Egette Indelele was born and raised in a refugee camp in Tanzania. She is the oldest of five childre

Egette Indelele, CEO&Founder

Isabella Bah, Financial Advisor and Budget Analyst

Egette Indelele was born and raised in a refugee camp in Tanzania. She is the oldest of five children and a first-generation honor college student at George Mason University. She is studying Psychology with a concentration in Cognitive and Behavior Neuroscience in hopes of opening her own practice in Burundi and emphasizing the importance of mental health while serving children with the hope of healing their traumatic life events. Egette’s work with Safe Haven was inspired by her experience as a refugee . She founded Safe Haven to help refugee students resettle in a new world while having access to mental health services.

Aside from mental health, Egette has a great passion for children around the world. With the passion to help children, she became the President of a UNICEF club at George Mason University. The club gave her the opportunity to advocate for children’s rights and educate her university community on the importance of helping the younger generation. She extended her passion and is now serving on the United Nation international Children Emergency Funds USA National Council. She also manages a program where members and volunteers mentor and tutor elementary-aged children at a local community center that serves refugees transitioning to life in America.

With mental health being a stigma around the world, specifically in refugees and immigrant families, she believes that Safe Haven will ease the transition to the American life. She also believes that it will help student perform better in school overall, while working on solving unresolved trauma

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Isabella Bah, Financial Advisor and Budget Analyst

Isabella Bah recently graduated from George Mason University with her Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting and a minor certificate in Entrepreneurship. During her time at Mason, she has had the opportunity to be a member of and lead a few organizations on Mason’s campus. She has also had the opportunity to work with many non-profit organizations on campus that continue to provide academic and personal resources to first generation middle and high school students. Now that she has graduated, she will pursue a full-time career as a staff accountant at a local mid-sized accounting firm, while she studies for her CPA and CFE certifications. As the financial advisor of Safe Haven, her mission primary mission is to not only develop various strategies that will help the organization reach its short and long-term financial goals but also maintain the financial health of the organization by closely tracking all of the cash inflows and outflows every financial quarter.

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Emmanuel Scere was born and raised in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. In 2004, he and his family moved to Ro

Emmanuel Scere, Operations Consultant

Carisa Mclaney, Director of Education, Advocacy and Programs

Emmanuel Scere was born and raised in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. In 2004, he and his family moved to Roanoke, VA through a refugee resettlement program run in partnership between the United Nations and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Resettlement Program. Emmanuel attended the University of Virginia where he played on the UVA Men’s Soccer Team and won the NCAA National Championship in 2014. During his time in Charlottesville, Emmanuel volunteered for the Boys & Girls Club of Central Virginia, tutoring middle and high school students in math and English and coordinating after-school activities and sports events. Emmanuel graduated from the University of Virginia in 2018 with a dual degree in International Relations and Sociology. Since returning to Roanoke, Emmanuel co-founded AllStar Training, an organization that aims to provide increase access to free soccer coaching and mentorship opportunities to youth in Roanoke. Currently, Emmanuel works as a Financial Counselor at Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

A refugee himself, Emmanuel is attuned to the experiences that many refugees encounter—recognizes the importance of access to mental health services. Emmanuel joined Safe Haven because he believes that the organization is addressing the most essential issue surrounding refugee family relations. He hopes to use his experiences to relate to the younger generation of refugee students as a mentor and friend.

Other than Safe Haven, Emmanuel has a huge passion for youth development. He hopes to one day commit his efforts and talents to join the development efforts in youth development in developing nations.

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Carisa Mclaney, Director of Education, Advocacy and Programs

Carisa is an undergraduate senior at George Mason University majoring in Global Affairs with a concentration in Global Governance and a minor in International Security. Carisa has experience working with refugees from her past internship at International Rescue Committee in which she assisted in the refugee resettlement process. She also has advocacy, policy, and research based experience from her past internship at Physicians for Human Rights. Carisa has a deep interest in becoming more aware and informed while engaging in advocacy on and outside of social media on issues surrounding the topics of human rights, social equality and justice, and climate change. She is a strong advocate for refugees and wishes to bring her passions and experience to Safe Haven through this position to help those struggling with mental health issues stemming from their experiences while also assisting in making others more aware of the connection and importance of refugees and mental health.

