We believe positioning immigrant and refugee youth as the authors of their own stories and providing a platform on which they can share their lived experience and unique ways of knowing the world can increase their intellectual self-trust and can be a foundation on which they can scaffold additional creative and academic achievements.
We believe reading these memoirs can change the way the global community conceives of immigrants and refugees, can lead to greater understanding of different people and cultures, and create a more welcoming and vibrant world.
Since 2019 we have been working with immigrant and refugee youth who have settled in the US. In 2025 we began working with young people residing in refugee settlements, with our first project implementation in the Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda taking place in May, 2025. We cannot wait to get back to Nakivale and other settlements throughout Uganda and surrounding countries in the coming years.
Maketank Inc is a small 501(c)3 non-profit and we grow our reach with the support of a variety of individuals and organizations and through partnerships with larger entities. If you are interested in supporting our work or partnering to bring the Illustrated Memoir Project to your location please reach out to executive director, Kate Carlier Currie at ktccurrie@gmail.com
The memoirs are published under Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licenses. This license enables users to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. They are published this way in the hopes that they can be used for educational purposes by a variety of users. Memoirs can be purchased at cost, we do not make a profit on the sales.
To read digital versions of illustrated memoir created through the project or to purchase copies of the memoirs click on the links below.
