Our board member, Edith Tye, recalls her experience fleeing the Rwandan Genocide and the historic U.S. efforts to resettle refugee children.
Our board member, Edith Tye, recalls her experience fleeing the Rwandan Genocide and the historic U.S. efforts to resettle refugee children.
BOSTON, MA — We are thrilled to share that RefugePoint has received a $6 million dollar grant from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. Her gift speaks to our track record of building creative, impactful programs that help at-risk refugees to find lasting solutions. These solutions include relocating refugees in perilous situations to safe countries, reuniting families, and supporting refugees to become self-reliant.
MacKenzie Scott’s catalytic gift is the first donation towards our new $65 million five-year strategic plan (2023-2027), which we are excited to share publicly early next year. The funds will be used over the next five years to help us achieve our ambitious goals to expand access to self-reliance opportunities and pathways to safety for thousands of at-risk refugees.
Over the past few years, MacKenzie Scott has been a leader in “trust-based philanthropy”—giving significant, transformational gifts to nonprofits without restrictions. On November 14, 2022, she announced donations of more than $1.9 billion to 343 organizations “supporting the voices and opportunities of people from underserved communities,” including a number of RefugePoint’s partners.
MacKenzie Scott’s support comes at a critical moment in history. More than 100 million people have been forced to flee their homes. Many refugees can’t return home for an average of 10-20 years. RefugePoint’s 2023-2027 strategic plan addresses this global need with innovative programs that center the leadership and voices of refugees themselves.
“The vast majority of funding in the refugee space is specific, restricted, and geared toward emergency response. MacKenzie Scott’s unrestricted donation will allow us to be nimble and partner with refugees to build programs that are responsive to their needs. This generous and momentous donation is the starting point for our new five-year $65M fundraising campaign. We are honored to receive this gift, which will enable us to continue to transform humanitarian response so that refugees can thrive,” Sasha Chanoff, RefugePoint’s CEO, shared.
RefugePoint advances lasting solutions for at-risk refugees and supports the humanitarian community to do the same. Since its founding in 2005, RefugePoint has helped more than 105,000 refugees to access resettlement, self-reliance, and other pathways to safety.
BOSTON, MA — We are thrilled to share that RefugePoint has received a $6 million dollar grant from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. Her gift speaks to our track record of building creative, impactful programs that help at-risk refugees to find lasting solutions. These solutions include relocating refugees in perilous situations to safe countries, reuniting families, and supporting refugees to become self-reliant.
MacKenzie Scott’s catalytic gift is the first donation towards our new $65 million five-year strategic plan (2023-2027), which we are excited to share publicly early next year. The funds will be used over the next five years to help us achieve our ambitious goals to expand access to self-reliance opportunities and pathways to safety for thousands of at-risk refugees.
Over the past few years, MacKenzie Scott has been a leader in “trust-based philanthropy”—giving significant, transformational gifts to nonprofits without restrictions. On November 14, 2022, she announced donations of more than $1.9 billion to 343 organizations “supporting the voices and opportunities of people from underserved communities,” including a number of RefugePoint’s partners.
MacKenzie Scott’s support comes at a critical moment in history. More than 100 million people have been forced to flee their homes. Many refugees can’t return home for an average of 10-20 years. RefugePoint’s 2023-2027 strategic plan addresses this global need with innovative programs that center the leadership and voices of refugees themselves.
“The vast majority of funding in the refugee space is specific, restricted, and geared toward emergency response. MacKenzie Scott’s unrestricted donation will allow us to be nimble and partner with refugees to build programs that are responsive to their needs. This generous and momentous donation is the starting point for our new five-year $65M fundraising campaign. We are honored to receive this gift, which will enable us to continue to transform humanitarian response so that refugees can thrive,” Sasha Chanoff, RefugePoint’s CEO, shared.
RefugePoint advances lasting solutions for at-risk refugees and supports the humanitarian community to do the same. Since its founding in 2005, RefugePoint has helped more than 105,000 refugees to access resettlement, self-reliance, and other pathways to safety.
Violent crises and ongoing persecution around the world have forced well over 100 million people to flee their homes. For refugees who cannot return home or reside safely in the country to which they have fled, resettlement is often the best long-term solution. Resettlement involves permanently relocating refugees to a safe country where they can rebuild their lives.
As the number of refugees grows, so too does the need for skilled caseworkers who can support refugees to access resettlement. This casework requires a special combination of technical training and experience working with refugees in countries of asylum. However, many motivated and talented individuals don’t have the specific training required to do this work, and there are limited opportunities to gain this experience.
In order to bridge this gap, in September RefugePoint launched the Pilot Traineeship Program as part of its collaboration with UNHCR to deploy experts in refugee resettlement around the world. This first-of-its-kind initiative provides the unique blend of technical skills and on-the-ground experience necessary to become a resettlement caseworker.
Our inaugural cohort of trainees is currently at RefugePoint’s Nairobi office, where they are undergoing three weeks of intensive training before traveling to UNHCR offices across Africa to gain additional casework experience. The intensive training sessions include a one-week classroom portion with technical and theoretical training from both RefugePoint and UNHCR and two weeks of guided field experience conducting interviews and processing resettlement casework.
These individuals have extensive professional experience in the sphere of migration/refugee issues. They have studied these topics, supported refugees and asylees in their home countries, and/or provided legal support at different stages of the resettlement/asylum process. Each of our Trainees developed an interest in translating their skills to working internationally with refugees, assisting them at an earlier stage of their pursuit of safety.
Working with refugees who are seeking resettlement requires both practical and theoretical knowledge about the refugee resettlement process from a different angle than they’ve worked in before. RefugePoint’s thorough three-week orientation gives our Trainees a chance to learn the specific processes and skills they need to work at a UNHCR Operation to interview refugees and submit applications for resettlement. It helps them bridge the gap between their wealth of previous experience and the unique demands of working as a Resettlement Expert.
The Pilot Traineeship Program will build the ecosystem of humanitarians working to support refugees. There is a wealth of passionate and experienced individuals who can provide a unique and diverse set of skills to the resettlement field.
Further, this program can be an opportunity to train people with lived displacement experience: people who have an intimate understanding of what it means to navigate the stressful process of fleeing everything they know and attempting to start again in safety. RefugePoint is committed to actively recruiting interested individuals who have lived experience.
We’re thrilled that the program will prepare a new wave of qualified resettlement professionals for the field as a whole, enabling our community to support more refugees to access resettlement as a lifesaving and long-term solution. By providing an entry point for interested and capable humanitarians willing to work on the frontlines of the global refugee crisis, the Pilot Traineeship Program gives RefugePoint the chance to fulfill a pillar of our mission: supporting the humanitarian community to advance lasting solutions for refugees.
Violent crises and ongoing persecution around the world have forced well over 100 million people to flee their homes. For refugees who cannot return home or reside safely in the country to which they have fled, resettlement is often the best long-term solution. Resettlement involves permanently relocating refugees to a safe country where they can rebuild their lives.
As the number of refugees grows, so too does the need for skilled caseworkers who can support refugees to access resettlement. This casework requires a special combination of technical training and experience working with refugees in countries of asylum. However, many motivated and talented individuals don’t have the specific training required to do this work, and there are limited opportunities to gain this experience.
In order to bridge this gap, in September RefugePoint launched the Pilot Traineeship Program as part of its collaboration with UNHCR to deploy experts in refugee resettlement around the world. This first-of-its-kind initiative provides the unique blend of technical skills and on-the-ground experience necessary to become a resettlement caseworker.
Our inaugural cohort of trainees is currently at RefugePoint’s Nairobi office, where they are undergoing three weeks of intensive training before traveling to UNHCR offices across Africa to gain additional casework experience. The intensive training sessions include a one-week classroom portion with technical and theoretical training from both RefugePoint and UNHCR and two weeks of guided field experience conducting interviews and processing resettlement casework.
These individuals have extensive professional experience in the sphere of migration/refugee issues. They have studied these topics, supported refugees and asylees in their home countries, and/or provided legal support at different stages of the resettlement/asylum process. Each of our Trainees developed an interest in translating their skills to working internationally with refugees, assisting them at an earlier stage of their pursuit of safety.
Working with refugees who are seeking resettlement requires both practical and theoretical knowledge about the refugee resettlement process from a different angle than they’ve worked in before. RefugePoint’s thorough three-week orientation gives our Trainees a chance to learn the specific processes and skills they need to work at a UNHCR Operation to interview refugees and submit applications for resettlement. It helps them bridge the gap between their wealth of previous experience and the unique demands of working as a Resettlement Expert.
