Celebrating Sisterhood

Sarah Kittle
Editor in Chief

March is International Women’s Month, which means not only here in the U.S., but in the United Kingdom and Australia, people are celebrating us! We also happen to feature a few articles about the fairer sex in our current issue.

Our March cover is the remarkable Genevieve Kashat, who competed in the Kids Baking Championship on Food Network. Whatever the outcome of the contest, Genevieve and her macarons are winners in our book. Stay tuned for a future podcast with her and Cal Abbo.

And we simply had to do a feature on Jaclyn McQuaid, a top-level exec at GM who is instrumental to the roll-out of the EV market in Europe. Jaclyn, along with her twin sister Jamie Brewer (who also is a top-level executive at GM), are shaping the way we drive and even think about the automobile. It is an exciting time to be an automotive engineer. (Shout out to Mary Barra who is shaking up the corporate structure with her diversity initiatives!)

Rita Soka’s story may not be unique to the Chaldean community, but it does exemplify the hard work, perseverance and dedication to a goal that makes the community so successful. Rita decided what she wanted and went for it. When her ESL test scores for college came back unsatisfactory, she refocused and took a job as a cashier to improve her English, moving up at every opportunity. Now she is a co-founder of her own law firm.

Ava Sarafa is a volleyball star at Marian High School who is on her way to play for the University of Kentucky. She was named to the 2023 USA Today All-Star Team and may very well play in the Olympics one day. (But only if she wants to.)

We are grateful to Genevieve, Jaclyn, Jamie, Mary, Rita, and Ava – for their courage and faith in taking on roles that maybe people told them they couldn’t. To quote the great hockey player Wayne Gretzky, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

FOMO, or “Fear of Missing Out,” may be currently at play in the travel industry, according to reporter Paul Natinsky, who interviewed some local travel agents on the travel boom. After years of restricted or delayed travel, flights are picking up. Where are people travelling? Usually somewhere sunny.

Dr. Miri was honored this month to write about his friend Habib Hannona, a pioneer in the Chaldean community. “Each time he walks into a room, a rainbow of hope appears,” said the author. Habib has done many things in his lifetime, creating art pieces and writing books and poems; currently, he is a civil engineer employed by the Chaldean Community Foundation.

Iraq in the Frame continues with a special on the children of Iraq. In perusing the spectacular photos that Wilson Sarkis has provided, one question kept coming up in the minds of CN staff: “Where do the children play?” Turns out, they play in the streets (a lot of street soccer) and near churches; ironically, being next to the desecrated places of worship may now be the safest places for them to play.

Fr. Marcus Shammami returns to the CN as a contributing writer on the celebration of Lent, Crystal Jabiro tells a deeply personal story of her cousin’s addiction and recovery, and the CCF’s Jacqueline Raxter shares resources and signs of depression that can lead to suicidal thoughts and actions. It’s a societal problem that won’t go away on its own.

We head into the season of spring this month, and together, we look forward to the promise of hope and rebirth.

Sarah Kittle
Editor in Chief