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Helping Refugees In Your Country

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Almost every country on Earth has refugees and asylum seekers from other countries, or internally displaced people, who are fleeing war or dire poverty in order to better ensure the safety and prosperity of themselves and their family. Most of these people want to stay in their home country or region, but they are fleeing those areas out of desperation or extreme necessity: to stay might mean the death of themselves or their family, from war, from weapons, from their own government or from hunger.
 
There's no need for you to go to another country to help refugees; they are likely right there in your area, and they desperately need help.

What do displaced people need?

What do refugees and asylum seekers from other countries, or internally displaced people, need help with the most? Most urgently:

And that's just the most urgent, basic stuff. There is SO much more that's needed. But other things can't really be done until those basic things are at least started. And volunteers are essential in helping them access all of the above.

Where to Get Started? Become an Official Volunteer.

Even if the refugees you want to help are people you have met casually, through a community of faith or in your neighborhood, it's a really good idea to volunteer with the family formally through a nonprofit agency that helps refugees. If they are legal refugees, then it is likely they are being helped through a local refugee-helping agency. In the USA, this could be Catholic Services, Lutheran Services or Jewish Family Services - all of these organizations help refugees from ANY country, from ANY religion. You can also go to Google and type in the name of your city, or the nearest metropolitan area, and the words nonprofit helps refugees - that's how I found Portland Refugee Support Group (PRSG), which helps refugees in Oregon, far beyond Portland.

To find out which is the lead agency for any group of legal immigrants you are helping, ask the family. If you are having trouble communicating, Google Translate on your phone is a wonderful tool. But be prepared: they may not know.

Another advantage of going through an official refugee group to register as a volunteer is that it can better protect you from liability and can help you avoid duplicating what agency staff are already doing. It means the nonprofit can freely share information with you about the family - they cannot even tell you whether or not they are helping the family if you aren't an official volunteer.

The refugee agency will also provide you essential training, as an official volunteer, that will help you avoid offering misinformation or making cultural missteps, or further traumatizing family members with well-intentioned but inappropriate questions. 

If the person or family are not legally in the country where they are living, find an organization in your area that helps people from that country or that speaks that language or that hosts religious services this person would want to attend. Meet with that organization and ask how they are helping, or could help, this person or family you want to help, and ask if they want you to register as a volunteer with them, officially, in providing help to this person or family. Again, volunteering formally and getting training can help you avoid providing misinformation and making cultural missteps, and can allow the organization to freely share information with you about the family.

Another option, in the USA only: the USA Department of State, in collaboration with the Department of Health and Human Services, has created the Welcome Corps, a new private sponsorship program that empowers everyday Americans to play a leading role in welcoming refugees arriving through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP) and supporting their resettlement and integration as they build new lives in the United States. Groups of at least five individual American citizens or permanent resident adults will be able to apply to the Welcome Corps to privately sponsor the resettlement of refugees in the United States. Private sponsors, as volunteers, will be responsible for independently raising funds and directly providing essential assistance to refugees for their first 90 days in their new community. This assistance includes helping refugees find housing and employment, enrolling children in school, and connecting refugees to essential services in the community. Sponsors must raise a minimum of $2,275 in cash and in-kind contributions per refugee newcomer being welcomed. This is used to secure and furnish housing and provide for the refugee’s initial basic needs.

I'm not fond of the financial requirement of the Welcome Corps volunteers, and that's why I haven't joined it. But if you are a volunteer that's a part of the Welcome Corps, I hope you find this web page helpful.

Make a List of Urgent Needs & What Programs Can Help.

Communicate with the lead refugee agency about the most urgent needs of the family. Ask the agency if they are handling government paperwork, like applying for SNAP, enrolling the kids in school, enrolling the family in a health care program or helping the family access health care, communicating with the landlord, applying for reduced fares on mass transit, understanding mass transit, getting smart phones and a smart phone plan, getting home Internet, accessing language classes, etc.

I've already made the list of most urgent needs (see above). But every family is different regarding their most urgent needs. Often, the most urgent need is having money for rent. That's something the lead aid agency should be taking care of. If you decide you want to fund raise for the family, talk to the aid agency about how that would work - would people be encouraged to donate to the aid agency, designating the funds to help a particular family? Be careful accepting donations yourself, in your own bank account or an online platform, on behalf of a family - that means you are being trusted with funds, and if anyone suspects you haven't given 100% of what's donated to the family, it can create bad feelings and even break your relationship with that family.  

If they family needs furniture, do NOT run out and get donations of furniture brought to the family. First, talk to the refugee agency that is the lead agency for this family. They might have already arranged furniture donations. If you do coordinate furniture donations, emphasize exactly what furniture you need, emphasize that the furniture must be CLEAN and not broken, that the family has a right to say "no" after seeing it, and that the donor may need to be the ones transporting the furniture where needed.

