Khao Noodle Shop’s Donny Sirisavath will walk 35 miles from Fort Worth to Dallas on Thursday to raise awareness for refugee resettlement.
Sirisavath, a second-generation refugee from Laos, will join former Iranian refugee Sadra Najafi on the walk, which will take place on International Human Rights Day. They will start in downtown Fort Worth and end at Trammell Crow Park, located between the Trinity River levees at 3700 Sylvan Ave.
Throughout the walk, the pair will share updates on social media and talk about their own immigration stories.
Sadra fled religious persecution in his homeland of Iran and spent nine years imprisoned on the island of Manus in Papua New Guinea. Refugee Services of Texas resettled Sadra in the United States earlier this year, and he lives in Dallas. Sirisavath is joining because his parents fled war-torn Laos.
Refugee Services of Texas is organizing the walk to raise awareness of the world’s 26 million refugees and nearly 80 million forcibly displaced people waiting to be resettled. The walk will also bring attention to the low number of refugees permitted to enter the United States.