The Pilot Traineeship Program will build the ecosystem of humanitarians working to support refugees. There is a wealth of passionate and experienced individuals who can provide a unique and diverse set of skills to the resettlement field.
Further, this program can be an opportunity to train people with lived displacement experience: people who have an intimate understanding of what it means to navigate the stressful process of fleeing everything they know and attempting to start again in safety. RefugePoint is committed to actively recruiting interested individuals who have lived experience.
We’re thrilled that the program will prepare a new wave of qualified resettlement professionals for the field as a whole, enabling our community to support more refugees to access resettlement as a lifesaving and long-term solution. By providing an entry point for interested and capable humanitarians willing to work on the frontlines of the global refugee crisis, the Pilot Traineeship Program gives RefugePoint the chance to fulfill a pillar of our mission: supporting the humanitarian community to advance lasting solutions for refugees.
Experts say the private sponsorship model could transform the way America resettles refugees and ensures the door stays open no matter who is elected.
Experts say the private sponsorship model could transform the way America resettles refugees and ensures the door stays open no matter who is elected.
After feeling something brush my thigh, I looked down to find a young boy’s big, brown eyes staring intently into mine. I could see his lips moving, and heard a jumble of words tumble out of his mouth, but my brain couldn’t make any sense of them, based on the few words of Kiswahili I know. Luckily, his father was standing next to him, and offered a translation, “He wants to know if you’re coming with us.”
We were standing at the only check-in counter in Nampula, Mozambique’s small, provincial airport. The young boy and his family were about to embark on what everyone hoped would be the last leg of a journey his parents started years before he was born. This journey began when they crossed Lake Tanganyika to escape the ongoing violence and unrest that forced them to flee their home in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The safety and security they sought in a refugee camp outside of Nampula, however, where the young boy and his siblings were all born, remained elusive. Their ongoing protection concerns led a U.S. immigration officer to approve the family’s case for resettlement. Today, they were on their way to the United States, where they hoped they’d finally find the safety and security they sought when fleeing DRC all those years ago. I was working as a Resettlement Expert at the UNHCR sub-office in Nampula at the time. One of my responsibilities–one of my favorites, to be honest–was to accompany departing families to the airport to ensure they got off okay.
After a brief chuckle, I knelt down so I could look the young boy in the eyes. Although airport departures were a favorite of mine, they were always emotional. It usually happened at check-in, when the reality of everything that led up to that point came to a head–this family was really leaving. Today was no different. There it was, like clockwork, a tsunami of emotion threatening to drown my composure. I managed to ward off the flood by swallowing hard, and forcing a smile. After asking the boy’s father to translate for me, I replied, “No sweetie, I wish I could go with you. But don’t worry, you’ll be okay. There’ll be other people to help you along the way.” After managing another forced smile, what I hoped was a reassuring nod, and a double-eye wink, I had barely finished my last sentence before I stood up abruptly and looked away, trying discreetly to wipe the tears from my eyes. I sent a silent prayer out into the universe at that moment, “Please, let them be okay. Please, keep them safe and let them end up in a place where they find good jobs, good schools, and good people. And, please, please, please just let them find people who are gonna be nice to them.”
An hour and a half or so later, together with the hundred or so refugees who had made the trip from the camp to see the family off, I stood there on the terminal’s back balcony, watching their plane ascend into the sky while repeating the same silent prayer, “….please, please, please, just let them find people who are gonna be nice to them.”
The truth is, however, that I didn’t know exactly what awaited this family in the United States. I knew there’d be at least a caseworker from their resettlement agency, and possibly some volunteers. But would the support be enough to ensure they knew where to buy cassava? Or, what to do when they were running late to pick up one of their kids from school? Or, how to advocate for themselves if they were stopped by a police officer? Although I’m an optimist and I always hope for the best, I worried about the reality they’d find in the United States. Would they be left to figure things out mostly on their own, with minimal assistance from a well-meaning but overstretched case manager, juggling the needs of too many families? I never knew for sure.
My only experience with a U.S. Resettlement Agency was limited to a short stint as a volunteer a handful of years earlier, while living in Vermont. Together with four others, our group was tasked with helping to support a family, who had recently resettled to the United States from a refugee camp in Kenya. Although I never met the family’s caseworker, we communicated by phone or by email to keep abreast of the family’s appointments, for which our group had committed to providing transportation, in addition to more general support.
Although we were all well-intentioned, our group of five quickly became a team of two, due to the greater flexibility of my own and another woman’s schedules. Between the two of us, we took turns taking the family to doctor’s appointments, the beach, to various social events, and to the grocery store. We encouraged them to wear boots, thick coats, socks, sweaters, and hats in the winter time, and warned them of the danger (to their bank account) of keeping their thermostat set to 80+ degrees, no matter how good it felt to walk around the house in short sleeves and bare feet. We cooked together, we helped them open bank accounts, get non-driver State IDs, we taught them how to write checks, and how to balance their checkbook. We helped them understand why it was necessary (and very normal in America) for both parents to work and contribute money to their family’s household expenses each month, instead of sending an entire paycheck to their relatives still living in the refugee camp. We introduced them to neighbors, spoke with their landlord when a few minor issues arose, and I’d like to think we helped both the family and the members of their community to understand each other better. Although we were “only” volunteers, I believe we played a critical role in helping the family to integrate into their new community and adjust to life in America.
Because of these experiences, my personal excitement meter registered “off the charts” when I heard that after nearly 30 years since the Clinton Administration allowed Reagan’s Private Sector Initiative (PSI) to expire–the only official, government-sanctioned private sponsorship program in the United States since Congress passed the Refugee Act in 1980–the U.S. was not only contemplating private sponsorship again, it was actively planning to launch a pilot in 2022.
Although resettlement is a responsibility shared by nearly 30 countries throughout the world, the United States has always led the world in refugee admissions–by a very wide margin–through the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). That is, until the Trump Administration’s budget cuts forced the dismantling of much of the program’s infrastructure. As a result, between 2016 and 2021, the U.S. went from accepting nearly 85,000 refugees a year to an all-time low of just over 11,000. To be fair, the pandemic also played a role in reduced refugee admissions, which affected resettlement countries throughout the world. During that same period, Canadian admissions fell from around 45,000 to just over 5,000 refugees annually. With more than 80 million displaced people throughout the world, less than 1% of those in need are able to access resettlement in any given year. The loss of so many resettlement opportunities reverberated throughout the world and neither a single country, nor the world collectively, was able to make up for the international community’s reduced capacity to respond to the ongoing crisis.
A young Afghan evacuee tries on a pair of new winter boots at Fort McCoy. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Benjamin John, 302d Maneuver Enhancement Brigade PAO NCOIC.
By late August of 2021, still recovering, the USRAP was hit with the sudden and unexpected arrival of tens of thousands of Afghans via US evacuation flights after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. With the USRAP struggling to absorb the overwhelming influx, the U.S. Government needed alternative solutions to create additional capacity.
The Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans (SCP) is one of these solutions. Launched as an emergency response initiative to add capacity to the USRAP’s overstretched resettlement system, the State Department officially announced the new program on October 25th, 2021, establishing one of the most significant innovations in refugee resettlement in recent US history. Led by the Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) and Community Sponsorship Hub (CSH), the Sponsor Circle Program brings together the collaborative expertise of a coalition of partners, which includes RefugePoint, among others.
While the program was originally designed to support Afghans, the Sponsor Circle Program has recently opened for American citizens to welcome Ukrainians, due to its success in supporting Afghan newcomers. With the Biden Administration’s commitment to welcoming up to 100,000 displaced Ukrainians through Uniting for Ukraine, the Sponsor Circle Program offers Americans interested in sponsorship the guidance, support, and other resources they need.
In the past eight months, RefugePoint’s Sponsorship Team has supported the resettlement of nearly 600 Afghans from four different Safe Havens into communities of welcome and support in nearly 30 states throughout the country. Vetted and certified volunteer groups of at least five individuals, called Sponsor Circles, support these families for a minimum of 90 days as they adjust to their new homes and lives in the United States. In effect, they serve as a mini “private” resettlement agency, taking on the responsibility of providing all the same services and support that a resettlement agency would. The program model is based on Canada’s successful “Group of Five” Private Sponsorship of Refugees (PSR) Program, the most well-known and oft-cited private sponsorship program in the world–it’s been welcoming refugees since the late 1970s. In recent years, particularly following the refugee crisis in Syria, even more countries have adopted private sponsorship programs to welcome refugees, including Germany, Australia, the UK, Spain, Italy, and Argentina. Even Canada implemented an additional private sponsorship program, as well.
