Community Collaboratives for Refugee Women and Youth

Refugee women and youth face unique challenges to successful integration into their new communities in the United States. Many of these women, particularly those from Africa and the Middle East, occupied traditional roles in their home countries and may have never been to school or held a job. These roles now make it more difficult to benefit from job training, English classes, and other opportunities that facilitate integration and independence. By engaging communities to serve the needs of refugee women and youth, the barriers to integration they face become less difficult to overcome, and acculturation into their new society occurs more quickly and easily.

Program Overview

With support from the Office of Refugee Resettlement through the Community and Family Strengthening Initiative, IRC's Community Collaboratives for Refugee Women and Youth program offers funding, technical assistance and training to refugee service providers nationwide to:

• Provide refugee women and youth with the tools they need to become self-reliant and integrated into their communities;
• Develop model programs that address the unique needs of refugee women and youth;
• Advance awareness of the valuable social and economic contributions refugee women and youth bring to their communities.

Community Collaboratives works to accomplish these goals through three program components:

• Model Programs
• AmeriCorps*VISTA
• Mini-Grants Awards