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Refugee Help Center
Emplacement
Open walk-in Help Centers for refugees in areas near their homes. The Help Center is a place where refugees can feel safe and free to seek help for their problems or confusions. For example: have someone read their mail, telephone their doctor, help with school forms, get advice with medical bills and answers to simple questions like: "What is google?" The Help Center is a place where refugees learn skills to become self sufficient.
A propos de vous
A propos de vous
Prénom
Rachel
Nom
Humphries
URL du site Web
Organization
Refugee Support Services of the Carolinas, Inc.
Pays
États Unis, NC, Mecklenburg County
A propos de votre organisation
Nom
Refugee Support Services of the Carolinas, Inc.
Téléphone
704.458.3245
Adresse
3515 School House Lane, Charlotte, NC 28226
Pays
États Unis, NC, Mecklenburg County
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Your idea
Name Your Project
Refugee Help Center
Country your work focuses on
États Unis, NC, Mecklenburg County
Describe Your Idea
Open walk-in Help Centers for refugees in areas near their homes. The Help Center is a place where refugees can feel safe and free to seek help for their problems or confusions. For example: have someone read their mail, telephone their doctor, help with school forms, get advice with medical bills and answers to simple questions like: "What is google?" The Help Center is a place where refugees learn skills to become self sufficient.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
The Help Center is inovative because it turns the way we offer help in our country upside down! We have not created a program and invited refugees to attend. Instead volunteers show up and wait! Wait for questions/problems/needs to come in the door. We partner with organizations and invite them to bring their expertise and share it with the refugee community. We partner with the Public Library and offer literacy opportunities to small children while their parents get answers for their 'problems'. We partner with NC Gleening Network and offer fresh fruits and vegetables to this community that is accustomed to eating fresh food yet finds it difficult to access with low paying jobs. We have identified deer as a preferred food choice and partner with Char/Meck Park and Rec to offer deer to this community that is culled out of our area's parks. We partner with volunteers who come to the Help Center and share their area of expertise to teach basic skills to the refugee community. For example, small classes are offered in nutrition, women using the banks, correct use of an oven (some refugees are accustomed to cooking only on a fire), proper household cleaning to avoid eviction. These topics have been devoloped by listening to the problems these refugees face and then involving the community to help solve them. The Help Center is unique because it appears to be the only one like it in our area and because we give the refugees a voice and take our ideas from them. Our hope is to help them learn to navigate our systems here in America so they can help their own community members and not feel like a burden here. After they have arrived here, we hope to empower them with the skills to survive and then thrive in America.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Non
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
The first Help Center has been open since March 2009. It has served over 100 Montagnard refugees and now reaching the Burmese community. On average, 8 volunteers come each Wednesday to serve. We are partnering with the Public Library for literacy training. We are partnering with the NC Gleening Association to deliver 1000 pounds of free/fresh fruits and vegetables to the refugee community. We partner with Sports Outreach Institute to encourage the refugee communtiy to interact with and create a since of 'community' in their apartments. At the Help Center we have helped with simple things like filling out forms and with difficult situations like domestic violence. We have answered questions from "how do I change my address" and "how do I go to visit my child's school" to "how do I get my friend out of jail" and "how do I visit my burned child who was taken away in a helicopter?" In June 2010, we opened a second Help Center on the west side of Charlotte, NC. It is smaller in scale, but will grow as is evidenced from the first Help Center. The impact of these Help Centers is on both the refuee community and the American community. The refugees and volunteers are learning more than how to give and receive help. They are learning how to trust each other; how to share cultures with each other; how to appreciate differences; how to live together. Volunteers at the Help Center are encouraged to extend their volunteerism to a deeper level and join the Fruitful Friendship Program that partners refugee families with American families to visit each other on a weekly basis. This is a deep commitment for volunteering and yet has large impact on both communities. So far 30 American groups/families are visiting and helping more than 30 refugee families on a weekly basis. M. Hall says, "This is the best way I spend my time all week."
Problem
The first Help Center needs funds ($3000/year) for translators to help interpret the self sufficiency trainings. We also need funds to purchase picture dictionaries ($1250/year) to help us communicate with our refugee populations so that we can better understand their needs. The information presented at the self sufficency trainings is offered in English at other sites (the local community college for example) but we see the need to offer this information in native languages to eliminate any confusion about content. For example, refugees are being evicted because of lack of knowlege about proper apartment cleaning. Our Household Cleaning class instructs refugees about cleaning products available and about how to use them properly to avoid problems with the apartment management.
We are also looking for a permanent site to house the Help Center. Staying close to the community is important as many refugees lack transportation. Also having a site that is viewed as safe, accessable, recogniazable and approachable if vital to it's success especially when serving refugees.
Actions
Currently self sufficiency trainings are being offered with little translation or by Americans with very little indiginous language knowlege. Groups are given the time to talk amongst themselves to 'figure out' the content of the training. It takes time to interpret this information through family members or friends. We could be more certain that the correct information is being shared and received with proper translation and we could share twice the amount of information.
