Group honors Monticello for hiring of refugees

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation was awarded the sixth annual Employer Leadership Award from the International Rescue Committee on Friday. The award emphasizes the win-win situation that results when local employers hire refugees, according to Susan Donovan, regional director for the IRC’s Charlottesville office.

The foundation, which owns and operates Monticello, currently has six refugees on staff from countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Russia and Somalia. The foundation has worked with the IRC since 2005, providing refugees with pay above “living wage” and full benefits. It’s “poetic” that the foundation named for the author of the Declaration of Independence hires refugees, Donovan said.

“We like to live the words we speak,” said Leslie Greene Bowman, president and CEO of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.

Albert Einstein created the IRC in 1933 to help Germans suffering under the Nazi regime. Since World War II, the committee grew to provide resettlement opportunities for Eastern European refugees.

Now, the IRC has offices in 42 countries around the world and 24 regional offices in the United States, helping refugees resettle, reach self-sufficiency and become naturalized citizens.

In Charlottesville, the IRC has helped to obtain more than 1,000 jobs for its refugee clients since the regional branch was established in 1998. Previous winners of the Employer Leadership Award include the Omni Hotel, Farmington Country Club and Design Electric.

The IRC helped Azim Usmanov come from Russia to the United States in February 2006. He’s worked at Monticello for two years as an assistant maintenance technician and is taking classes at the Charlottesville Albemarle Technical Education Center to become an electrician.

“I like this place very well,” Usmanov said.