{"id":283133,"date":"2019-08-02T09:02:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-02T13:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/?guid=b8588add26ef31436ba641004f592be2"},"modified":"2026-10-15T11:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T15:29:14","slug":"direct-relief-houston-ethiopian-community-azeb-yusuf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/283133","title":{"rendered":"Direct Relief outreach builds trust in Houston&#8217;s Ethiopian community"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Azeb Yusuf, an Ethiopian-born health executive in Houston, worked with Direct Relief after Hurricane Harvey to connect immigrant patients with clinics and medicine they could trust.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" height=\"780\" width=\"780\" class=\"size-large wp-image-837808\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/houston-ifest-ethiopian-fashion.jpg?fit=780%2C780&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Ethiopian fashion at Houston&#x27;s International Festival, April 2008\" \/><\/figure>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><em>Ethiopian fashion at Houston's International Festival, April 2008 (Ed Schipul \/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0) [file photo]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Yusuf told Direct Relief she had left Ethiopia seeking nursing work and, after 38 years in the United States, was chief development officer at Bee Busy Wellness Center, a federally qualified health center serving more than 10,000 patients a year.<\/p>\n<p>Hurricane Harvey in 2017 killed more than 100 people and caused about $125 billion in damage. Yusuf said immigrant and undocumented African families faced extra barriers afterward, including fear of seeking help and lost documents or medicines.<\/p>\n<p>As Direct Relief outreach coordinator she used Amharic and community networks to explain that free clinics and donated medicines did not require immigration status checks. Building that trust, the profile said, let more Ethiopian and other Horn families return for primary care rather than only emergencies.<\/p>\n<p>The piece framed diaspora health workers as bridges between U.S. safety-net clinics and communities that may avoid hospitals after disasters.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sources:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.directrelief.org\/2019\/08\/building-bridges-of-trust-into-houstons-ethiopian-community\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Direct Relief<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Azeb Yusuf, an Ethiopian-born health executive in Houston, worked with Direct Relief after Hurricane Harvey to connect immigrant patients with clinics and medicine they could trust.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":837808,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ethiopian-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/houston-ifest-ethiopian-fashion.jpg?fit=1280%2C852&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9NivD-1bEF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/30"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283133"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":837822,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283133\/revisions\/837822"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/837808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.com\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}