Volunteers have asked local groups to participate financially to this effort. There is discussion about this. The participation of ChangeMakers would allow us to show local groups that these classes do make a difference. That we need their involvement. That local involvement would have a positive affect on this community.
We have also met with local leaders to identify available sites in the community for a center. We have visited a facility in Atlanta, GA to garner ideas and visualize what a Charlotte center could look like.
Results
We expect refugees are learning the material we share but that this learning could be doubled or tripled with the aid of a translator. This information is critical to their surviving and thriving in America and it is vital that they receive it quickly and in a format they understand. We expect more people to attend the self sufficiency trainings if they knew that that would be able to understand them. We expect other Americans to come share their knowlege with this group if they knew there was a translator who could help them communicate to the different populations we serve. And we expect that we would have great participation from local groups if we could demonstrate the positive effects of having a translator at these trainings.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
Year one: It will take a financial investment for us to start the translation process. In this year we will show the positive affects of having a translator. We will work with other refugee service provider and local leaders to identify a possible location for a service site.
Year two: We will identify community leaders who could learn to become translators to serve in this commutity.
Year three: We would employ local people to serve.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
Our project would not be a success if we could not identify local groups/individuals to share their expertise; if we could not maintain our volunteers to serve at the Help Center; and if we didn't partner with other service providers. Financial support makes our work more efficient and more effective.
The success of this project is dependent on volunteers being available with time and resources to listen to and serve refugees. These volunteers need tools to work with the main tool being a way to communicate. The languages in these communities are indiginous and difficult. Volunteers spend valuable time trying to understand and be understood. With the right tools, translators, dictionaries and an accessable location, the Help Centers run by Refugee Support Services of the Carolinas, Inc. could serve more refugees in a timely and efficient manner.
How many people will your project serve annually?
101‐1000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
$1000 - 4000
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Non
Viabilité
A quel étape votre projet en est-il ?
En place depuis 1 à 5 ans
Votre organisation est-elle une
organisation à but non lucratif
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
Oui
If yes, provide organization name.
Refugee Support Services of the Carolinas,Inc.
How long has this organization been operating?
1‐5 années
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Oui
Does your organization have a non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Non
Does your organization have a non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
Non
Does your organization have a non-monetary partnerships with government?
Non
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
Approximately 150 words left (1200 characters).
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
1. Recruitment of Volunteers: A continued stream of volunteers willing to serve at the Help Centers and become Fruitful Friends.
2. Maintained and increased Partnerships: Strengthen current partnerships and find additional partnerships with other service providers and organizations serving in this community.
3. Secure Financial Support: Increase financial support as services grow. Since 2006 our services have grown to include the two Help Centers. This means our financial needs have grown and we look to locate additional sources of revenue to meet those needs.
The Story
What was the defining moment that you led to this innovation?
In the Spring of 2006, Rachel Humphries was involved in teaching English as a Second Language with Central Piedmont Community College to a group of recently arrived Montagnard refugees at an apartment complex in East Charlotte. Lauren Moore, prompted by a mutual friend, came to assist Rachel one morning. That was the beginning! As refugees came to English class, they brought more than just their language learning needs. They brought other needs that Rachel and Lauren knew could be met through their friends.
As time progressed, Rachel and Lauren came to love the refugee population. It also became important to them to educate other Americans about the refugee situation in Charlotte, and to share with the American community the wonderful joy there is in knowing and working with these individuals.
In the Fall of 2006, Refugee Support Services of the Carolinas, Inc. was founded, and has continued to grow and evolve; all the while, maintaining as its vision the empowerment and education of the refugee community, the connection and facilitation of friendships between refugees and other community members, and the education of the American community.
The experience has been an incredible one as RSS, Inc. has witnessed strong bonds formed through the Fruitful Friendships program. RSS, Inc. is truly indebted to its volunteers, who have been the heart behind all the organization's efforts, and there is growing excitement about what the future will bring for the well-being of refugees in our community.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
Rachel Humphries has been teaching English as a Second Language for 15 years, spending the last four teaching within the refugee population. She has been working with disadvantaged communities for over 20 years. Rachel received her BS and BA from UNC-Chapel Hill and has studied in Salamanca, Spain. Rachel has 3 children and an incredibly supportive husband she enjoys gardening, traveling and playing volleyball with her family.
Lauren Moore, the second innovator, is currently living and working in Wilmington, NC. She was a Spanish major at Queens University at Charlotte. She worked with RSS, Inc. in Charlotte for two years. She loves learning about new ways to empower others. She is interested in Human Rights and International Community Development and plans to pursue those topics both in the U.S. and abroad. Lauren has studied in Lima, Peru and worked among Lima's threatened communities. Lauren enjoys reading, learning new languages, and traveling.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Friend or family member
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
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