If they family needs food, do NOT run out and buy food and bring it to them. The family may eat only Halal food. Every family has its own preferences on what it likes to eat. Do you know where a Halal grocery store is? And do you know what food the family eats? They may not like pasta. They may not eat rice. A better idea would be to take them to a grocery store where they can get the food they want to eat.

One of the first things a refugee family applies for in the USA is SNAP benefits (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), so they can buy food. This is usually handled by the lead aid agency - it is a complicated process. But it is urgent that they apply for this immeditely.

You have to be careful about charity food banks and pantries; many families refuse to go to them, not wanting "charity" - even though that's what SNAP and other government programs are. Also, some charity food banks and pantries don't have Halal food. Talk to the family about how food pantries work and if it's possible to find food at such they would like. But don't be surprised if they decline to go. If the charity involves volunteers, family members might feel more comfortable volunteering for a few hours and then getting a food box, creating a feeling that they are working for the food.

If the agency serves people in a large metropolitan area, and the family is far from this area, particularly in a different county than most other refugees, the agency may not know where the family could access free English classes, where local food banks are, etc. relatively close to them. That's where your help, as a closer neighbor, may be needed. This is the situation I am in helping refugees in my area in Oregon. Resources that have been helpful to me:

I also contacted the faculty at the local university here in our town - specifically, the faculty that teaches social work. This was to recruit more volunteers to help with the family, especially with things that are so over my head, like filling out government paperwork.

For anything I'm going to do, I first let the agency I'm volunteering through know, because sometimes, they might have someone that was already about to work on something for the family with regarding to English classes or what not. That includes contacting the landlord about some problem the family is facing (leaky refrigerator, broken fan in the bathroom, etc.).
 

School & GED.

Enrolling young people into school is not easy, especially if you have never done it. It involves lots of paperwork, lots of photo copying of official documents, vaccinations and proof of vaccinations, meetings and more. Getting kids enrolled in school will take many hours a week over at least a few weeks, if not several.

In the USA, some states allow students who are 19 or 21 to enroll in public high school. Even if this young person has a high school degree from another country, it can be a good idea for the person to spend a year in a local high school learning English (or whatever the local language is). However, the family may urgently need income, and that means all family who are 18 or over need work rather than study. The Catch-22: most jobs beyond dish washing, cleaning rooms or yard work require a person to have at least a high school diploma or a GED.

For a person in the USA to pursue a GED, the person must meet certain requirements. Usually the person has to be 18 years or older and cannot be enrolled in an accredited high school. The cost varies, but it's about $200. The tests, altogether, take many hours (in Oregon, it's more than seven). These tests are not easy. You can find sample questions online - try a few yourself and you will quickly know if members of the family you are supporting are ready - it takes a very good command of English to pass.

Smart Phone & Email.

Each adult in the family and each person that is seeking a job needs to have a smart phone and smart phone plan and an email address.

I recommend the person create a Google Voice number and use that as their main number, so that if they lose their phone, they don't have to switch their phone number. Shop around a lot for phone plans - in the USA, something like Tracfone, Mint Mobile or Boost are all reliable and affordable.

For email, gmail is an excellent option and gives the person a Google Drive for storage and a YouTube account (easy to share videos).

A smart phone is also vital because you will likely be texting a lot with the family, and if the family does not speak English, you are all going to be using Google Translate a LOT. Everyone having a smart phone makes it easier.

The family you are helping may use WhatsApp, Telegram or Signal for communicating by text. These are free programs you can use on your smart phone and on your computer.

Jobs.

Finding jobs for refugees, asylum seekers and internally-displaced people is REALLY difficult, and yet, in many host countries, particularly the USA, it is CRITICAL to do ASAP. In the USA, refugees get very little government support, and charities are grossly under-funded to meet needs. It is vital to find jobs for all family members that are eligible to work and to find "under the table" job opportunities for adults who are not eligible to work.

I can't offer advice on "under the table" opportunities, since that would be me encouraging people to break the law. So I won't be doing that here.

Finding jobs for people who not only have little or no no language skills for the country they are in and don't have driver's licenses, but who also may be suffering from trauma that affects how they handle stress, and who also may have never worked or been in the type of work environment of their new host country, is one of the hardest challenges you will face in helping refugees. Therefore, I don't recommend waiting tables nor working to clean rooms in a hotel, not as a first job for a refugee, especially in the USA, where such work is absolutely back-breaking and incredibly stressful.

If the person you need to help does not speak nor read the local language, you will need to seek out jobs where reading or speaking aren't absolutely fundamental. That could be washing dishes in a restaurant or senior living facility or group home for adults or children with disabilities - no customer interaction, no interpreting different situations, pretty much the same job minute to minute. Another good first job could be busing tables in a restaurant. Seasonal work picking crops may also be an option, though a very physically-demanding one.

