In September of this year, we shared with our close partners of an upcoming shift in our programming. We are excited to now be able to share this update with our larger community.

Over the last ten years, Refugee Care Collective has served more than 1,500 families working to rebuild their lives in Oregon. In recent years, the journey for resettled families has grown far more complex. Rising living costs, unexpected hardships, and the lack of a safety net make the work of rebuilding far more challenging than ever before. Every week as we meet with our neighbors, we hear about the increasing difficulties families are facing to reach self-sustainability in the ways they are hoping for.

In response to this need, we have been re-envisioning our role in refugee care and how to best address current challenges and future needs.

More than any other support provided, resettled families often recognize those who came alongside them in their time of need. Many families have shared that during one of the hardest seasons of their lives, the mentors and communities who provided support had a lasting and life-changing impact.

Yet for some time, this work has felt either inaccessible or too challenging for many people looking to get involved. We want to change that.

From our inception, a defining tenet of Refugee Care Collective has been to envision novel approaches to meeting unmet needs, filling unique gaps in care within the community. As we look at the current landscape of resettlement, we believe that the future of refugee care lies in communities being empowered to provide direct support to refugee families.

Beginning in 2025, we will give our focus to developing essential resources that will empower communities to better serve their resettled neighbors. These resources will consist of high-quality training materials, roadmaps for communities who meet a refugee family, and accessible information about engaging in this long-term work of welcome and rebuilding.

We believe this new direction will help foster a more sustainable approach to refugee care that will work to address many of the challenges we are experiencing today.

One of our resettlement agency partners shared with us:

“The challenges of refugee resettlement are known by an extremely small number of people who are not refugees – and this lack of knowledge by the community at large is nothing but an unnecessary and high barrier to the successful integration for new refugees. Refugee Care Collective’s focus on reaching, training, and engaging community members to both learn more about refugee resettlement and to become partners in this work is one of the things that needs to change most in how our country operates refugee resettlement.”

By strengthening the community to serve our resettled neighbors, our hope is that local families, faith communities, neighborhood groups, and individuals will be equipped to provide wraparound support to refugee families in their own communities. We believe the development of these resources will expand and multiply our efforts in service of the refugee community, putting essential tools directly into the hands of volunteers.

As we embark on a new season at Refugee Care Collective, we know what we have always known – that this work takes place because of people who care deeply, give generously, and show up day after day and year after year to come alongside those working to rebuild their lives.

Grateful for your support and hopeful for the future,

Megan Cegla
Founder and Executive Director
Refugee Care Collective

FAQs

• Can you tell me more about the resources you will be developing?
  We are looking forward to providing high-quality training materials through videos and printable materials to better equip families, faith communities, neighborhood groups, and individuals to engage in this work. We are currently in the midst of ongoing focus groups with resettled families, mentors, faith leaders, and community leaders as we work to map out all our resources will entail.

• Will your Restart Kits Program continue?
  When we developed our Restart Kits Program in 2015, this was a significant unmet need in resettlement. Today, every resettlement agency in the Portland metro area receives these kits, along with several other organizations and communities in different states. While Refugee Care Collective is no longer accepting restart kits directly, we encourage you to build a restart kit to deliver to a local resettlement agency.

• What volunteer opportunities will you offer going forward?
  Our hope is that our new focus will encourage and inspire more volunteers than ever before to get involved in this work. In alignment with our shifting role, Refugee Care Collective will no longer be pairing mentors with resettled families and youth, but rather will direct you to a local resettlement agency to volunteer through. Once available, our upcoming resources will provide support to volunteers as they engage in this work.

• How will this affect current mentors?
  All existing mentors will continue to receive support throughout next year. Our team will remain available for meetings, answering questions, working through challenges, and providing resources, so that all mentors will receive direct support until the end of their one-year commitment.

• How can I be part of this work?
  If you would like to be part of what Refugee Care Collective is doing to develop essential training and support resources, please consider becoming a monthly donor or giving a one-time donation here. You can also sign up for our email newsletter below to receive future updates on our work.