TWIN FALLS, Idaho (KLIX) – Your appreciation for the contributions of local refugees may deepen if you attend the Herrett Forum this week on the College of Southern Idaho campus.

Liyah Babayan, a Twin Falls business owner and School Board member, will be the speaker at the next Herrett Forum, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Herrett Center for Arts and Science. Her topic will be “Liminal – The Refugee Experience.”

“When she was a young girl, Babayan and her family fled ethnic violence in Armenia following the collapse of the Soviet Union,” reads information from CSI. “Eventually, her family was re-settled in Twin Falls through the CSI Refugee Center. Today, she advocates for refugees and all victims of political and military turmoil.”

In 1998, she began writing a book titled "Liminal, A Refugee Memoir,” which discusses the chaos and violence of her childhood and sheds light on the “zero generation” refugee immigrant experience in America.

Babayan owns the women’s boutique Ooh La La! She is serving her second year on the Twin Falls School Board, and was named by Idaho Business Review as one of Idaho’s 50 Women of the Year in 2015. She is also the Idaho Chair of the Armenian National Committee of America.

The Wednesday lecture is free and open to the public.

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