GRSI Weekly Round-UpSeptember 26, 2023 |
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Robert Bosch Stiftung Spotlight |
Robert Bosch Stiftung’s Commitment of €500k to the new Global Sponsorship Fund |
SEPTEMBER 20, 2023—Robert Bosch Stiftung has committed €500k to the Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative’s ground-breaking new Global Sponsorship Fund. The commitment marks a tremendous kick off to the GRSI’s Global Refugee Forum Community Sponsorship pledge. At a time when the world faces unprecedented challenges in refugee protection, this Fund has transformative potential. It will pool public and private donations from diverse sources to increase the number of sponsor groups, making a real impact on the lives of refugees and their families. The Global Sponsorship Fund will offer financial support in various forms, including small-sum incentives for individual groups welcoming refugees and larger incentives for groups taking on multiple sponsorships. You can read more about the pledge and the Global Sponsorship Fund here.
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Community Sponsorship 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 |
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Readout of White House Meeting with Welcome.US |
| Afghan refugee siblings reunited in Victoria |
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SEPTEMBER 14, 2023— On September 14, 2023, White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients and senior White House officials met with the Welcome.US CEO Council, a group of nearly 40 CEOs from a range of industries, including its co-chairs Accenture Chair and CEO Julie Sweet and Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai. The Biden-Harris Administration has launched an historic expansion of lawful pathways for people seeking safety and refuge in the United States, while surging resources to the border for humane enforcement. Participants discussed ways to scale innovations in employment, mentorship, delivery of goods and services, and engaging communities as sponsors and welcomers.
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| SEPTEMBER 14, 2023—When Tahmina Akakhil left Pakistan last year to settle in Canada after fleeing the Taliban in Afghanistan, she was devastated to leave her siblings behind. On Wednesday, September 13, she finally got to see them again when her sister, Khadijah Akakhail, and brother-in-law, Hamed Tasal, landed at Victoria International Airport. Akakhil waited at arrivals with her brother, Rafiullah Akakhel, who arrived in Victoria a month ago. The two stood with craned necks outside the arrival doors. At the first sight of her sister and brother-in-law, Akakhil stood on her toes for a better look and turned to the refugee sponsorship group awaiting their arrival. |
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The program was initiated by James Tierney, associate director of the CLS (and director of the center’s English language programs), in partnership with the Connecticut nonprofit Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS). |
| Looking forward: Yale program helps Ukrainian refugees adapt to new livesSEPTEMBER 18, 2023—A program created by the Yale Center for Language Study offers practical skills — and community — to Ukrainian families trying to regain a sense of normalcy. Launched last December by the Yale Center for Language Study’s (CLS) English Language Program, the class seeks to prepare Ukrainian refugees — many of whom had little experience with the English language before arriving in the U.S. — for everyday situations in their new setting, whether ordering food, making phone calls, or navigating public transit systems. One of the students says the program has not only improved her language skills, it has enabled her and her classmates to acclimate more quickly to their new lives, and to access needed assistance in finding employment and community-building opportunities. |
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Complementary Pathways 🇺🇸 🇨🇦 🇪🇺 🇪🇸 🇮🇹 🇬🇧 🇦🇺 🇳🇿 |
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Salve welcomes more Afghan refugee students to campus |
| Ministerial Meeting of the Resettlement Diplomacy Network |
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SEPTEMBER 14, 2023—Three additional Afghan students, displaced from their native country since the fall of Kabul in August 2021, have now arrived on Salve’s campus and are enrolled as transfer students. They join four of their compatriots who enrolled at Salve in January through a developing national initiative that creates higher education pathways for refugees from around the world. In addition to receiving tuition support from Salve Regina, the students are receiving funding and support from the Qatar Scholarship for Afghans Project (QSAP) to offset the costs of room, board, and other living expenses. QSAP, founded by the Afghan Future Fund, Education Above All Foundation, Yalda Hakim Foundation, Schmidt Futures, and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, and administered by the Institute of International Education, is a unique partnership welcoming 250 displaced Afghan students to more than 40 U.S. college and university campuses. |
| SEPTEMBER 18, 2023—On September 18, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken convened the first ministerial meeting of the Resettlement Diplomacy Network (RDN) on the margins of the 78th UN General Assembly. The RDN is a new multilateral initiative launched by the government of the United States. Its goal is to drive high-level strategic and diplomatic engagement among resettlement states, to strengthen and expand global refugee resettlement and additional third-country pathways to protection. Under the chairmanship of the United States (Chair), Ministers and representatives from Australia, Canada, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, and the United Kingdom took part in the ministerial meeting, joined by the European Commissioner for Home Affairs. The Refugee Hub and the Migration Policy Institute serve as the inaugural secretariat for the RDN to support the U.S. chairmanship.
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“Each one of these new partner organizations will bring their own unique skills, complementary programming, and knowledge of and connections in their communities to the work of resettling refugees," shares Alicia Wrenn. |
| Five new sites join HIAS refugee resettlement network in the U.S. SEPTEMBER 13, 2023—HIAS, the Jewish humanitarian organization that provides critical services to forcibly displaced people in 23 countries around the world, has announced five new affiliate sites in the US to provide resettlement services and other integration support for those arriving under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program of the State Department. The new affiliates bring to 29 the number of metropolitan areas across the country where HIAS is providing reception and placement services. “All of us at HIAS are very excited about this significant expansion of our refugee resettlement network, as we welcome new affiliates from coast to coast,” said Alicia Wrenn, HIAS’ Vice President of Resettlement and Integration. |
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| Attracting, Retaining, and Diversifying Sponsors for Refugees in Community Sponsorship Programs SEPTEMBER, 2023—More countries in Europe and elsewhere are exploring the potential of sponsorship programs to open another pathway for refugee protection and integration. The strength of these community sponsorship programs—and their ability to be sustained and scaled up over time—hinges on recruiting community members to volunteer their time and often some personal resources to support arriving refugees. This report examines the challenges sponsorship programs have faced to recruiting, retaining, and diversifying the sponsors involved in these efforts, as well as strategies that programs could and in some cases already use to overcome these obstacles. It highlights findings from surveys and interviews conducted in three case-study countries (Belgium, Germany, and Ireland) as well as evidence from other countries that operate sponsorship programs.
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GRSI Tools & Resources The Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative, through its resources, aims to help government officials, civil society organizations and community members understand the building blocks of community sponsorship programs, establish refugee sponsorship programs through a core set of policy questions as well as plan and implement monitoring and evaluation activities.
Explore our resources in a variety of languages: GRSI Guidebook, GRSI Policy Design Workbook, GRSI Monitoring & EvaluationToolkit. |
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