One of the main benefits of private sponsorship is that it operates outside of the traditional resettlement system, which is governed by the politics (and budget approval) of whichever administration holds power. Until the United States is able to rebuild its resettlement infrastructure, assuming the Biden Administration is able to uphold its commitment to support its expansion, private sponsorship will help provide additional opportunities to the millions of refugees for whom resettlement remains the only viable durable solution. Plus, because it’s privately funded, there’s little risk of losing the added capacity to future administrations, which may not support resettlement. Launching a private sponsorship program now will guarantee the United States is able to continue to ensure that refugees are able to access safety and security, so they can rebuild their lives, and become productive, contributing members of society again. Plus, the USA can take the lessons learned from the Sponsor Circle Program and apply them to the policy and practical considerations needed to create a strong, viable, robust private sponsorship program that will benefit not only refugees, but also the American people, and the USRAP.
Of course, the success of any private sponsorship program is heavily dependent upon the willingness of everyday Americans to step up and serve as sponsors. By tapping into the vast human resources we have in the United States, as well as the goodwill and generosity of the American people, the United States can establish itself as a leader in both traditional resettlement and private sponsorship.
On a personal note, I’ve had the honor of speaking with a few members of Sponsor Circles, which have supported several of the Afghan families RefugePoint helped resettle. While no one can guarantee the type of experience someone will have, I was blown away by the openness, pureness of heart, generosity, and simple desire to help that I witnessed. I also appreciate the certainty of knowing that we’ve placed people into a situation that gives them the best chance of receiving the support they need to succeed. We’ve all heard the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Cliche as it may be, I think that idea also applies to helping someone adjust to life in a new country and culture. Although I’m not sure I’ll ever know what happened to that little boy and his family, I’ll always hope they ended up finding a community of people to support them who are as kind, generous, and welcoming as I know many of the folks who come together to form Sponsor Circles are.
After feeling something brush my thigh, I looked down to find a young boy’s big, brown eyes staring intently into mine. I could see his lips moving, and heard a jumble of words tumble out of his mouth, but my brain couldn’t make any sense of them, based on the few words of Kiswahili I know. Luckily, his father was standing next to him, and offered a translation, “He wants to know if you’re coming with us.”
We were standing at the only check-in counter in Nampula, Mozambique’s small, provincial airport. The young boy and his family were about to embark on what everyone hoped would be the last leg of a journey his parents started years before he was born. This journey began when they crossed Lake Tanganyika to escape the ongoing violence and unrest that forced them to flee their home in the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The safety and security they sought in a refugee camp outside of Nampula, however, where the young boy and his siblings were all born, remained elusive. Their ongoing protection concerns led a U.S. immigration officer to approve the family’s case for resettlement. Today, they were on their way to the United States, where they hoped they’d finally find the safety and security they sought when fleeing DRC all those years ago. I was working as a Resettlement Expert at the UNHCR sub-office in Nampula at the time. One of my responsibilities–one of my favorites, to be honest–was to accompany departing families to the airport to ensure they got off okay.
After a brief chuckle, I knelt down so I could look the young boy in the eyes. Although airport departures were a favorite of mine, they were always emotional. It usually happened at check-in, when the reality of everything that led up to that point came to a head–this family was really leaving. Today was no different. There it was, like clockwork, a tsunami of emotion threatening to drown my composure. I managed to ward off the flood by swallowing hard, and forcing a smile. After asking the boy’s father to translate for me, I replied, “No sweetie, I wish I could go with you. But don’t worry, you’ll be okay. There’ll be other people to help you along the way.” After managing another forced smile, what I hoped was a reassuring nod, and a double-eye wink, I had barely finished my last sentence before I stood up abruptly and looked away, trying discreetly to wipe the tears from my eyes. I sent a silent prayer out into the universe at that moment, “Please, let them be okay. Please, keep them safe and let them end up in a place where they find good jobs, good schools, and good people. And, please, please, please just let them find people who are gonna be nice to them.”
An hour and a half or so later, together with the hundred or so refugees who had made the trip from the camp to see the family off, I stood there on the terminal’s back balcony, watching their plane ascend into the sky while repeating the same silent prayer, “….please, please, please, just let them find people who are gonna be nice to them.”
The truth is, however, that I didn’t know exactly what awaited this family in the United States. I knew there’d be at least a caseworker from their resettlement agency, and possibly some volunteers. But would the support be enough to ensure they knew where to buy cassava? Or, what to do when they were running late to pick up one of their kids from school? Or, how to advocate for themselves if they were stopped by a police officer? Although I’m an optimist and I always hope for the best, I worried about the reality they’d find in the United States. Would they be left to figure things out mostly on their own, with minimal assistance from a well-meaning but overstretched case manager, juggling the needs of too many families? I never knew for sure.
My only experience with a U.S. Resettlement Agency was limited to a short stint as a volunteer a handful of years earlier, while living in Vermont. Together with four others, our group was tasked with helping to support a family, who had recently resettled to the United States from a refugee camp in Kenya. Although I never met the family’s caseworker, we communicated by phone or by email to keep abreast of the family’s appointments, for which our group had committed to providing transportation, in addition to more general support.
Although we were all well-intentioned, our group of five quickly became a team of two, due to the greater flexibility of my own and another woman’s schedules. Between the two of us, we took turns taking the family to doctor’s appointments, the beach, to various social events, and to the grocery store. We encouraged them to wear boots, thick coats, socks, sweaters, and hats in the winter time, and warned them of the danger (to their bank account) of keeping their thermostat set to 80+ degrees, no matter how good it felt to walk around the house in short sleeves and bare feet. We cooked together, we helped them open bank accounts, get non-driver State IDs, we taught them how to write checks, and how to balance their checkbook. We helped them understand why it was necessary (and very normal in America) for both parents to work and contribute money to their family’s household expenses each month, instead of sending an entire paycheck to their relatives still living in the refugee camp. We introduced them to neighbors, spoke with their landlord when a few minor issues arose, and I’d like to think we helped both the family and the members of their community to understand each other better. Although we were “only” volunteers, I believe we played a critical role in helping the family to integrate into their new community and adjust to life in America.
Because of these experiences, my personal excitement meter registered “off the charts” when I heard that after nearly 30 years since the Clinton Administration allowed Reagan’s Private Sector Initiative (PSI) to expire–the only official, government-sanctioned private sponsorship program in the United States since Congress passed the Refugee Act in 1980–the U.S. was not only contemplating private sponsorship again, it was actively planning to launch a pilot in 2022.
Although resettlement is a responsibility shared by nearly 30 countries throughout the world, the United States has always led the world in refugee admissions–by a very wide margin–through the United States Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP). That is, until the Trump Administration’s budget cuts forced the dismantling of much of the program’s infrastructure. As a result, between 2016 and 2021, the U.S. went from accepting nearly 85,000 refugees a year to an all-time low of just over 11,000. To be fair, the pandemic also played a role in reduced refugee admissions, which affected resettlement countries throughout the world. During that same period, Canadian admissions fell from around 45,000 to just over 5,000 refugees annually. With more than 80 million displaced people throughout the world, less than 1% of those in need are able to access resettlement in any given year. The loss of so many resettlement opportunities reverberated throughout the world and neither a single country, nor the world collectively, was able to make up for the international community’s reduced capacity to respond to the ongoing crisis.
A young Afghan evacuee tries on a pair of new winter boots at Fort McCoy. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Benjamin John, 302d Maneuver Enhancement Brigade PAO NCOIC.
By late August of 2021, still recovering, the USRAP was hit with the sudden and unexpected arrival of tens of thousands of Afghans via US evacuation flights after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. With the USRAP struggling to absorb the overwhelming influx, the U.S. Government needed alternative solutions to create additional capacity.
The Sponsor Circle Program for Afghans (SCP) is one of these solutions. Launched as an emergency response initiative to add capacity to the USRAP’s overstretched resettlement system, the State Department officially announced the new program on October 25th, 2021, establishing one of the most significant innovations in refugee resettlement in recent US history. Led by the Department of State’s Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM) and Community Sponsorship Hub (CSH), the Sponsor Circle Program brings together the collaborative expertise of a coalition of partners, which includes RefugePoint, among others.
While the program was originally designed to support Afghans, the Sponsor Circle Program has recently opened for American citizens to welcome Ukrainians, due to its success in supporting Afghan newcomers. With the Biden Administration’s commitment to welcoming up to 100,000 displaced Ukrainians through Uniting for Ukraine, the Sponsor Circle Program offers Americans interested in sponsorship the guidance, support, and other resources they need.
