Student Spotlight - Sonam Lama

As a graduate research intern, Sonam Lama worked with the Refugee Well-being Project at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque during her summer internship. The program pairs refugee families from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Burundi, Rwanda and Democratic Republic of Congo with undergraduate students who assist them in mobilizing community resources, obtaining advocacy skills and providing empowerment. Sonam assisted the project in developing a cross-cultural measure to identify mental distress in various refugee groups and helped validate its psychometric properties. She also began a project, which aims to identify coping strategies employed by refugees who have been separated from their families.

Sonam, a second year MPH student in Chronic Disease Epidemiology, observed that many refugees from the program who initially believed they had nothing to offer, were now being valued in the community, as leaders, advocates, and entrepreneurs. “Although refugees around the world face challenges in making their transitions to a new country, I was lucky to be able to witness the impact of a program focused on capacity building in the community,” said Sonam.