Community Partner Elena’s Light is Serving and Educating New Haven’s Refugee and Immigrant Families

Elena’s Light is a New Haven-based nonprofit that educates refugee and immigrant families with a focus on women and children. They offer free English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, health education, DMV knowledge testing preparation, and cultural sensitivity training through cross-cultural friendships, according to their website. Fereshteh Ganjavi, who came to New Haven in 2011 as an Afghan refugee, founded the organization to ensure that immigrants and refugees had access to education regardless of their immigration status. According to Rebekah Sookdeo, Elena’s Light Associate Director, Elena’s Light has educated 500 refugee and immigrant women through their ESL and health education programs. Additionally, 30 women successfully completed a 14-week Driving Permit Test course in 2025 alone and, over their 8 years of operation, they have served 8,000 clients through Elena’s Light’s health support program.

Zaharaa Altwaij ‘25 began working with Elena’s Light through the Dwight Hall Urban Fellows Program, a fellowship that supports students to work part-time at a nonprofit during the academic year. “I predominantly organized health workshops for refugee women, children, and families,” Zaharaa explained. “That would entail finding an area of need, for example accessing nutritious food, and working with local physicians and refugee ambassadors to develop a curriculum that was relevant and evidence-based to address that need,” she said. Zaharaa recalled a particularly key workshop on immunizations, where she was able to present sound medical research and dispel misinformation prevalent within many refugee communities. Zaharaa explained that many of the families she served had not interacted with the US healthcare system, a barrier she worked to bridge with culturally competent and trauma-informed education. As Health and Wellness Coordinator, Zaharaa also worked on collecting donations of hygiene products, winter clothing, and back-to-school supplies, while also helping to distribute them to refugee and immigrant families. In 2025, Zaharaa won the Yale Alumni Association Public Service Award honoring her work with refugee and immigrant communities. 

That work has continued under Yuanyu Chen ’26, who currently serves as Health Coordinator at Elena’s Light after learning about the organization through FOCUS on New Haven, a Camp Yale orientation program run by Dwight Hall. Yuanyu helped teach a class, “Lighting the Future: Cultural Exchange Series,” to refugee children on public speaking in collaboration with Mehran Sorourian, founder of the Youth Speaker Lab. “By the end of the class, everyone wrote a speech and they were confident enough to deliver it in front of us,” Yuanyu shared. The class included workshops taught by members of the Yale Law School, local nonprofit leaders, and a staff member from Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy’s office. “The speakers inspired the kids to write speeches about their own experiences using their voices to advocate for themselves and their communities,” said Yuanyu. As Health Coordinator, she also works to create workshops about health topics that interest the participants. Recently, they ran a workshop on smoking and vaping and their medical effects. The health program works in collaboration with the Yale School of Medicine (YSM) and receives input from YSM clinicians for the curriculum. Additionally Elena’s Light is an awardee, through the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), of the Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award, where Dwight Hall has been an active partner.*

As Health Coordinator, Yuanyu also worked in collaboration with the Blossom Hill Foundation to provide hands-on, after-school science workshops. “We made paper microscopes, we had a physics lesson with cars going down ramps, and we made circuits to power a light,” Yuanyu recalled. She is also currently working on a college preparation course and teaching children about potential career paths as well as a workshop with a Yale psychologist to teach kids about the different areas of health and wellness.  

In 2022, the Dwight Hall Socially Responsible Investment Fund (DHSRI) awarded Elena’s Light a $4,000 grant for their work with refugee and immigrant families. Associate Director Rebekah Soodeo explained that this kind of support enables Elena’s Light to meet critical client needs like childcare for parents who want to participate in classes, hygiene products, and financial assistance to clients who may be experiencing difficulty accessing energy or electricity in their homes. 

In April 2026, Elena’s Light awarded Dwight Hall the Community Partnership Award at their annual Lighting the Future event. Elena’s Light presented this award along with a Certificate of Accomplishment from Senator Chris Murphy and a Certificate of Special Recognition from Senator Richard Blumenthal. “Dwight Hall has done so much connecting us with their student community,” Rebekah said. “We feel really honored to be partners with Dwight Hall because they want to be a part of the community and not just be physically located there,” she added.

Dwight Hall’s partnership with Elena’s Light exemplifies the Engage pillar of Dwight Hall’s Engage, Grow, and Advance program delivery model. By building long-term, trusted relationships with local nonprofits and agencies, Dwight Hall supports effective community engagement work. 

Please click here to learn more about Elena’s Light.

*Note: Elena’s Light is an awardee funded through a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Eugene Washington PCORI Engagement Award (EACB-41989). The health education project is done with partners at the Yale School of Medicine (YSM).