MARIA BLACQUE-BELAIR,
FOUNDER/EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Since Founding RIF Asylum Support 15 years ago, Maria has worked diligently as Executive Director.

She also works as a substitute counselor at Doctors Without Borders USA for medical staff and other first-responders.

Maria has a decade of experience in of humanitarian relief work such as: managing large relief programs for global NGOs such as Action Against Hunger (ACF) and IRC in large-scale humanitarian crisis-affected by war.

She worked as a clinical social worker for Solace, a treatment center for survivors of Torture based at Safe Horizon. Amongst others, she provided psychological evaluations for torture survivors seeking asylum. 

She holds a Master of Science degree in Clinical Social Work from New York University (NYU) and a Post-Graduate Certificate from the International Trauma Studies program also based at NYU. She is licensed in the State of New York.

Maria has certification training in conducting asylum psychological evaluations at HealthRights International and a certificate in asylum law from New Immigration Coalition.

She is also running a private immigration evaluation service: mbbevaluations.com

She is bilingual in French and English and speaks Spanish.