In the past eight months, RefugePoint’s Sponsorship Team has supported the resettlement of nearly 600 Afghans from four different Safe Havens into communities of welcome and support in nearly 30 states throughout the country. Vetted and certified volunteer groups of at least five individuals, called Sponsor Circles, support these families for a minimum of 90 days as they adjust to their new homes and lives in the United States. In effect, they serve as a mini “private” resettlement agency, taking on the responsibility of providing all the same services and support that a resettlement agency would. The program model is based on Canada’s successful “Group of Five” Private Sponsorship of Refugees (PSR) Program, the most well-known and oft-cited private sponsorship program in the world–it’s been welcoming refugees since the late 1970s. In recent years, particularly following the refugee crisis in Syria, even more countries have adopted private sponsorship programs to welcome refugees, including Germany, Australia, the UK, Spain, Italy, and Argentina. Even Canada implemented an additional private sponsorship program, as well.
One of the main benefits of private sponsorship is that it operates outside of the traditional resettlement system, which is governed by the politics (and budget approval) of whichever administration holds power. Until the United States is able to rebuild its resettlement infrastructure, assuming the Biden Administration is able to uphold its commitment to support its expansion, private sponsorship will help provide additional opportunities to the millions of refugees for whom resettlement remains the only viable durable solution. Plus, because it’s privately funded, there’s little risk of losing the added capacity to future administrations, which may not support resettlement. Launching a private sponsorship program now will guarantee the United States is able to continue to ensure that refugees are able to access safety and security, so they can rebuild their lives, and become productive, contributing members of society again. Plus, the USA can take the lessons learned from the Sponsor Circle Program and apply them to the policy and practical considerations needed to create a strong, viable, robust private sponsorship program that will benefit not only refugees, but also the American people, and the USRAP.
Of course, the success of any private sponsorship program is heavily dependent upon the willingness of everyday Americans to step up and serve as sponsors. By tapping into the vast human resources we have in the United States, as well as the goodwill and generosity of the American people, the United States can establish itself as a leader in both traditional resettlement and private sponsorship.
On a personal note, I’ve had the honor of speaking with a few members of Sponsor Circles, which have supported several of the Afghan families RefugePoint helped resettle. While no one can guarantee the type of experience someone will have, I was blown away by the openness, pureness of heart, generosity, and simple desire to help that I witnessed. I also appreciate the certainty of knowing that we’ve placed people into a situation that gives them the best chance of receiving the support they need to succeed. We’ve all heard the saying, “It takes a village to raise a child.” Cliche as it may be, I think that idea also applies to helping someone adjust to life in a new country and culture. Although I’m not sure I’ll ever know what happened to that little boy and his family, I’ll always hope they ended up finding a community of people to support them who are as kind, generous, and welcoming as I know many of the folks who come together to form Sponsor Circles are.
Many American charities that work to help immigrants and refugees have learned the importance of raising money the hard way.
Many American charities that work to help immigrants and refugees have learned the importance of raising money the hard way.
In May I attended the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland at the invitation of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. The foundation is the sister organization to the WEF and was co-founded by Hilde Schwab and Professor Klaus Schwab. In 2018 we received an award for social entrepreneurship from the foundation, inducting us into a vibrant global community of changemakers.
I felt fortunate to be navigating the sea of Davos on the raft of the Schwab Foundation. From among 2,000 official participants, we were a cohort of 50 social entrepreneurs from around the world working on a variety of sustainable development issues, including poverty, food security, healthcare, education, racial and gender equality, climate change, governance, etc. Refugee issues, of course, cut across all of these areas and were implicitly on the agenda at Davos in its hundreds of official sessions, if explicitly the focus of relatively few. Refugee outflows are often the result of failures in these other areas so, from the vantage point of our sector, I think of development as prevention. Prevention of displacement. If our fellow social entrepreneurs and their sector colleagues succeed in their work on equitable development, peace and security, there will be less need to address the fall-out of failed states, violent conflict, and persecution of minorities – less need for our work in the refugee sector.
Unfortunately, there is no shortage of work for us and, during the meeting in Davos, UNHCR issued a statement that forcible displacement has now affected over 100 million people globally, or 1 in every 78 people on the planet. Not surprisingly, the conflict in Ukraine featured prominently in nearly all plenary and breakout sessions. Its compelling humanitarian needs, geopolitical importance for international peace and security, and its critical role in the global food supply cannot be overstated. As we are already seeing in places such as South Sudan and Somalia, tens of millions of people in the global south now face critical food shortages due to skyrocketing food and fuel prices resulting from the war in Ukraine and Russia’s blockade of exports.
With over 6 million refugees from Ukraine having so recently and precipitously crossed into neighboring countries, many moving onward throughout Europe and beyond, it felt difficult to find space at Davos to consider the plight of the 27 million non-European refugees that have largely not found welcoming reception and are stranded long-term without solutions. These are refugees from places such as Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic, Eritrea, etc., as well as nearly 5 million Venezuelans displaced abroad. Contrary to perceptions in the west, the vast majority of these refugees remain in their own regions, with 83% hosted by low and middle-income countries. And the crisis in Ukraine has caused many donor governments to divert already scarce humanitarian aid funding from some of the worst-hit areas in Africa, further exacerbating those crises and inequities.
RefugePoint’s Senior Advisor, Amy Slaughter (third from left) spoke on a panel about racial disparities in refugee treatment at the World Economic Forum in May 2022.
As a representative of RefugePoint, whose origins and programmatic emphasis are in Africa, this topic hits close to home. I was invited to speak on a timely panel titled “Racial Disparities in Refugee Treatment,” intended to interrogate the disproportionate attention, resources, and even empathy that have been accorded Ukrainian refugees as compared to other populations. A portion of the discussion did just that. Diana Daiub, of both Ukrainian and Syrian origin, highlighted the disparate treatment her relatives of both wars received when they became refugees. Alejandro René Daly Rivero shared that one-fifth of Venezuelans are forcibly displaced abroad and that aid organizations have only been able to raise a tiny fraction of the funds needed to respond to the crisis. Christophe Catoir, the president of Adecco staffing agency in Switzerland, shared success stories in hiring refugees of diverse origins. He cited how illuminating it was, for instance, for employees to welcome a Congolese refugee onto their team, increasing their awareness and empathy for those fleeing under-reported conflicts and neglected crises. Fellow Schwab awardee Sakena Yacoobi reminded us that not long before the Ukraine crisis was the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, which forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, adding to the already large and protracted Afghan refugee population of 2.6 million, whose plight is now overshadowed by that of Ukrainian refugees. I highlighted the worrying global trend of policies that increasingly prevent Black and brown refugees from seeking asylum (citing examples from the US, EU, UK and Australia), while creating rapid and generous new policies and reception capacity for Ukrainian asylum-seekers. I referred to the west’s response to Ukrainian refugees as a new highwater mark of refugee response – one that we should endeavor to reach for all refugees in need, building on the innovation and empathy that has surged in recent months.
But it was perhaps inevitable, given the moment, location, and composition of the panel, that it proved difficult to move much beyond the immediate issue facing Europe – quickly absorbing large numbers of Ukrainian refugees. And in that way, I fear our discussion may have inadvertently displayed the phenomenon that we sought to interrogate.
We must soon, however, find space to truly examine what can be done to eliminate disparities in treatment and explore how the response to Ukrainians can be leveraged for the benefit of others with similar or greater need for international protection. Over 23,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean since 2014 trying to make it to safety. Thousands more asylum-seekers are detained in horrific conditions in Libya after enduring unspeakable physical abuse by traffickers and smugglers upon fleeing violent persecution in their home countries, such as Sudan, Syria, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. There are countless examples from across the globe of non-white refugees being prevented from reaching a border to request asylum or being summarily expelled.
States must honor their commitments under international law to allow people to gain a fair asylum hearing rather than being blocked by externalization of borders. The EU has still not agreed on responsibility-sharing policies and mechanisms among member states. That process should be accelerated. Refugee leadership must be centered in all policy conversations. Scaling solutions for refugees will require more ‘informed choice’ and agency over their future options and less gatekeeping by international agencies.
I came to Davos to share some of these recommendations. And finally, echoing the overarching theme of WEF’s 2022 annual meeting, “History at a Turning Point,” I wanted to call on us all not to miss this rare opportunity to rethink and reshape the global refugee response system. Out of crisis comes innovation and we are witnessing just how innovative, generous and nimble our governments can be when they want to. We should ensure this trend continues and expands to benefit refugees equally, without regard to race, religion, national origin, and other protected categories.