If the person has minimal language skills in terms of speaking skills and knows how to say a few things in the local language, and has a strong drive to help other people, they might be able to help clean or otherwise help out at a residential home for people that are elderly.

If the person can read the local language, check at local grocery stores for shelf-stocking and cleaning positions.

In the USA, check with Goodwill if there is one near you. The focus on Goodwill is to provide job training and experience for people who need such, and need to become more employable.

If the person speaks some of the local language and can carry on a very basic conversation in that language, and has a smart phone, help the person create a super simple one-page résumé. Indeed.com has a nice template for this. 

If the person knows how to use tools - drills, staple guns, etc. - they might be able to work for a company like ServePro in the USA, that helps homeowners and businesses recover after disasters, or a similar company.

Let all of your friends and associates know that refugees you know are looking for jobs, and ask for any leads. 

If you go to Indeed.com and search for jobs in your community, you will see all of the open jobs in your community. This can give you a sense of the kind of jobs that are immediately hiring and don't require degrees or many skills.

Once a person's language skills are good enough to hold basic conversations, read menus and labels and fill out an application on their own in the local language, and the person has some job experience, you can help them seek better-paying jobs - with those skills, they can be trained for a variety of jobs. 

Be sure to help the person understand what interviews are like. A mock interview can be a particularly helpful experience. Talk about the vital importance of always showing up on time and trying to keep absenteeism to an absolute minimum.

Help the person if they get a job to get direct deposit for paychecks, and explain to them the dangers of pay day loans.

Also emphasize that having a job for a full year is viewed very favorably by other employers. Let the person know that part of their goal with the first job is not just a paycheck, but an excellent reference for future jobs.

In the USA, once a person can speak conversational English and knows how to call 911 to report an emergency, and once you personally feel that person is trustworthy, you can recommend the person to neighbors looking for older child care or pet sitting, provided the person is interested in such work and enthusiastic about it. When a person is at this stage, you may want to research adult day cares and residential homes for high-functioning adults with disabilities in the area - they often have overnight jobs where a person is paid to sleep overnight and be ready to call 911 in case of an emergency, to clean up the dishes after supper or breakfast, etc.

In the USA, once a person seems to understand spoken English relatively well, knows what different foods are, and has some kind of work experience under their belt, they might be ready to apply at fast food restaurants. I recommend Subway or Papa Murphy's Pizza, since you work as a team there and other staff members can help right in the moment.

Of course you can ask adults what jobs they might have held in their home countries, or what studies they were pursuing for a particular career. Offer to find out how getting hired for such jobs in your country - their new host country - might work. You will have to explain that the refugee may need to get an associates degree at a community college, despite having a degree from elsewhere - and that in the meantime, they will need to continue to work in jobs that aren't probably what they really want to be doing for the rest of their lives. This can be one of the hardest conversations to have. It's hard to hear that, while you really want to be a psychologist, you are going to have to wash dishes, then work as a waitress, then work at a grocery store, for years, before you get to start the studies you need.

In the USA, once a person has the English skills needed to have somewhat complicated conversations, you can talk with a guidance counselor at your nearest community college or public university about interviewing that person about their career dreams and how to pursue them. Even if the person decides to go into a trades career - plumbing, electrician, fire fighting, etc. - there are classes at community colleges that will help in these pursuits, and some programs provide a full scholarship for a person agreeing to go into a particular trade.

Saving & Budgeting.

Find out if there are nonprofits, credit unions or banks in your area that have classes in how to save, how to repair credit, etc. If these classes are in English-only, find out if the host organization would be open to a volunteer translating the materials into another language. The lead agency helping the family may be able to recommend a volunteer they already know, or be willing to try to recruit such.

It is vital that refugee families know how to save and how to establish a good credit score. Without that, they can never achieve permanent housing - they can never buy a house, not even through Habitat for Humanity. Without knowing how to save and keep out of debt, they will always be reliant on the time of volunteers and the funding of charities.

Help them create a savings plan so that, eventually, they have savings that would cover three months of rent, three months of utility payments, three months of Internet access, three months of smart phone plans, three months of mass transit rides, and three months of any other expenses.

Help them understand the garbage system and how to avoid extra charges - many refugees don't know and will put out more garbage than they are allowed, and will then see their garbage bills suddenly sky rocket and not understand.

Help them know about any bottle and can recycling centers that will give them money and how they work.

Help them understand the money that can be saved by signing up for a free membership card at a grocery store.

Help them understand how to get free help with filing their taxes annually.

And as has been mentioned already, help them understand the vital importance of avoiding pay day loan companies and pay check cash advance programs.

Holidays.

Make a list of all holidays and note how these holidays affect school days, banks, traffic, bus schedules, etc. You don't have to get into detail explaining holidays, especially the religious ones; instead, focus on what the holiday will mean for the family, like that buses won't be running as frequently that day or there won't be school that day or there will be a parade in downtown that day. If the family doesn't speak English and you don't have a volunteer to translate, use Google Translate, though you can translate something just one paragraph at a time. 

Find out what religion the family is, if any, and how they can get to their most important religious events. If the family is Muslim, learn when Ramadan is and learn as much as you can about it, and consider how you can support the family during their fasting.

Community Events.

Regularly check online to find free community events the family could attend together, or that teens could do on their own. Parades, performances at farmer's markets and street fairs, cultural fairs and public sector open houses (police, fire) are a few ideas. I find them by going on Facebook and looking under "events", by checking the Facebook pages and web sites of cultural centers and the city, and just keeping my eye out as I walk or drive through town for banners and announcements on light boards. 

Warn of Scams.

There are people who target refugees specifically with scams. They will send them texts telling them to login to their bank account, and the link actually just gives the scammer the person's financial info, which they then use to empty the bank account. They will call the refugees and claim to be law enforcement or the IRS and demand payment in the form of money orders or gift cards.

It's vital that you talk to the family you are helping about some scams. Unfortunately, it's very hard to find police material or YouTube videos that warn about these scams in a person's native language, other than English or Spanish. If you can be on call for the family and feel comfortable doing so, you can tell them to NEVER pay ANYTHING to ANYONE without checking with you first. And for the first three years, that's a really good idea.

Driving.

Often, refugees will start talking about how much they want to learn to drive and to get a car long before they talk about any of the aforementioned. The USA is a car-centric society, and not having a car makes living in the USA extremely difficult, since not only are there vast areas of the USA with no mass transit and no taxis or car services like Uber or Lyft, there's no city in the USA with European-quality mass transit except New York City.

However, there are no charities that help people who don't have cars to have them. As much as possible, help the family defer car-driving. Recruit volunteers just as drivers for the family - communities of faith are a great resource for that. Help them understand all mass transit and car hire options (and costs).

I personally believe no resident should drive who cannot speak enough of the local language to be able to communicate with law enforcement. The possibilities for miscommunication, and the consequences of such, are just too great, in my opinion.

Legal issues.

The vast majority of volunteers are NOT equipped to help with legal issues. They are not capable of appropriately filling out any paperwork associated with immigration or other legal matters. If the family you are helping faces any legal issues, any police matters or any disputes with the landlord or neighbors, of if the young people in the family face any disciplinary measures from school, send a detailed email to the agency that is taking the lead in supporting this family. Scan any associated documents and send them as well. Unless you have professional legal training and are ready to act formally as a legal representative for this family, you should not be taking the lead in dealing with any legal, or potentially legal, situation.

Pursuing long-term goals.

The family you are supporting needs to have savings goals, jobs goals, and other goals to meet in a year, in two years, in three years, and so forth. The first three years of being a refugee can be the most intense, but they can also be the most worthwhile, setting the groundwork for ongoing success. The ultimate goal is a family that can pay all bills on time, has money leftover for savings, has an excellent credit rating and isn't completely reliant on charity and help from volunteers.

A frightening thing for many refugee families is when they see their SNAP benefits in the USA cut as more family members get employment. Most have never been told this happens, and they may panic when they find out. Refugee families also often don't get warned that charitable help lessens over time - the help with utility bills they got in the first six months may never be there again. Be up from with them about these limits, remind them of their strengths, and help them understand that employment and savings are the keys to long-term success in the USA (or whatever country you are in).

Most refugees want to someday own a home: that requires not only savings but an excellent credit rating, no evictions, no bankruptcies, etc. Many young refugees want to go to a university or community college someday: that requires good grades, good study habits and enough savings. You have to have keep this in mind as you help your family over months.

Emphasize them repeatedly that, with a lot of hard work, things will get better. 

One volunteer can't do all of the above.

One person, working full-time, couldn't do all that a refugee family needs to get set up and stable in a new country. Don't try to do it all - it's impossible. Recruit other volunteers to help. I like to recruit for specific tasks: recruiting people who could help just with driving the family to the grocery once a month, someone to help the family's children sign up to play soccer, etc. I do this via my own social media, via the subreddit focused on my community, and area communities of faith - as in, I sent a text to a preacher I know and asked him to read it to his congregation. For anyone who contacts me, I ask them to please first register through the official lead agency as a volunteer FIRST, before I ever introduce them to the family.

Reminders.

This document may, unintentionally, have incorrect information in it. Please see these other disclaimers.

If you want to translate this document into another language and post it on your own web site, feel free - however, please do not use the author's name anywhere on the site.

Also see:

For People That Want Refugee or Asylum Status: Realities You Need to Know.

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