Rockford Refugee Support Program
Mustafa Abdall, a new member of our Club in 2023, has been a member of the Rockford Community only since 2010 when he arrived in Rockford with his wife, Sahar, and two young children. Having been sponsored by the United Nations and the US government, Mus and his family were invited by our city to live here. Only 13 years ago, Mus and his family were new members of our community with great dreams for their future and greater dreams for their children.
Mustafa strongly believes in education for all, having come to the US with a BA in English and an MBA in Business Management from the University of Bagdad. Once in Rockford, he continued his love of learning as he completed an MBA in Marketing and an MA in Teaching, he is currently continuing toward the completion of his EdD in Education, Administration and Leadership Management. Mustafa’s experience, his education and his work have made him a Multicultural Expert in our community.
Mustafa was an ESL teacher and an international student recruiter at Rockford University, an RPS205 bilingual family support staff and tutor and a bilingual teacher of math at Lincoln Middle School. In 2022, Mustafa established “Solutions Business Center” to serve the multicultural community needs in Winnebago County as they learn how to take an idea or skill and turn it into a successful business. In 2021, Mustafa became the first Arab American elected as a Winnebago County Trustee.
Mustafa volunteers throughout our community as he helps newcomers get to know the best of our city and how they can keep their culture while improving their lives.
His program for our club presents the issues for refugees and immigrants coming to Rockford and how RPS205 has developed an educational approach and program to help those newcomer students participate and succeed.
This will an interesting and informative program about a topic that we hear a lot about in the media, but do not know a lot about in our own community and our school district. This will be a great opportunity to bring a guest or prospective member to join us in person at Memorial Hall or via zoom. PDG Elise Cadigan will introduce our speaker and act as Rotary host.