Harnessing Volunteer Energy to Support and Welcome Refugees in your Community: Five Tips for Success
Learn some of the best practices in engaging, supporting, and managing volunteers to help welcome refugees in your community. Tips around volunteer outreach, designing options for volunteer engagement, volunteer onboarding, and keeping volunteers energized are included. This toolkit also shares field spotlights from a number of refugee-serving organizations that are successfully utilizing volunteers in new…
Read MoreRe:Source Hackathon brings refugees, tech community together in Bay Area to hack down barriers
Berkeley, CA – For 12 hours, refugees, designers, developers, and engineers sat in a conference room at University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. There was no grading, no instructor, and no payment. Instead, these volunteers were motivated by the knowledge that technology can change and improve the lives of refugees in the U.S. The…
Read MoreCitizenship Strategies to Create Welcoming Communities
This toolkit was developed by Welcoming America and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the lead organization of the New Americans Campaign, to provide promising practices and suggestions to engage receiving communities at the intersection of citizenship and welcoming work.
Read MoreBuilding Welcoming Schools: A Guide for K-12 Educators and After-School Providers
Arriving in a new country can be an overwhelming experience for refugees. One of the first places that refugee and immigrant families have the opportunity connect with others is in schools. Ensuring refugee and immigrant students and their families feel welcome and accepted in their school environments is not only foundational for their academic success,…
Read MoreStand Together: Messaging About Muslims and Refugees in Challenging Time
In this webinar, we released our new toolkit, Stand Together: Messaging About Muslims and Refugees in Challenging Times. This webinar highlights key areas of the guide and answer your questions about positive communications and engaging your community. Featured Speakers Amanda Cooper, Lightbox Collaborative Claudette Silver, Lightbox Collaborative
Read MoreStand Together
This guide was created for advocates, service providers, and supporters as a tool to address the backlash toward refugees and Muslim Americans, and to help you proactively engage with community leaders and neighbors. Through the messages, sample conversations, story ideas, and worksheets in this toolkit, we will help you develop straightforward yet persuasive language to use in the spoken or written…
Read MoreCNN op-ed: How refugees help their new communities
“Refugee” is a loaded word. It conjures up images of traumatized people living in crowded camps and inevitably leads to major rifts in national politics. The current debate centers on “Will refugees be allowed in our country?” But this short-term focus often obfuscates a more fundamental one — “What happens to refugees once they arrive…
Read MoreReframing Refugees: Messaging Toolkit
Developed in partnership with the Lightbox Collective, this toolkit is intended as a communications resource for individuals working in organizations that serve refugees and the broader community. It provides tips and recommendations on ways to deliver strong messages that encourage leaders to act in support of refugees in their communities. This toolkit was developed under…
Read MoreWhite House Task Force on New Americans: Strategic Action Plan on Immigrant & Refugee Integration
In November 2014, President Barack Obama established the White House Task Force on New Americans, a government-wide effort tasked with better integrating immigrants and refugees into American communities civically, economically, and linguistically. This strategic plan outlines the Task Force’s integration strategy for the federal government, including goals and recommendations on building welcoming communities. Welcoming America…
Read MoreThe Story of Welcoming
An introduction to the Welcoming model and how it relates to the community of Shelbyville. This clip is featured in “Building a Nation of Neighbors,” a Shelbyville Multimedia video module for bridge-building between newcomers and long time residents, adapted from the documentary Welcome to Shelbyville directed and produced by Kim A. Snyder.
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