Democrat and Chronicle
Friday, June 17, 2016
Sadiya Omar of Rochester accepts the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award for Outstanding Public Service Benefiting Local Communities at the Jefferson Awards Foundation ceremony on Thursday in Washington, D.C.
Sadiya Omar, a Somalian refugee devoted to teaching and guiding refugees in Rochester, received the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis Award for public service on Thursday night in Washington, D.C.
She was one of five national winners of the award, the top honor for private citizens from the Jefferson Awards Foundation.
Omar has lived in Rochester since 2001 and is vice president of Refugees Helping Refugees, a not-for-profit agency on South Avenue that provides English, computer, sewing and cooking classes. The organization fosters growth and assimilation.
She spent 10 years in a refugee camp in Kenya after fleeing her native Somalia when a civil war erupted in 1991.
The Jefferson Awards Foundation seeks to empower others "to have maximum impact on the things they care about most."