An Idea That's Quietly Changing How America Welcomes Refugees

What if the most radical act of welcome wasn't a policy or a program — but a dorm room sitting empty all summer? Diya Abdo, a second-generation refugee turned English professor turned social entrepreneur, has spent a decade asking colleges a deceptively simple question: what resources do you have, and who do you think they're for? The answers have housed over 1,000 refugees across 24 campuses — dining halls, health clinics, student volunteers, and all. Ashoka’s Maria Merola sat down with Abdo to learn more.

Maria Merola: Diya, you started Every Campus A Refuge in 2015. How did this idea come together?

Diya Adbo, founder

Every Campus A Refuge

Diya Abdo: I have to start with my background. I'm a second-generation refugee, born to parents displaced from Palestine to Jordan. I grew up with my grandmother, who raised me and constantly told me about Palestine and how much she missed it. Even though she moved to a country that spoke her language and had her favorite food at the market, she had a constant yearning for her home. To me, being a refugee meant being eternally lonely.

I carried that with me when I came to the U.S. on a student visa, and later as a naturalized citizen. Then in 2015, I heard Pope Francis call on every parish to host a refugee family. I loved that call to radical hospitality — not to countries, but to small communities: a neighborhood, a church, a congregation. And I thought, couldn't every campus answer that call? I went to the president of my college, Guilford College, and asked to use campus housing for refugees arriving in Greensboro, North Carolina, from camps abroad. She said yes, and we started hosting families in January 2016.

Merola: What is ECAR’s reach today?

Abdo: Over 24 campuses across the U.S. participate — private and public, urban and rural, large and small, two-year and four-year, on both coasts and everywhere in between. Together they've hosted over 1,000 refugees and worked with hundreds, if not thousands, more in surrounding communities.

But the scope goes beyond those numbers. Think of the students who realize they want to work in public health after spending time with refugee families. Think of the facilities worker whose job is to fix the air conditioning — someone who might never otherwise have the opportunity to meet a refugee — and who develops a real relationship with a hosted family. That proximity, that joyful act of neighboring, is what opens hearts and minds. We try to measure those concentric circles of impact, not just the headline figures.

Merola: Can you share a story that captures how those circles work?

Abdo: Washington State University in Pullman — a small town of 20,000 people — hosted their first Afghan family in 2021, then another in 2022, and then another. Now there's a small, thriving Afghan community in Pullman. The last family they hosted actually requested to go there by name. That circle of care had reached outward within the Afghan community.

Another story I love: we hosted an Iraqi refugee, Ali al-Khazraji, at Guilford years ago. He's a calligraphist. Because he lived on campus, he had free access to an art studio and supplies. He created artwork that has allowed him to supplement his income ever since. That's what happens when you stop thinking about what a refugee needs to survive and start thinking about who they actually are — an artist, a mother, a cook, someone with passions worth nurturing.

Merola: You describe yourself as a "hacker" of institutions. What do you mean by that?

Abdo: We tend to tie institutions to a single function: a university gives degrees, a church gathers people for worship, a hotel provides rooms. We get stuck in calcified ways of thinking about what an organization does.

But if you stop asking "what does this institution do?" and ask instead "what resources does this institution have?" — a completely different road opens up. Think of all the campus housing that sits empty over the summer. Think of businesses and corporations with resources used only part of the year, or for a narrow group of people. And then ask the more important question: why do we believe some resources are only for some people?

I think every human being is entitled to every resource. That's the spirit I want everyone to embody. I walked into my president's office and said, this is my campus, these are my resources, and I want to use them for my community. Nobody is an unlikely partner to me. Every entity is unactivated — the question is how to activate it.

Merola: Both refugee resettlement and higher education face political headwinds in the U.S. right now. How is this landing for ECAR?

Abdo: I want to say something important: what is loud is not the same as what is dominant. When I visit communities across this country, I see pockets full of love, compassion, and resistance. In our rapid evaluation of ECAR chapters over the past year, we found campuses didn't just hold steady — they pivoted, brought in new volunteers, and in some cases expanded to take on work previously done by resettlement agencies that have shut down. These are resilient ecosystems.

For me personally, this climate feels familiar. As a Palestinian, I know this divide-and-conquer mentality. I know that any fight for freedom is multi-generational. The antidote to hate is connection — if you meet a refugee and get to know them, it becomes very hard to believe the rhetoric that says they're a threat. So my strategy is to keep creating opportunities for proximity, and to play the long game.

Merola: What advice do you have for someone who wants to bring this model to their community? How should they start?

Abdo: Start with asset mapping — look at your community and figure out who has what and who can do what. Not just organizations, but individuals and their skills, their connections, their networks. Think in concentric circles: not just what's available in your immediate vicinity, but who you know, and who they know.

And see people as your most important resource. We tend to think of university campuses as places of material abundance, but what matters most is the people and the skills they carry. The model isn't about having everything — it's about activating what's already there.

Merola: What framework are you leaving people with right now?

Abdo: Three radicals. Radical hospitality: act in ways that make people feel welcomed and like they belong. Radical accountability: hold yourself, your institution, and your government accountable to treating every person justly and sharing resources equitably. And radical hope — not naive optimism, but hope that lives in imagination. The ability to visualize a future where we depend on each other in ways that sustain us, free from the whims of whoever is in power. An imagination that lets us decide, for ourselves, who we are to each other.

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Diya Abdo is a social entrepreneur and Ashoka Fellow. Watch her TEDx Talk and check her book American Refuge: True Stories of the Refugee Experience (Penguin Random House, 2022).

Maria Merola co-leads Ashoka’s work to surface, support, and connect innovations in migration worldwide. Maria spoke with Diya in May 2026 (watch) as part of Ashoka’s Welcome Change conversation series.