Ana Garcia
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Ana Garcia is one of our AmeriCorps VISTA Service Members who joined our team on July 17, 2023 and will be with us through mid-July 2024. Ana was born and raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama and later moved to Chicago to fulfill her dream of receiving a degree in Sociology & International Studies from Loyola University Chicago. Inspired by her parents’ migrant experience, Ana chose to pursue coursework that explored topics like systemic inequities, cultures of migration, globalization, and social movements- social change. After graduating in 2021, Ana became a Bilingual Youth Care Professional and worked with unaccompanied minors in Colorado at a therapeutic residential program, created to provide trauma-informed care. Now, Ana is excited to work alongside the ALIRP community in Alabama while also beginning her MSW journey, with a focus on migration. Among her goals, she aims to learn more about the challenges and needs that refugees and asylum seekers experience locally and globally, as well as witness the resilience, growth, and accomplishments of ALIRP’s Partners and volunteers. She is certain that her experience with ALIRP will allow her to put into practice her belief that every person, regardless of immigration status, has a right to feel safe and have access to essential resources that will enable them to flourish and thrive.
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Ani Villa
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Ani Villa joined ALIRP team as one of the AmeriCorps/VISTA Service Members on July 17th, 2023 and will be with us through mid-July 2024. Ani serves as one of our two Refugee and Asylum Seeker Support Coordinators. She has years of experience in business and people management. She was born in Mexico, and was brought to the United States as a teenager. Driven by personal experience as an immigrant herself, she began volunteering in the local community with local churches and schools, hoping to ease the hardships faced by immigrants due challenges such as access to transportation and other community resources, as well as language barriers. After hearing about ALIRP she was excited to apply for the AmeriCorps/VISTA position. She has a mission of serving learning from our experienced staff and volunteers.
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Matt Buttler
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Matt Buttler is joining ALIRP in June 2023 as Half-Time Bilingual Case Manager. Matt was born in Houston, Texas, grew up in Birmingham, and recently returned to the area after living in Arizona for several years. His contract is through June 2024. He has a BA in Spanish from Auburn University, and has done graduate study in Spanish Literature at the University of North Carolina and in Social Work at Arizona State University. During his 10 years in nonprofit social services, Matt has worked with Latinx and migrant communities in Central Alabama, Central Arizona, and along both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. He has worked in faith-based and secular nonprofits of various sizes and focus areas, and his previous roles include direct service, resource development, and political advocacy. Matt has specific training in mental health case management, supporting survivors of domestic partner and sexual violence, and community organizing. Matt believes that all people should have access to basic necessities as well as dignity and self-determination. Matt is excited to join the ALIRP team, and hopes to utilize his diverse experiences to support people seeking relief in the U.S.
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Lydia Estes
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Lydia Estes joined Alabama Interfaith Refugee Partner as an Intern in August, 2023. She is a senior at Birmingham-Southern College majoring in Spanish with a minor in Sociology and a distinction in Poverty Studies. This fall she is excited to be interning for ALIRP where she will be creating a Partner Toolkit for asylum seekers to easily navigate different aspects of starting a new life in the US. This toolkit will provide resources from legal processes to health to cultural adjustment and so much more. She is honored to be working with such an amazing organization and cannot wait to be able to help ALIRP provide an easily accessible guide to resources both in English and Spanish.
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