Edafe Okporo joins Talent Beyond Boundaries USA
Edafe Okporo joins our team to give refugees a fighting chance of rebuilding their lives and careers in the United States of America.
We are excited to welcome respected non-profit leader and activist Edafe Okporo to the Talent Beyond Boundaries team. Edafe is our new Mobilization Director (USA), marking the beginning of our journey to open up skilled migration pathways for refugees and other forcibly displaced people to the United States.
About Edafe
Edafe knows first hand the incredible contribution refugees and asylum seekers can and do bring to the United States. He is the author of the forthcoming book ASYLUM, a Memoir & Manifesto, drawing on his own experience leaving Nigeria and seeking asylum in 2016.
After being granted asylum in the USA, Edafe started working at Eat Off Beat, a social venture in New York employing refugees, and volunteered with not-for-profit organizations. He sat on the board of First Friends of New Jersey and New York before he took the mantle at RDJ, New York city's only shelter for refugees in 2018, which he ran until June 2021. He’s among the inaugural winners of the David Prize 2020, a celebration of individuals and ideas to create a better, brighter New York City. According to Edafe:
“I started my career as an advocate for marginalized people in the healthcare sector in Nigeria. Since I migrated to the United States, I have consistently worked to improve the outcomes of displaced persons. Talent Beyond Boundaries’ model is part of the solution to our nation's changing talent demography.”
Our plans in the United States
Edafe joins our team at a pivotal moment, as the United States faces an unprecedented workforce shortage, with 90 percent of state and local chambers of commerce reporting that worker shortages are holding back their economies. While American businesses are crying out for talent, millions of displaced people with skills in demand are stuck in countries where they are not allowed to work or rebuild their lives. By opening up US skilled immigration opportunities to refugees and other displaced people we can provide a win-win to refugees and for the US economy.
In this role Edafe aims to do just that:
“This model addresses the root causes of migration and provides autonomy to refugees who seek an opportunity for a better life and home. Our nation will benefit from this model and supplement our existing migration pathways. I am excited to join the excellent team at Talent Beyond Boundaries”.
Working with our global team and founders, Edafe will mobilize employers, refugee-serving organizations, policymakers, donors, and other key stakeholders to help build a bridge between refugees with skills, and American employers in need of talent.
Edafe is among our expanding team of leaders who have experienced displacement first hand, and are able to bring those lived experiences into the center of our program design.
We are confident that with Edafe’s expertise, leadership, and passion he will further elevate the extraordinary efforts of our team to carry out this important mission.
How we got here
Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB) is the leading international nonprofit organization working to build a world where forcibly displaced people can use their skills and talents to move to secure futures. TBB works with governments, employers, and partners to overcome the barriers that often prevent refugees from accessing skilled migration pathways.
TBB co-founders Mary Louise Cohen and Bruce Cohen began exploring labour mobility for skilled refugees as 2014 Fellows with the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative. Around the same time, Australian tech entrepreneur John Cameron organised a taskforce of experts to explore a very similar idea. When they learned about each other, Mary Louise, Bruce and John joined forces and the global nonprofit Talent Beyond Boundaries was born.
TBB was registered as a U.S. not-for-profit in 2016 and our initial startup phase was supported by the US State Department through an innovation grant. Over the last five years, TBB has worked with the Governments of Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom to open displaced talent mobility programs. TBB is now looking forward to working with the Biden Administration.
Our USA program will draw on the lessons and successes from these programs. With three of the world’s largest economic immigration countries already signed up to this complementary pathway for refugees, we are confident the USA won’t be far behind.
We are excited to work with Edafe to make that happen!
‘Our past is always part of our present, our future is yet to be written.’ — Edafe Okporo
Edafe Okporo contact email: eokporo@talentbeyondboundaries.org
Donate to support TBB’s work expanding immigration opportunities for refugees in the United States.
