OUR STORY
The Association of Wartime Allies (AWA) has been the preeminent advocate for Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) eligible individuals since 2019. AWA currently offers interactive, real-time support and education to upwards of 19,000 members (SIV principal applicants) in an effort to enable them to navigate the complexities of the Special Immigrant Visa process with as few delays (or denials) of their applications as possible.
AWA also works directly with the US Department of State, Consular services, National Visa Center, numerous US based legal, resettlement and Veteran's organizations, and accredited Humanitarian Aid organizations to offer a robust network of support to SIV applicants and recipients.
MEET THE TEAM
The Faces of Our Organization
Kim Staffieri
Co-Founder and Executive Director
Kim Staffieri is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Association of Wartime Allies (AWA). Kim started her advocacy for SIV recipients in 2017 in the resettlement sector and quickly realized a dire need to help more SIV applicants navigate the complexities of the program. ‘If we can’t get them here, who will we resettle?’ became her mantra. What started as helping a couple of cases turned into developing the unique model that is now AWA in which tens of thousands of Wartime Allies are helped in a real time environment 24/7/365.
Kim is also a founding member of the Evacuate Our Allies Coalition, serving on the steering committee of this coalition of hundreds of organizational members.
Matt Zeller
Advisory Board Chairman
Matt Zeller is a US Army veteran. He is also Co-Founder of No One Left Behind, a Truman National Security Project Fellow, and an Adjunct Fellow at the American Security Project. He is the author of Watches Without Time (Just World Books, 2012), which chronicles his experience serving as an embedded combat adviser with the Afghan security forces in Ghazni, Afghanistan, in 2008.
Michael Trudeau
Advisory Board Member, Chief Data Analyst
Michael Trudeau is a Navy Veteran and is dedicated to helping locate and evacuate our wartime allies from Afghanistan including our interpreters prior to the U.S. withdrawal on September 11th, 2021. Michael supports the team through his expertise in data science to help better inform the challenge of the evacuation.
Kristen Babicki
Advisory Board Member
Kristen Babicki is an OIF/OEF Veteran and Nurse Practitioner. She is an expert SIV advocate, AWA team moderator and program mentor to other veterans and SIV applicants. Her tireless efforts have impacted countless lives.
Dina Al Bayati
Advisory Board Member
Dina Al Bayati is a former SIV recipient from Baghdad, Iraq. As she lived her childhood during the 2003 US-Iraq war, this experience drove her into becoming an activist, humanitarian, and movement builder focused on peace and security, foreign policy, and youth empowerment. As an independent consultant, she works on building bridges between the Middle East-North Africa regions and the United States both within and beyond the educational sector while mobilizing political, social, and human rights awareness by engaging youth, media, nonprofits, and more institutions.