Our panel took place on the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and shortly after the hate crime in Buffalo, NY, which took the lives of 10 Black people in a supermarket. The shooter in Buffalo espoused “replacement theory,” a white supremacist conspiracy theory that purports there is a deliberate policy agenda to replace white populations with Black and brown populations. This dangerous belief and variations on it have been manipulated by populist politicians across the globe and have eroded public support for admitting refugees and asylum-seekers of color. As I said during the panel, we need to name this what it is. Policies that seek to bar asylum-seekers from reaching our borders or to entangle them in endless bureaucracy are racist and anti-Islamic policies that emerge from a history of global white supremacy. We see exceptions made for white refugees time and again.
Cover: RefugePoint’s Senior Advisor, Amy Slaughter (third from left) spoke on a panel about racial disparities in refugee treatment at the World Economic Forum in May 2022.
In May I attended the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland at the invitation of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. The foundation is the sister organization to the WEF and was co-founded by Hilde Schwab and Professor Klaus Schwab. In 2018 we received an award for social entrepreneurship from the foundation, inducting us into a vibrant global community of changemakers.
I felt fortunate to be navigating the sea of Davos on the raft of the Schwab Foundation. From among 2,000 official participants, we were a cohort of 50 social entrepreneurs from around the world working on a variety of sustainable development issues, including poverty, food security, healthcare, education, racial and gender equality, climate change, governance, etc. Refugee issues, of course, cut across all of these areas and were implicitly on the agenda at Davos in its hundreds of official sessions, if explicitly the focus of relatively few. Refugee outflows are often the result of failures in these other areas so, from the vantage point of our sector, I think of development as prevention. Prevention of displacement. If our fellow social entrepreneurs and their sector colleagues succeed in their work on equitable development, peace and security, there will be less need to address the fall-out of failed states, violent conflict, and persecution of minorities – less need for our work in the refugee sector.
Unfortunately, there is no shortage of work for us and, during the meeting in Davos, UNHCR issued a statement that forcible displacement has now affected over 100 million people globally, or 1 in every 78 people on the planet. Not surprisingly, the conflict in Ukraine featured prominently in nearly all plenary and breakout sessions. Its compelling humanitarian needs, geopolitical importance for international peace and security, and its critical role in the global food supply cannot be overstated. As we are already seeing in places such as South Sudan and Somalia, tens of millions of people in the global south now face critical food shortages due to skyrocketing food and fuel prices resulting from the war in Ukraine and Russia’s blockade of exports.
With over 6 million refugees from Ukraine having so recently and precipitously crossed into neighboring countries, many moving onward throughout Europe and beyond, it felt difficult to find space at Davos to consider the plight of the 27 million non-European refugees that have largely not found welcoming reception and are stranded long-term without solutions. These are refugees from places such as Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan, Myanmar, Congo, Sudan, Somalia, Central African Republic, Eritrea, etc., as well as nearly 5 million Venezuelans displaced abroad. Contrary to perceptions in the west, the vast majority of these refugees remain in their own regions, with 83% hosted by low and middle-income countries. And the crisis in Ukraine has caused many donor governments to divert already scarce humanitarian aid funding from some of the worst-hit areas in Africa, further exacerbating those crises and inequities.
RefugePoint’s Senior Advisor, Amy Slaughter (third from left) spoke on a panel about racial disparities in refugee treatment at the World Economic Forum in May 2022.
As a representative of RefugePoint, whose origins and programmatic emphasis are in Africa, this topic hits close to home. I was invited to speak on a timely panel titled “Racial Disparities in Refugee Treatment,” intended to interrogate the disproportionate attention, resources, and even empathy that have been accorded Ukrainian refugees as compared to other populations. A portion of the discussion did just that. Diana Daiub, of both Ukrainian and Syrian origin, highlighted the disparate treatment her relatives of both wars received when they became refugees. Alejandro René Daly Rivero shared that one-fifth of Venezuelans are forcibly displaced abroad and that aid organizations have only been able to raise a tiny fraction of the funds needed to respond to the crisis. Christophe Catoir, the president of Adecco staffing agency in Switzerland, shared success stories in hiring refugees of diverse origins. He cited how illuminating it was, for instance, for employees to welcome a Congolese refugee onto their team, increasing their awareness and empathy for those fleeing under-reported conflicts and neglected crises. Fellow Schwab awardee Sakena Yacoobi reminded us that not long before the Ukraine crisis was the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, which forced hundreds of thousands of people from their homes, adding to the already large and protracted Afghan refugee population of 2.6 million, whose plight is now overshadowed by that of Ukrainian refugees. I highlighted the worrying global trend of policies that increasingly prevent Black and brown refugees from seeking asylum (citing examples from the US, EU, UK and Australia), while creating rapid and generous new policies and reception capacity for Ukrainian asylum-seekers. I referred to the west’s response to Ukrainian refugees as a new highwater mark of refugee response – one that we should endeavor to reach for all refugees in need, building on the innovation and empathy that has surged in recent months.
But it was perhaps inevitable, given the moment, location, and composition of the panel, that it proved difficult to move much beyond the immediate issue facing Europe – quickly absorbing large numbers of Ukrainian refugees. And in that way, I fear our discussion may have inadvertently displayed the phenomenon that we sought to interrogate.
We must soon, however, find space to truly examine what can be done to eliminate disparities in treatment and explore how the response to Ukrainians can be leveraged for the benefit of others with similar or greater need for international protection. Over 23,000 people have drowned in the Mediterranean since 2014 trying to make it to safety. Thousands more asylum-seekers are detained in horrific conditions in Libya after enduring unspeakable physical abuse by traffickers and smugglers upon fleeing violent persecution in their home countries, such as Sudan, Syria, Ethiopia, and Eritrea. There are countless examples from across the globe of non-white refugees being prevented from reaching a border to request asylum or being summarily expelled.
States must honor their commitments under international law to allow people to gain a fair asylum hearing rather than being blocked by externalization of borders. The EU has still not agreed on responsibility-sharing policies and mechanisms among member states. That process should be accelerated. Refugee leadership must be centered in all policy conversations. Scaling solutions for refugees will require more ‘informed choice’ and agency over their future options and less gatekeeping by international agencies.
I came to Davos to share some of these recommendations. And finally, echoing the overarching theme of WEF’s 2022 annual meeting, “History at a Turning Point,” I wanted to call on us all not to miss this rare opportunity to rethink and reshape the global refugee response system. Out of crisis comes innovation and we are witnessing just how innovative, generous and nimble our governments can be when they want to. We should ensure this trend continues and expands to benefit refugees equally, without regard to race, religion, national origin, and other protected categories.
Our panel took place on the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police and shortly after the hate crime in Buffalo, NY, which took the lives of 10 Black people in a supermarket. The shooter in Buffalo espoused “replacement theory,” a white supremacist conspiracy theory that purports there is a deliberate policy agenda to replace white populations with Black and brown populations. This dangerous belief and variations on it have been manipulated by populist politicians across the globe and have eroded public support for admitting refugees and asylum-seekers of color. As I said during the panel, we need to name this what it is. Policies that seek to bar asylum-seekers from reaching our borders or to entangle them in endless bureaucracy are racist and anti-Islamic policies that emerge from a history of global white supremacy. We see exceptions made for white refugees time and again.
Cover: RefugePoint’s Senior Advisor, Amy Slaughter (third from left) spoke on a panel about racial disparities in refugee treatment at the World Economic Forum in May 2022.
In 2021, RefugePoint launched a three-year strategy. In it, we highlight the importance of reimagining what refugee response looks like in partnership with refugees themselves, and driving large-scale systemic change to support lasting solutions.
As we arrive at the midway point, I’ve reflected on the progress we’ve made and where we’re headed as an organization. I’m sharing these thoughts here.
Our work is focused on a single outcome: helping refugees find a solution that enables them to thrive and lead dignified lives. We do this in two ways. The first is to help refugees stabilize, earn income, and integrate in the countries to which they have fled so they can meet their own essential needs—we refer to this as self-reliance. The second is to help refugees who can’t remain safely where they are to permanently relocate to a new country to rebuild their lives. We do this through resettlement and other pathways to safety, such as family reunification and labor mobility.
We use a distinctive approach. We develop innovative programs, demonstrate that they work, and scale them. We call this our AIDE framework through which we drive large-scale change:
RefugePoint’s programs are built on our core work around resettlement and self-reliance. Our resettlement efforts have opened up opportunities to build other relocation program pathways through family reunion, labor mobility, and other humanitarian channels. Our flagship program for self-reliance, the Urban Refugee Protection Program in Nairobi, Kenya, has opened up opportunities to partner with others to build the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative in order to promote self-reliance on a global scale.
