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What We Do / Self-Reliance
RefugePoint works to advance refugee self-reliance through these two programs:
Through our Urban Refugee Protection Program (URPP) in Nairobi, Kenya, we assist refugees in regaining the ability to meet their essential needs. For refugees experiencing extreme vulnerabilities, we first help them to stabilize with services like: food, rent, medical care, education, and counseling support. Once their basic needs are met, we provide livelihood support, focused on micro-business development, to help them earn an income. This gives them a ‘runway’ to engage in economic pursuits and achieve a degree of self-reliance—to earn sufficient income to take care of their families.
The RSRI, co-founded and hosted by RefugePoint, is a global network of more than 300 organizations, that aims to advance self-reliance opportunities for refugees. The RSRI aspires to transform the way the world responds to refugees and other forcibly displaced populations, creating a future where the journey from displacement to self-reliance is accelerated and marked by dignity, opportunity, and inclusion.
When refugees can’t return home, what can we do? Sasha Chanoff, CEO of RefugePoint, addresses this question in this brief video.
5,007
5,007 clients have reached a point of self-reliance and have graduated from RefugePoint’s Urban Refugee Protection Program in Nairobi, Kenya since 2015.
69
69 agencies in 33 countries are currently utilizing the Self-Reliance Index (SRI)—the first-ever global tool for measuring the progress of refugee households toward self-reliance. The SRI was developed jointly by members of the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative with leadership from RefugePoint and the Women’s Refugee Commission.
“Self-reliance means being happy and having freedom. If your mind is healthy and not stressed, you can grow from small to big. If your family eats twice or thrice in a day, at least, you get happiness. Nothing makes me happier than providing for myself independently.”
Through our Urban Refugee Protection Program, we aim to support 1,500+ refugees and Kenyans annually in Nairobi to progress along a pathway to self-reliance.
Increase the number and diversity of actors (including refugee-led and community-based organizations) working to advance refugee self-reliance.
Over the next two years, the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative (RSRI) will reach 250,000 refugees with self-reliance programming through the work of 5–10 partner agencies in at least five countries.
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