CHEERing Fellow Mariah Banks participated in Boston University Center on Forced Displacement’s (CFD) first-ever annual conference on Tuesday! Mariah presented initial results from ‘Health on the Fly,’ a CHEERing project funded by the CFD to research health needs, barriers, and perceptions of health interventions among refugees. Check out the poster here. “As a graduate student…

CHEERing’s newest project in Afghanistan honours Venus, a 39-year-old Afghan mother of three, who was drowned in 2021 when crossing the border from Bosnia to Croatia. Her death changed the way authorities handled border crossings with Croatia border patrols no longer pushing back families. Venus was the close friend of CHEERing’s Associate Director, Farzana Hakimi….

After 5 years in Athens, today we opened the CHEERing Centre where we’ll be able to help families directly, have fun with ‘our’ kids, and welcome mothers and babies to our very own Grow Clinics. All the right people came to celebrate! From fellow NGOs, but of course, most importantly from the community we serve….

Less than two years ago, a group of 12 girls from Malakasa camp asked us for a girls’ football team. We practised in the village square and a car park. Now, CHEERing Football Club has almost 200 players, and is supported by the Barca Foundation. This week Barca came to see our work not just…

Sometimes, stuff happens. On Saturday we got a text from our friends @projectelpida telling us a German NGO needed to host a football tournament, pronto. Three days later, on Wednesday, March 8 , CHEERing FC held a full scale tournament at Goal Soccer Club in Athens, for over 100 refugee footballers, thanks to Stelp, an…

CHEERing launched War on Worms in 2022 with the ambitious goal of eliminating worms in two camps and among the refugee children on our football teams. Since then, we’ve distributed worm medicine to 172 family members. Numbers have dropped dramatically in the camps, though as new people arrive, new cases emerge and we treat 2-6 cases…

The Center for Health Equity, Education, and Research (CHEER) has received a seed grant from the Boston University Center on Forced Displacement (CFD) to support CHEERing’s international refugee work in greater Athens, Greece. This inaugural funding signifies the university’s investment in our international work. CHEERing Executive Director and Founder Anne Merewood MPH, PhD, affiliated faculty…

It’s cold and bleak right now in Afghanistan, especially for women and girls, but CHEERing’s Grow Clinic provides ongoing hope and warmth – literally – for many families in Herat. Stichting Salaam came to the rescue after seeing our photos of children and families freezing in our Clinic and classroom, and contributed 300E to buy…

CHEERing Director Anne Merewood presented with colleague Camie Goldhammer in December 2022, on decreasing racial disparities in breastfeeding, for the New York State Department of Health in Albany New York. The presentation is an annual event together with the University at Albany School of Public Health, and attracts a live audience of over 1000.

CHEERing recently teamed up with the NGO Project Armonia to provide nourishing meals and cooking classes to refugee children. Project Armonia supplies hot meals to 120 CHEERing football players every week, and once each week, 20 of our players visit their kitchen to cook, cause chaos, and eat great food! The cooking classes are followed…