When refugees arrive in the U.S. they receive help from resettlement organizations, sponsors, volunteers and neighbors. This support strengthens the connection between newly resettled refugees and their communities and helps the refugees begin to feel at home. Shown here are Americans helping the newest members of their communities and refugees making a new home and thriving.
In the state of Nebraska, a woman tutors a Sudanese refugee child in English. The civil war between northern and southern Sudan caused millions of people to flee their homes and to seek refuge elsewhere.
A volunteer serves food to a Somali Bantu refugee at a Christmas dinner in the state of South Carolina. Volunteers host cultural events introducing refugees to new foods and customs and making them feel part of their new communities. Refugees reciprocate, sharing their culture and experiences with their new friends.
A community member shows a recently arrived Somali Bantu refugee how to operate the kitchen faucet. Most Bantu refugees were rural farmers in Somalia who fled to refugee camps in Kenya. For many refugees, using U.S.-style household appliances and utilities is a marked change from their previous lives.
A volunteer accompanies an Afghan refugee to the grocery store to explain the various items. Afghan refugees began arriving in the U.S. after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Burmese refugees gather at a meeting in the state of Indiana with a staff worker from Exodus Refugee Immigration, a resettlement organization. The staff worker helps explain the forms they need to fill out and how to adjust to their new lives.
At Fort Dix, New Jersey, a Kosovar refugee helps other refugees from Kosovo use a computer and surf the Internet for refugee-related sites. In 1999, some 4,000 Kosovar refugees stayed at Fort Dix temprarily while awaiting settlement in other parts of the U.S.
A refugee from Burma talks with his foster parents in their Massachusetts home. Many Burmese refugees are ethnically Karen and fled the Burmese military junta. Some spent many years in refugee camps in Thailand before arriving in the U.S.
A Catholic Charities caseworker shows two refugees how to use the shower and bath in their family’s new apartment. The family fled Bhutan for Nepal and was later resettled to the state of Pennsylvania. In 2008, the U.S. offered to resettle 60,000 Bhutanese refugees and began accepting the refugees that same year.
A National Geographic photographer works with students at a photo camp in the state of Maryland. The students, Meskhetian Turk refugees, are interested in photography and participate in the Refugee Youth Project at Baltimore City Community College.
A woman in Fredericksburg, Virginia, helps refugees to the area with many necessary tasks, including arranging doctor’s appointments and setting up housing. Here, she helps a refugee from Liberia apply for a driver’s license at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles. Thousands of Liberian refugees fled the country’s 14-year civil war to resettle in the U.S.
A refugee sponsor and a caseworker meet with an Iraqi refugee. The sponsor and the caseworker explain the forms the family needs to fill out and provide the family with guidance and support.
