‘Feels like home': Israeli school for migrant kids wins by bridging worlds

World Relief Durham hosts a summer program for kids. Like other summer programs, it is meant to reduce summer learning loss—but this is specifically for children from forcibly displaced families. The kids face unique challenges in school and in society, often having been witness to traumatic experiences, so in this program they take lessons, play games, and work with community volunteers to let them just be kids. The program started with 25 participants in 2017 and grew to serve 150 children in 2019.

The Migrant Education Program, which offers educational and social services to migrant worker families in Colorado’s San Luis Valley, is growing in popularity among the valley’s migrant worker population, and has recently begun to focus on getting migrant students geared up for college .

Sweden has, and continues, to receive a lot of asylum seekers, leading to the need for successful integration of these new immigrants. Certain programs have been developed, such as one that when completed asylum seekers will be able to gain employment faster, or others that help young immigrants understand their new culture.

Fueled by xenophobia, many countries around the world are refusing refugees at the border. But Canadian hockey moms, poker buddies, and neighbors are personally resettling Syrians, one family at a time.

Refugee resettlement is arguably one of our country’s noblest examples of foreign policy. It gives forcibly displaced people from around the world a chance to escape danger and rebuild a life for themselves in a safe environment.

Shelters for Hope converted an abandoned motel into a migrant resource center called the Centro de Esperanza and provides meals, legal assistance, clothing, and shoes to families seeking asylum in the United States. Shelters for Hope sees between 150 to 200 people a day and can currently house about 30 people.

Community-based services provided by nonprofits — which include legal representation, housing, referrals for medical services, English language classes, and assistance with obtaining identity documents — have emerged as alternatives to ICE-based detention centers to help address the needs of immigrants and asylum seekers. Organizations like the Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants provide food, housing, and case management support for asylum seekers, both individuals and entire families.

This T.V. segment showcases multiple solutions used by school districts and nonprofits across the nation, from creating cell phone towers so students have access to reliable wifi, to curbside meals, to learning pods. Overall, the hosts emphasize that the solutions highlighted in this segment involve a process that begins before a student even enters the virtual classroom and often involves many people working together.

As the struggles of refugees and immigrants drudges on, a number of cities across the US are gathering funding for their legal defense. One strategy, a legal counsel program called New York Family Immigrant Unity Project, has proven so successful that it now has 19 other counties in states like Colorado and Georgia participating in their network. Beyond that, these public defense projects often comprise of both public and private dollars and are all working for the right (not guaranteed by the US Constitution) to have access to legal counsel during immigration proceedings.

Immersive engagement on a personal level promotes integration into new cultures. To help newcomers and foreign residents integrate into Estonian society, the Estonian Institute’s program, Culture Step, allows participants to experience and participate in Estonian customs and traditions. The program also helps newcomers build a social network in the increasingly multi-cultural society.