At the halfway point of our three-year strategy, there are two overarching points that we’ve learned:
The world is now at a highwater mark of forced displacement with over 100 million people who have fled from home, including over 30 million refugees. The current willingness of governments to bring in refugees underscores the importance of our focus on expanding resettlement and other pathways, and the urgency of doing so as quickly as possible. The current US and Canadian administrations, among others, have focused on bringing in more refugees, and creating new pathways to do so. But, political winds and administrations shift. The next changes could lead to a more hostile orientation toward refugees. We need to take advantage of this unique window.
Our strategic objectives include expanding the reach of the traditionally limited scope of resettlement. Many refugees fleeing life-threatening situations find themselves in countries where there is little or no access to resettlement. We are working to rectify that so refugees have access no matter to which country they’ve fled. This can increase the number of refugees identified for resettlement so governments can fill and expand their quotas. It also protects people from risking onward journeys. (In too many places, resettlement isn’t available, and refugees are subjected to what’s considered a “pull factor”— risking dangerous journeys to get to a location from where resettlement is taking place.)
We think of expanding resettlement possibilities as equitable access to resettlement. A primary mechanism for this envisioned expansion is to deploy our own staff to locations across Africa, the Middle East, and other countries that fit our strategic objectives, and train and support other organizations to identify refugees for resettlement. To complement this operational expansion, we authored a now-widely-cited report, Preserving the Humanitarian Nature of Resettlement, to highlight the importance of equitable access to resettlement.
Our strategy also includes building new resettlement-related programs that are distinctly suited to our values and capabilities. In the past few years we’ve built labor mobility and family reunion programs. We aim to embed these programs into the international humanitarian response system so they can scale widely.
Our 2021 Annual Report highlights our accomplishments from the first year of our strategic plan. Some of the resettlement and other pathways highlights include:
The Ukraine crisis, just like so many others before it, has highlighted the importance of enabling refugees to become self-reliant. The vast majority of refugees are stuck for one or two decades outside of their home country. Emergency humanitarian aid – tents, food, and other basic support – for that length of time does not provide a path forward. Refugees, as they say themselves, need to find a way to stand on their own two feet and build self-sufficient lives. The former UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, emphasized this point saying that “Millions are trapped in dependency on short-term aid that keeps them alive, but falls short of ensuring their safety, dignity, and ability to thrive and be self-reliant over the long-term.” Self-Reliance is one of the four pillars of the UN’s Global Compact on Refugees, which is rooted in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Before self-reliance was a global objective, RefugePoint was building a flagship program to advance this goal for refugees in Nairobi, Kenya, thanks to our private funding and our partnership with refugees themselves, which has guided our vision.
Our strategic objectives include pioneering self-reliance programming and measurement through our Urban Refugee Protection Program in Nairobi. We’ve found that the impact and learning from this program can play a pivotal role in defining better strategies for the field more broadly. We are also partnering with refugees and their communities so that their voices, needs, and aspirations are the guideposts for our programs.
Since 2021, we have convened and provided funding and technical guidance to a cohort of refugee-led organizations (RLOs) in Kenya. A leader from one of the RLOs, Youth Voices Community Organization, said that “RefugePoint is in the forefront to support and engage refugee-led organizations as service partners and not just beneficiaries or mobilizers.”
The Urban Refugee Protection Program we’ve built, which we view as a place where best practices are codified so we can influence and train others, was part of the inspiration for the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative (RSRI). The RSRI, which was built in partnership with the Women’s Refugee Commission, is a global multi-stakeholder collaborative effort that aims to transform the humanitarian response paradigm toward self-reliance opportunities for refugees as opposed to emergency aid. This effort is now underway and has 34 partners in 23 countries reaching 150,000 people with self-reliance programming. Our strategic goal is a paradigm shift from emergency aid toward self-reliance programming.
Here are some of the highlights from 2021:
In 2021, we deepened our direct engagement and support to community based organizations (CBOs) serving refugees in Nairobi, Kenya. Recognizing the critical role that these organizations play as first responders in the community, we listened to, supported, and partnered with a group of CBOs, many of which are refugee-led organizations (RLOs).
Now that we are halfway through our 2021-2023 strategy, and have new accomplishments in hand that underpin future action, we are starting to turn our attention to the near future. What should the refugee response landscape look like by 2027? How do we best bring our distinctive approach and perspective to making our vision a reality?
By 2027, the responses to refugee crises must be substantially different from today. There are fundamental shifts underway that will reshape humanitarian action. These shifts include moving toward a refugee-centered approach and ensuring that refugees are decision-makers, leaders, and guides in the programs that impact their lives. In addition, we must use this moment of crisis to build new resettlement and other pathway programs that will last into the distant future. There are also urgent needs to transform humanitarian response toward self-reliance models. A common thread among all these efforts is that they are centered around the values of dignity and safety.
Some key areas of focus for the near future to help bring about these essential changes include:
Here’s a brief look at the essential needs, opportunities, and future potential for these programs.
Family Reunion Pilot Project. In the next five years, we aspire to mainstream our family reunion program so that it expands beyond our initial pilot countries of Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Chad, and is available to refugees across the world. RefugePoint plays a unique role in this new program, launched in collaboration with UNHCR and the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), identifying unaccompanied children in a number of countries spanning Sub-Saharan and North Africa and working closely with them to ensure the reunion process with relatives in EU and other countries. The most recent estimates we have are that for every individual resettled, at least two could access family reunion.
Family unity – especially children with their parents — is a basic human right. So family reunion is a rights-based solution, benefitting from preexisting immigration legislation in most countries and protecting it from the political fluctuations that resettlement is subject to. If we can effectively build this pathway, it will be available for refugees even if resettlement is reduced, as it was during the previous US administration, or stopped. If family reunion opportunities are not available, children and others often resort to traffickers and embark on dangerous and often even deadly journeys. Despite the compelling need for family reunion, for a variety of reasons, many unaccompanied children and others could not access family reunion opportunities before the pilot program.
Economic Mobility Pathways Project (EMPP). In the past year, RefugePoint’s EMPP project saw the first arrivals in Canada. Our discussions with the Canadian Minister of Immigration and other partners have illuminated the significant political will behind this program, and the dramatic opportunity available to match refugee skills with employment needs that can only be filled through immigration. One leading employer who is bringing in dozens of additional RefugePoint candidates said that he hopes dozens will quickly become hundreds and then thousands. RefugePoint built this program in collaboration with the Canadian government and other partners. Beyond the foundational nature of our work – RefugePoint and Talent Beyond Boundaries, a leader in this space, are the two non-profit organizations building this pathway – we have brought our distinct refugee protection lens to this work to ensure that family unity and other essential protection elements are built into the DNA of labor mobility opportunities. We are also partnering with the first recipients of this program to ensure their voices and insights guide future action and growth. With other governments starting or considering labor mobility, this is a solution with vast potential.
In its strategy on resettlement and complementary pathways, the UN Refugee Agency estimates that over a decade from 2019 to 2028, three million refugees will access relocation programs— one million through resettlement and two million through other pathways. Family reunion and labor mobility are the two other largest opportunities. RefugePoint’s work is a key to unlocking these opportunities.
Confronting the Unknown: New crises will emerge that are currently unforeseen. There will undoubtedly be a need for urgent action to find solutions. As an organization that has been called on to engage in new emergency efforts due to our strategic position as a thought leader, innovator, and front-line identifier of refugees for resettlement and other pathways, we recognize the need to have resources ready to respond to emerging needs. Ideally, we would have an emergency response team ready to deploy. Times in the past when we’ve been able to manage but could have done more with such a team include our work to reunite unaccompanied Yazidi children who had escaped ISIS captivity with their parents in Canada, and our efforts to help launch, in collaboration with the UN Refugee Agency, an emergency resettlement effort for unaccompanied minors and other refugees in Libya and resettle them to EU countries.
Self-reliance: Arguably the most fundamental shift in humanitarian action, and the one that will impact the greatest number of people, is the increased momentum around self-reliance programming. By 2027, the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative aims to change the paradigm of humanitarian response toward self-reliance. We have built a roadmap to achieve that goal that includes reaching five million people in five years, influencing at least 15 funders to invest hundreds of millions in self-reliance programming, and supporting 100 partner agencies. Our flagship Urban Refugee Protection Program in Nairobi is a leading partner in this effort and contributes learning and operational guidance that will influence this expansion and the field broadly.
RefugePoint’s past successes point toward the future opportunities we can capitalize on with adequate resources. Our innovations aim to expand opportunities and funding far beyond our direct operational capacity.
