The pandemic was difficult for everyone, but especially for women, and even more so for refugees and immigrants where the language and culture of the United States were new. Women’s Way: Stories of Motherhood in the Time of Covid brought together nine women, refugees from Congo, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Iran and women born in the United States, to create their own digital stories (short videos) recounting their experiences of motherhood during the depths of the pandemic. The writing and creation of the digital stories was new to them all.
A family flees from a civil war in Congo to a refugee camp in Tanzania, then are resettled as refugees in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Soon upon their arrival the Covid pandemic hits and this mother describes the hardships and hope they endured.
A Congolese mother describes her family’s flight to a refugee camp in Tanzania to escape the civil war. They are resettled as refugees in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where they encounter the Covid pandemic and the difficulties they encounter in this cultural transition.
A woman escapes the Syrian war with her mother to finally resettle in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as a refugee. She describes the ordeal how her dreams of being a other have been realized.
A mother describes her family’s experience of creating a new life as refugees from Iraq in the United States escaping Iraq just before the Covid pandemic hits, and how this impacted her young sons.
An immigrant mother from Iran recounts her feelings of isolation during the darkest days of the pandemic and the impact that this has on her young son, whose fear of death she must help to remediate.
A woman experiencing motherhood during the darkest days of the Covid pandemic recounts her difficult feelings, only to then lose her own mother suddenly. Her connection to a newfound friend going through the same struggles help her to survive.
During the pandemic, a woman and her husband adopt a child, while also helping her mother who is going through a painful period in life, before she moves in with them. The daughter must cope with the happiness of an expanding family, and then tragedy strikes.
An Afghan refugee mother describes her experience being separated from her husband and children during the Covid pandemic, returning to Afghanistan to be reunited with them, and then caught in the turmoil of the Taliban takeover.
A refugee mother from Afghanistan recounts the birth of her two children during the Covid pandemic, learning of the death of relatives in Afghanistan, only to return to Afghanistan to be with family and then suffer the consequences of Covid.