University of Chicago’s Maria Woltjen Honored for Work for Immigrant Children
Yesterday. Maria Woltjen was honored with the UNICEF Chicago Humanitarian Award for her “commitment to putting children first” and the work of the organization she created—the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. Maria launched the Young Center as a pilot project more than 13 years ago, after years of advocacy for children at the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights and the ChildLaw Center at Loyola. A few years later, Maria took her project to the University of Chicago Law School, where she created the Immigrant Child Advocacy Clinic. The clinic allows law students could work with unaccompanied children in federal detention. The Young Center has grown to nearly forty staff, from a donated desk at a Chicago law firm to eight offices in cities across the United States.
KJ
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