Overall, the time frame through 2027 will likely bring about some of the most significant changes in humanitarian response that have occurred in decades and will last long into the future. Enabling refugees to be the lead participants in programs that impact their lives, unlocking opportunities for them to innovate and earn an income, and centering the value of dignity in humanitarian response are all possible on a global scale. Along with these shifts, we anticipate a growing awareness of refugees as contributors rather than victims; we also aspire to see countries compete to bring in refugees. As the world reaches previously unimagined milestones of forced displacement, we must also strive for new programs and ideas that transform humanitarian action. RefugePoint’s very founding was based on new insights and the need for action to address unmet and urgent needs. Reaching those in desperate need, centering refugee voices and insights, bringing innovation to the forefront of refugee response, and catalyzing changes in humanitarian action that expand solutions are in the DNA of our organization. Today such insights and action are needed more urgently than arguably anytime in the past.
In 2021, RefugePoint launched a three-year strategy. In it, we highlight the importance of reimagining what refugee response looks like in partnership with refugees themselves, and driving large-scale systemic change to support lasting solutions.
As we arrive at the midway point, I’ve reflected on the progress we’ve made and where we’re headed as an organization. I’m sharing these thoughts here.
Our work is focused on a single outcome: helping refugees find a solution that enables them to thrive and lead dignified lives. We do this in two ways. The first is to help refugees stabilize, earn income, and integrate in the countries to which they have fled so they can meet their own essential needs—we refer to this as self-reliance. The second is to help refugees who can’t remain safely where they are to permanently relocate to a new country to rebuild their lives. We do this through resettlement and other pathways to safety, such as family reunification and labor mobility.
We use a distinctive approach. We develop innovative programs, demonstrate that they work, and scale them. We call this our AIDE framework through which we drive large-scale change:
RefugePoint’s programs are built on our core work around resettlement and self-reliance. Our resettlement efforts have opened up opportunities to build other relocation program pathways through family reunion, labor mobility, and other humanitarian channels. Our flagship program for self-reliance, the Urban Refugee Protection Program in Nairobi, Kenya, has opened up opportunities to partner with others to build the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative in order to promote self-reliance on a global scale.
At the halfway point of our three-year strategy, there are two overarching points that we’ve learned:
The world is now at a highwater mark of forced displacement with over 100 million people who have fled from home, including over 30 million refugees. The current willingness of governments to bring in refugees underscores the importance of our focus on expanding resettlement and other pathways, and the urgency of doing so as quickly as possible. The current US and Canadian administrations, among others, have focused on bringing in more refugees, and creating new pathways to do so. But, political winds and administrations shift. The next changes could lead to a more hostile orientation toward refugees. We need to take advantage of this unique window.
Our strategic objectives include expanding the reach of the traditionally limited scope of resettlement. Many refugees fleeing life-threatening situations find themselves in countries where there is little or no access to resettlement. We are working to rectify that so refugees have access no matter to which country they’ve fled. This can increase the number of refugees identified for resettlement so governments can fill and expand their quotas. It also protects people from risking onward journeys. (In too many places, resettlement isn’t available, and refugees are subjected to what’s considered a “pull factor”— risking dangerous journeys to get to a location from where resettlement is taking place.)
We think of expanding resettlement possibilities as equitable access to resettlement. A primary mechanism for this envisioned expansion is to deploy our own staff to locations across Africa, the Middle East, and other countries that fit our strategic objectives, and train and support other organizations to identify refugees for resettlement. To complement this operational expansion, we authored a now-widely-cited report, Preserving the Humanitarian Nature of Resettlement, to highlight the importance of equitable access to resettlement.
Our strategy also includes building new resettlement-related programs that are distinctly suited to our values and capabilities. In the past few years we’ve built labor mobility and family reunion programs. We aim to embed these programs into the international humanitarian response system so they can scale widely.
Our 2021 Annual Report highlights our accomplishments from the first year of our strategic plan. Some of the resettlement and other pathways highlights include:
The Ukraine crisis, just like so many others before it, has highlighted the importance of enabling refugees to become self-reliant. The vast majority of refugees are stuck for one or two decades outside of their home country. Emergency humanitarian aid – tents, food, and other basic support – for that length of time does not provide a path forward. Refugees, as they say themselves, need to find a way to stand on their own two feet and build self-sufficient lives. The former UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, emphasized this point saying that “Millions are trapped in dependency on short-term aid that keeps them alive, but falls short of ensuring their safety, dignity, and ability to thrive and be self-reliant over the long-term.” Self-Reliance is one of the four pillars of the UN’s Global Compact on Refugees, which is rooted in the Sustainable Development Goals.
Before self-reliance was a global objective, RefugePoint was building a flagship program to advance this goal for refugees in Nairobi, Kenya, thanks to our private funding and our partnership with refugees themselves, which has guided our vision.
Our strategic objectives include pioneering self-reliance programming and measurement through our Urban Refugee Protection Program in Nairobi. We’ve found that the impact and learning from this program can play a pivotal role in defining better strategies for the field more broadly. We are also partnering with refugees and their communities so that their voices, needs, and aspirations are the guideposts for our programs.
Since 2021, we have convened and provided funding and technical guidance to a cohort of refugee-led organizations (RLOs) in Kenya. A leader from one of the RLOs, Youth Voices Community Organization, said that “RefugePoint is in the forefront to support and engage refugee-led organizations as service partners and not just beneficiaries or mobilizers.”
The Urban Refugee Protection Program we’ve built, which we view as a place where best practices are codified so we can influence and train others, was part of the inspiration for the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative (RSRI). The RSRI, which was built in partnership with the Women’s Refugee Commission, is a global multi-stakeholder collaborative effort that aims to transform the humanitarian response paradigm toward self-reliance opportunities for refugees as opposed to emergency aid. This effort is now underway and has 34 partners in 23 countries reaching 150,000 people with self-reliance programming. Our strategic goal is a paradigm shift from emergency aid toward self-reliance programming.
Here are some of the highlights from 2021:
In 2021, we deepened our direct engagement and support to community based organizations (CBOs) serving refugees in Nairobi, Kenya. Recognizing the critical role that these organizations play as first responders in the community, we listened to, supported, and partnered with a group of CBOs, many of which are refugee-led organizations (RLOs).
Now that we are halfway through our 2021-2023 strategy, and have new accomplishments in hand that underpin future action, we are starting to turn our attention to the near future. What should the refugee response landscape look like by 2027? How do we best bring our distinctive approach and perspective to making our vision a reality?
By 2027, the responses to refugee crises must be substantially different from today. There are fundamental shifts underway that will reshape humanitarian action. These shifts include moving toward a refugee-centered approach and ensuring that refugees are decision-makers, leaders, and guides in the programs that impact their lives. In addition, we must use this moment of crisis to build new resettlement and other pathway programs that will last into the distant future. There are also urgent needs to transform humanitarian response toward self-reliance models. A common thread among all these efforts is that they are centered around the values of dignity and safety.
Some key areas of focus for the near future to help bring about these essential changes include:
Here’s a brief look at the essential needs, opportunities, and future potential for these programs.
Family Reunion Pilot Project. In the next five years, we aspire to mainstream our family reunion program so that it expands beyond our initial pilot countries of Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Chad, and is available to refugees across the world. RefugePoint plays a unique role in this new program, launched in collaboration with UNHCR and the International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), identifying unaccompanied children in a number of countries spanning Sub-Saharan and North Africa and working closely with them to ensure the reunion process with relatives in EU and other countries. The most recent estimates we have are that for every individual resettled, at least two could access family reunion.
Family unity – especially children with their parents — is a basic human right. So family reunion is a rights-based solution, benefitting from preexisting immigration legislation in most countries and protecting it from the political fluctuations that resettlement is subject to. If we can effectively build this pathway, it will be available for refugees even if resettlement is reduced, as it was during the previous US administration, or stopped. If family reunion opportunities are not available, children and others often resort to traffickers and embark on dangerous and often even deadly journeys. Despite the compelling need for family reunion, for a variety of reasons, many unaccompanied children and others could not access family reunion opportunities before the pilot program.
Economic Mobility Pathways Project (EMPP). In the past year, RefugePoint’s EMPP project saw the first arrivals in Canada. Our discussions with the Canadian Minister of Immigration and other partners have illuminated the significant political will behind this program, and the dramatic opportunity available to match refugee skills with employment needs that can only be filled through immigration. One leading employer who is bringing in dozens of additional RefugePoint candidates said that he hopes dozens will quickly become hundreds and then thousands. RefugePoint built this program in collaboration with the Canadian government and other partners. Beyond the foundational nature of our work – RefugePoint and Talent Beyond Boundaries, a leader in this space, are the two non-profit organizations building this pathway – we have brought our distinct refugee protection lens to this work to ensure that family unity and other essential protection elements are built into the DNA of labor mobility opportunities. We are also partnering with the first recipients of this program to ensure their voices and insights guide future action and growth. With other governments starting or considering labor mobility, this is a solution with vast potential.
