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Together: A Promise of Belonging for Those Who Are Displaced

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Together: A Promise of Belonging for Those Who Are Displaced

Watch RefugePoint Founder & CEO Sasha Chanoff’s remarks at Finding Refuge Together, RefugePoint’s 20th anniversary celebration. The event was held on October 14, 2025, at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. The full text is below.

Hello everyone. This is a unique and wonderful celebration recognizing what we can do together. Welcome!

There are many people here tonight with extraordinary stories. I want to tell you about my friend Mangok Bol, who is right here. Mangok came to the U.S. years ago through the Lost Boys of Sudan resettlement.

A decade ago, he faced a family catastrophe: Raiders killed his brother and sister-in-law in their village in South Sudan and kidnapped their young children. One was shot in the leg. Against all odds, Mangok rescued three of the four children and got them to Kenya. One is still missing; Mangok is still searching for her.

The only path to safety for the kids in Kenya was to come to the U.S. so Mangok could raise them. RefugePoint staff did interviews and the assessments for unaccompanied minors, and gave the information to the U.S. embassy, which triggered their resettlement. Last year, they arrived at Logan Airport.

Mangok, my favorite part of that reunion was seeing you hug your 16-year-old niece. Your embrace said it all, “I’m here. You’re home. We’re starting again, together.”

These children wouldn’t have made it to the U.S. without RefugePoint staff. Like so many, they would have fallen through the cracks of a decimated humanitarian system. Around the world, we’ve helped 183,000 people in the worst situations, from Afghanistan, Congo, Somalia, Syria, Ukraine, Venezuela, and other places, to get to dozens of receiving countries where they can rebuild their lives.

Mangok’s kids arrived just before America’s door shut. But many others are stuck in Kenya and elsewhere. They’ve escaped the deadly ravages of war, but not unscathed.

I started RefugePoint because when you meet other human beings face-to-face in unimaginably harrowing situations, you can’t turn away. To me, it’s like a visceral, human-to-human duty of the soul.

In Nairobi, we are there for people who have no one else. We help them to get medical care, mental health support, food on the table, a roof over their heads, their kids in school, and opportunities to earn a living. This is all strategic – to help people stand on their own two feet. We call this our self-reliance work, and we promote it globally.

It’s more important than ever because borders are closing and funding is vanishing. War is tattering the flag of human dignity: one in every 67 people has fled home. This is a defining condition of our time: the age of forced displacement.

History shows what’s possible when we act together. Think of the abolition of slavery, the spread of universal suffrage, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: transformative ideas that expanded freedom and equality.

When you create a new way to do good, like RefugePoint’s mission — life-changing solutions for refugees in partnership with them — it connects people. These relationships, with staff, friends, partners, and those we serve, make me feel more human, more whole, and more hopeful.

Mangok, when you started searching for the kids, you said something that will always stay with me. “The burden of freedom,” you said, “is that you can’t endure someone else not having it.”

We need to act together to extend freedom and dignity to those who are uprooted. This is the moment to raise humanity’s moral consciousness.

History’s great human leaps show us what’s possible. So how do we do that today?

It’s time for a new pledge: a promise of belonging for those who are displaced. A promise that no one will be left alone. A promise that no one will be left behind. A promise that no one will be forgotten. A promise that can ring out in the hardest places: pierce through the hail bullets, bomb blasts, and cries of terror, and reach those who need it.

If we come together in this promise of belonging, we can mend the brokenness of the world, raise the flag of human dignity higher than ever, and be more fully human, together.