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Safeeyah Ahmed, Proactive Interaction Educator

ADITI GOeL, Living Skills Advisor

Safeeyah Ahmed is a middle-child of Nubian-Egyptian and Indo-Guyanese immigrants. She was born and raised in Northern Virginia, and is now a non-traditional student at George Mason University, completing a Bachelor of Individualized Studies degree focused on social justice and conflict resolution in business. Once she completes her undergraduate studies, Safeeyah hopes to become a Full Spectrum Birth Worker and Certified Sex Educator focused on supporting children, birthing people and their families to foster a safe and healthy community. Safeeyah’s calling towards care-work stems from values shown to her by her grandparents, who always emphasized the importance of caring for others and serving the community, simply because you can. Throughout her undergraduate experience, Safeeyah has continued to live by that philosophy in her involvement with organizations such as the Mason Service Council, Brains Then Beauty, PeaceJam GMU, and UNICEF GMU; these groups created a path for her to gather with community members to offer support and care to women and children, and advocate for their needs in many spaces.

Safeeyah’s passion for working with Safe Haven and her passion for mental health, is largely due to her own experience growing up with mental illnesses in an immigrant household. As the Proactive Interaction Educator at Safe Haven, her goals are to give children and their families the tools they need to positively navigate interactions and build a strong community. She hopes to emphasize concepts such as communication, self-trust, self-regard, space-holding, boundary setting, consent, harm reduction and conflict resolution.

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ADITI GOeL, Living Skills Advisor

Aditi was born in India. While growing up, she became aware of the value of the resources that are and are not available to us. As her brothers came to the US for their education, Aditi frequently visited them and did her 2 years of elementary school in North Carolina. She was always curious about the tools that could lead to an inner transformation. After recovering from cancer in 2013, she began to learn more about the hidden, innate powers and virtues of the soul. This led her to engage in mindfulness practices and study with the Brahma Kumaris World Spritual University.

She came back to the US in 2018 to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Public Administration with minors in Well-Being and Computational and Data Sciences at George Mason University. After joining the Well-Being Living Learning Community on campus and being involved with the Meditation Museums in Virginia, she started her own student organization on campus called “Dare 2 Be Wise”. She has worked with the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being at GMU. She has also recently published her memoirs of childhood and her journey through cancer in her autobiography “Playing with Cancer at Age 13”. Having met various thought leaders and conducted several mindfulness sessions with people of all ages, she continues to spread awareness regarding mental wellness. She believes by doing the inner work of the self, by amplifying the light from within, we can all come together towards building a better, stronger humanity.

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Thomas Wahl, Marketing and Graphical

ADITI GOeL, Living Skills Advisor

Thomas Wahl, Marketing and Graphical

Thomas Wahl is from Roanoke, Virginia. He is a junior at the University of Tennessee studying Marketing with a collateral in International Business and a minor in Communication Studies. He hopes to one day open a coffee shop where he can implement tutoring services and support local artists while creating a safe space for all, connected by their love for coffee. Wahl’s work with Safe Haven was inspired by his own struggles with mental health and a lifelong desire to help others less fortunate.

Aside from mental health, Thomas has a passion for students and connection. He has fulfilled his passion for students by serving as a student senator in Tennessee’s Undergraduate Student Senate where he’s worked on bills that would increase the Student Health Center’s funding and restructure on-campus housing fees. He also served as the Organization Resource Group’s Programming Events Coordinator; an organization built on supporting others across campus. He has lived his passion for connection by joining the professional business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi, where he serves as Director for Marketing and Rush teams, as well as a Pledge Education Director. He has also reported and produced for a student-run news show, Torchlight News.

Thomas believes Safe Haven provides a critical role in helping students feel more at home and more themselves in America. Thomas has always had a strong belief that those who feel invested in will perform better and be able to achieve anything they can dream of. By investing in these students and helping them work through unsolved trauma, he believes Safe Haven can change these students’ lives.

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