Elhamija Kadic fled war and persecution in Bosnia in 1992 and came to the United States with the help of the IRC. After Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29, 2005, she helped coordinate the IRC's response.
Only days after Hurricane Katrina destroyed a swath of the Gulf Coast in August 2005, the International Rescue Committee dispatched an emergency team of relief experts to Louisiana. For the first time in its 73-year history, the organization responded to a humanitarian crisis in the United States.
In this interview first published in August 2010, an IRC caseworker recalled her role aiding Katrina survivors who relocated to Atlanta, Georgia: