RefAmerica is an effort of love which relies on the power of personal stories to build cross-cultural understanding. Now in its fourth year, RefAmerica’s leadership and public speaking program brings recently resettled refugee teens from around the United States to join with local American counterpart volunteers and American host families for one month in the summer (this year: June 26 – July 26). We seek to provide participant refugees with the tools both to tell their stories and to help forge for themselves, their families and their fellow refugees – like generation of Americans before them – a new American story. Our goal is to help foster a warm American welcome for, and full inclusion of, refugees resettled in the United States.
RefAmerica is about sharing traditions, team-building, learning about the narrative method, and building leadership and advocacy skills. Participants visit key Washington sites and share their individual stories and their group’s story at speaking events; in meetings with government, think tank, and international organization representatives; and on Capitol Hill. We celebrate Thanksgiving in July, prepare a meal for host families from refugee family recipes, tackle a ropes course together, and help set up apartments for soon-to-arrive refugees. Please Google RefAmerica to get a further sense of what we do.
We are a successful fledgling organization eager to move to the next level, and we could use your help… both in the lead-up to July and during the summer program. If you have skills in website design, social media or videography or have creative ideas about fundraising or event organization, if you might be interested in recruiting host parents or other volunteers or engaging in Congressional or other forms of outreach, if you might have organizational or substantive expertise to share with RefAmerica or its participants or know of a possible audience or venue for our group to share their stories, or if you might want to attend and help with some of our events or might be able to help with local transportation for our participants, please consider joining our RefAmerica family and help foster a warm American welcome for refugees.
