There are so many different circumstances in 2024 that cause people around the world to have to flee their homes and seek safety elsewhere. In the complex landscape of immigration, terms like refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants are often used interchangeably, leading to confusion and misunderstanding. While they all share the common goal of finding a new home in a new land, refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants are all distinct, and each is potentially able to access different pathways to achieve their aspirations and goals.    Refugees Refugees are people who have fled their hom ..read more

Tens of billions of dollars are spent each year sheltering displaced people, while million of jobs go unfilled across developed economies. The post Transforming the migration system to make it work for displaced talent appeared first on RefugePoint ..read more

Worried about his mother’s health, Jacob Mabil tried for months to persuade her to let him start the process that would take her from a sprawling refugee camp where she had spent almost a decade after fleeing violence in South Sudan. The post Their lives were torn apart by war in Africa. A family hopes a new US program will help them reunite appeared first on RefugePoint ..read more

Samira (left) and her son Omer (right) reuniting at Vancouver Airport in Canada after seven years apart. The two were forcibly separated while fleeing war in Sudan in 2016.   By Vera Keller, RefugePoint Family Reunification Expert and UNHCR Europe Coordinator for Family Reunification The number of displaced people has increased significantly in recent years. In 2022, UNHCR recorded the largest yearly increase ever in number of refugees. By mid-2023 the number of forcibly displaced people worldwide had reached an alarming number of more than 110 million.  This increase in forced displ ..read more

BOSTON, January 19, 2024 – One year ago today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Welcome Corps, which empowers everyday Americans to play a leading role in welcoming refugees to the U.S. through private sponsorship groups. “Private sponsorship is one of the boldest innovations in American refugee resettlement history,” says Sasha Chanoff, CEO of RefugePoint, an organization that partners with refugees to access life-changing solutions.  The Welcome Corps program, which is within the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, allows people in the U.S. to sponsor individuals or families for ..read more

Sasha Chanoff, Founder and CEO of RefugePoint, announces the Family Reunification pledge during the Global Refugee Forum 2023. Photo: UNHCR   By Ali Pappavaselio, RefugePoint with contributions from Kari Diener, Amy Slaughter, Martin Anderson, and Sasha Chanoff   The Global Refugee Forum (GRF), a quadrennial event and the main venue to drive and review progress toward the objectives of the Global Compact on Refugees, took place last week in Geneva, Switzerland. RefugePoint and the Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative delegations played a leadership role at several of the events of this y ..read more

By Amy Slaughter, Senior Advisor at RefugePoint, and Kari Jorgensen Diener, Executive Director at Refugee Self-Reliance Initiative As governments and humanitarians convene in Geneva for the second quadrennial Global Refugee Forum (GRF) in the latest attempt to negotiate more equitable responsibility-sharing for the world’s refugees as stipulated by the Global Compact for Refugees adopted by UN member states in 2018, one of the biggest items on the table will be enhancing refugees’ self-reliance.  Responsibility-sharing is typically understood as agreements among governments to defray the ..read more

Bahati Ernestine, RefugePoint’s Labor Mobility Consultant (center-right) and former refugee, speaking at the Executive Committee of the High Commissioner’s Programme in Geneva. By Martin Anderson, Director of International Programs / Geneva Representative RefugePoint has made 4 pledges in the context of the 2023 Global Refugee Forum (GRF). They are:   Promoting holistic self-reliance for refugees, other forcibly displaced and stateless people, and host communities Facilitating access to resettlement through client support and strategic partnerships Facilitating access to family reunifica ..read more

By Martin Anderson, Geneva Representative For media inquiries, please contact Alexis Felder at felder@refugepoint.org.  In 2018, the United Nations General Assembly endorsed the Global Compact on Refugees, the most significant piece of refugee-related policy in more than 50 years. It led to the creation of the Global Refugee Forum (GRF), a quadrennial meeting of senior humanitarian stakeholders, including heads of state, ministers, non-profit and corporate executives, refugee leaders, researchers, and more.   The first GRF was in 2019. Though it was a significant event at t ..read more

EMPP Candidates from L to R: Adifatah Abdulle Sabriye, Alamin Manji Musa, Sylvia Kamencu (RefugePoint’s Manager of Complementary Pathways), Bigirimana Richard, Abisi Olivier, Patricia Omar. Photo: Diana Karua   Last month, RefugePoint’s labor mobility team celebrated several new milestones.    Eleven Refugees Depart for Canada in October  Last month, a cohort of eleven refugees departed for Canada through the Economic Mobility Pathways Pilot (EMPP) to start new jobs as Continuing Care Assistants, following months of COVID-related delays. “It is a process that has taken time ..read more