

“Whether you look at Africa or Europe or the British Isles or America or South America, it’s hard to find a country that was not affected by or inhabited by refugees at some point,” said President Oaks, first counselor in the First Presidency.

The Joel Nafuma Refugee Center — located in the American Episcopal Church’s St. Paul’s Within the Walls building in Rome, Italy — serves refugees with the help of partners like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

This Church News video, titled “Descendants of Refugees,” highlights a few refugees in Rome and those working to help them become self-reliant in a new country.

“I was really lucky because to know this place where they offered all of these opportunities for free, it’s something amazing,” said Ayman Wasef, a refugee who was served by the center.

“We have so many refugees in the world today,” said President Oaks. “We need to be sympathetic, understanding and welcoming because in the origin of most people on this planet, we are all descended from refugees.”