The Resettlement Project

How one city welcomes refugees

Starting over in Akron

by Kelly Krabill Fazal Baryalai and his family look at pictures from their time in Afghanistan. They arrived in Akron two years ago on a Special Immigrant Visa. Photo by Kelly Krabill When Fazal Baryalai awoke on a Saturday morning in March after a late night driving Uber customers, his family was already downstairs. Shai tea, an Arabic drink served to visitors, was already in a pitcher on the coffee table waiting to be poured into ornately designed crystal glasses. As I sipped the warm drink on that snowy day in Akron, Zahida, Baryalai’s wife, slipped into the kitchen and...

‘My favorite thing is driving’: Afghan women embrace independence in Akron

By Catie Pusateri Tamana Ziar, 23, left Afghanistan with her family in July 2022, just weeks before the Taliban took control of her country. Photo courtesy of Tamana Ziar. Every year on March 21, Tamana Ziar and her extended family gather to celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year. They meet in Paghman, a town just outside Afghanistan’s capital city of Kabul, for picnics and games to celebrate the coming of spring.  Her family members would play soccer together, and her parents even join in volleyball games. Ziar and her sister had bicycles that they would ride, soaking up the sun...