In its strategy on resettlement and complementary pathways, the UN Refugee Agency estimates that over a decade from 2019 to 2028, three million refugees will access relocation programs— one million through resettlement and two million through other pathways. Family reunion and labor mobility are the two other largest opportunities. RefugePoint’s work is a key to unlocking these opportunities.
Confronting the Unknown: New crises will emerge that are currently unforeseen. There will undoubtedly be a need for urgent action to find solutions. As an organization that has been called on to engage in new emergency efforts due to our strategic position as a thought leader, innovator, and front-line identifier of refugees for resettlement and other pathways, we recognize the need to have resources ready to respond to emerging needs. Ideally, we would have an emergency response team ready to deploy. Times in the past when we’ve been able to manage but could have done more with such a team include our work to reunite unaccompanied Yazidi children who had escaped ISIS captivity with their parents in Canada, and our efforts to help launch, in collaboration with the UN Refugee Agency, an emergency resettlement effort for unaccompanied minors and other refugees in Libya and resettle them to EU countries.
Self-reliance: Arguably the most fundamental shift in humanitarian action, and the one that will impact the greatest number of people, is the increased momentum around self-reliance programming. By 2027, the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative aims to change the paradigm of humanitarian response toward self-reliance. We have built a roadmap to achieve that goal that includes reaching five million people in five years, influencing at least 15 funders to invest hundreds of millions in self-reliance programming, and supporting 100 partner agencies. Our flagship Urban Refugee Protection Program in Nairobi is a leading partner in this effort and contributes learning and operational guidance that will influence this expansion and the field broadly.
RefugePoint’s past successes point toward the future opportunities we can capitalize on with adequate resources. Our innovations aim to expand opportunities and funding far beyond our direct operational capacity.
Overall, the time frame through 2027 will likely bring about some of the most significant changes in humanitarian response that have occurred in decades and will last long into the future. Enabling refugees to be the lead participants in programs that impact their lives, unlocking opportunities for them to innovate and earn an income, and centering the value of dignity in humanitarian response are all possible on a global scale. Along with these shifts, we anticipate a growing awareness of refugees as contributors rather than victims; we also aspire to see countries compete to bring in refugees. As the world reaches previously unimagined milestones of forced displacement, we must also strive for new programs and ideas that transform humanitarian action. RefugePoint’s very founding was based on new insights and the need for action to address unmet and urgent needs. Reaching those in desperate need, centering refugee voices and insights, bringing innovation to the forefront of refugee response, and catalyzing changes in humanitarian action that expand solutions are in the DNA of our organization. Today such insights and action are needed more urgently than arguably anytime in the past.
We need new solutions for refugees. RefugePoint’s CEO, Sasha Chanoff, spoke with Maysa Jalbout on The Impact Room.
We need new solutions for refugees. RefugePoint’s CEO, Sasha Chanoff, spoke with Maysa Jalbout on The Impact Room.
In 2014, Michael and his family were forced to flee their home in the Democratic Republic of Congo due to violent conflict. Michael was just 10 years old at the time and some of his siblings were even younger.
When Michael, his parents, and seven siblings arrived in Nairobi in 2014, they faced extreme challenges. Although the family had little to eat and were forced to live on the street, it was still safer than their home country. “You cannot live in a place where there is no peace. If you stay, it’s like you’re waiting for death,” Michael told us when explaining the situation in his home country.
Many refugees in Michael’s position don’t have the opportunity to access education. Survival is the priority and many teenage refugees have no choice but to work in order to support their families. Eager to learn and continue his education, Michael read in his free time and his family enrolled him in primary school. In Kenya, primary school expenses are covered by the government, but individuals must pay fees for secondary school, the equivalent of high school in the U.S. After Michael finished his primary education, RefugePoint began covering his secondary school fees and the cost of uniforms, school supplies, and books so that he could continue his education.
Michael has a natural love for learning and he’s an excellent student. His ambitions to pursue higher education reach back to childhood. He explained that due to the mountainous terrain surrounding his village in the Congo, the community struggled to develop. They had a difficult time getting goods and services. One day at school, Michael and his classmates heard an unfamiliar noise and ran outside to see what it was. The noise was a passing motorbike in the distance, something the kids had never seen before. “There was not a motorbike in our village, so you can imagine. Even a car, I [first saw] a car while we were fleeing to Nairobi,” Michael said. Without roads in and out of the village, Michael’s home remained largely undeveloped throughout his childhood.
After experiencing the positive effects of development in Nairobi, Michael began to think about ways he could help his community back home. “To reach the rural areas is hard, which is why the government usually focuses on the urban areas. That’s why I want to pursue aeronautical engineering. So that I can make airplanes which can carry goods from other areas to our area, so our community can develop more. I want to change the community I came from.”
After years of hard work, he scored top of his class on the major final exam for Kenyan secondary school, earning him a place on the school’s Honor Roll and results worthy of university scholarships. Michael is currently seeking scholarships to pursue his dream career and help those in his village at home. Unfortunately, most scholarships in Kenya are reserved for citizens, making Michael ineligible. With this in mind, he’s eyeing colleges in the U.S. and beyond, but he’s open to any opportunity that will help him reach his goals. With a passion for aeronautics and ambitious goals to help his fellow Congolese citizens, Michael is not easily deterred. “I have the heart to go to university and change my life, and even change the lives of others,” he says.
Aside from grand goals to help his community, another driving factor for Michael is the health and happiness of his mother, father, and seven brothers and sisters. “Besides my career, the thing that I want to achieve in life is to help my family live a healthy life. [Since I was ten years old] I have not seen my family having a healthy life, enjoying life, having fun, because of the difficulties we have been passing through… I want to change my family and I want to change my community.”
In 2014, Michael and his family were forced to flee their home in the Democratic Republic of Congo due to violent conflict. Michael was just 10 years old at the time and some of his siblings were even younger.
When Michael, his parents, and seven siblings arrived in Nairobi in 2014, they faced extreme challenges. Although the family had little to eat and were forced to live on the street, it was still safer than their home country. “You cannot live in a place where there is no peace. If you stay, it’s like you’re waiting for death,” Michael told us when explaining the situation in his home country.
Many refugees in Michael’s position don’t have the opportunity to access education. Survival is the priority and many teenage refugees have no choice but to work in order to support their families. Eager to learn and continue his education, Michael read in his free time and his family enrolled him in primary school. In Kenya, primary school expenses are covered by the government, but individuals must pay fees for secondary school, the equivalent of high school in the U.S. After Michael finished his primary education, RefugePoint began covering his secondary school fees and the cost of uniforms, school supplies, and books so that he could continue his education.
Michael has a natural love for learning and he’s an excellent student. His ambitions to pursue higher education reach back to childhood. He explained that due to the mountainous terrain surrounding his village in the Congo, the community struggled to develop. They had a difficult time getting goods and services. One day at school, Michael and his classmates heard an unfamiliar noise and ran outside to see what it was. The noise was a passing motorbike in the distance, something the kids had never seen before. “There was not a motorbike in our village, so you can imagine. Even a car, I [first saw] a car while we were fleeing to Nairobi,” Michael said. Without roads in and out of the village, Michael’s home remained largely undeveloped throughout his childhood.
After experiencing the positive effects of development in Nairobi, Michael began to think about ways he could help his community back home. “To reach the rural areas is hard, which is why the government usually focuses on the urban areas. That’s why I want to pursue aeronautical engineering. So that I can make airplanes which can carry goods from other areas to our area, so our community can develop more. I want to change the community I came from.”
After years of hard work, he scored top of his class on the major final exam for Kenyan secondary school, earning him a place on the school’s Honor Roll and results worthy of university scholarships. Michael is currently seeking scholarships to pursue his dream career and help those in his village at home. Unfortunately, most scholarships in Kenya are reserved for citizens, making Michael ineligible. With this in mind, he’s eyeing colleges in the U.S. and beyond, but he’s open to any opportunity that will help him reach his goals. With a passion for aeronautics and ambitious goals to help his fellow Congolese citizens, Michael is not easily deterred. “I have the heart to go to university and change my life, and even change the lives of others,” he says.
Aside from grand goals to help his community, another driving factor for Michael is the health and happiness of his mother, father, and seven brothers and sisters. “Besides my career, the thing that I want to achieve in life is to help my family live a healthy life. [Since I was ten years old] I have not seen my family having a healthy life, enjoying life, having fun, because of the difficulties we have been passing through… I want to change my family and I want to change my community.”
Join us at RefugePoint’s 20th Anniversary Gala on Tuesday, October 14. Tickets are now on sale!
