Helping refugees resettle in Chicago

There are more than ten million refugees in the world. What can just one person do? As a reminder that each of us can make a difference, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees established World Refugee Day in 2001. Each year, June 20 serves as a reminder that many around the world are forced to flee their homes...

Art is more than a career for Ghaith Salman Jarew – it is his calling. If his artistic fate had not been sealed at birth when he became the newest member of a creative family of artists, it certainly was when he picked up a paint brush at the young age of six and felt the sensation of destiny as he held the brush...

Desire arrived at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport on April 17, 2012, exhausted from the flight and over a decade of turmoil in his home country of The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). With him were his wife, Alphonsine, and their six children.  As expected, the family was apprehensive about resettling in...

Mohamed Kabiro’s Story Once a successful fisherman catching over 600 pounds of fish a day in the coastal city of Baraawe, Somalia, Mohamed Kabiro never imagined how greatly his world would change in the upcoming years. In 1991 a union of armed clan groups brought the long-standing military government of...

Through RefugeeOne’s Youth Program, refugee youth are provided with the resources they need to successfully transition into their new surroundings. Our dedicated staff serve as liaisons between refugee families and schools, helping families to understand school policies, accompanying them to registration and the first...

Imagine what the impact would be if everyone in your family DID ONE THING, if everyone at your workplace DID ONE THING, if everyone on your block DID ONE THING, and if everyone at your school DID ONE THING… We at RefugeeOne are asking you to DO ONE THING in honor of the globally celebrated World Refugee Day. ...

Thang Tung Pau arrived at O’Hare on July 5, 2011.  In Burma, he worked on his family’s farm until he was targeted for forced labor and torture for not joining the military.  Fortunately, he escaped the country and found temporary safety in a refugee camp in Malaysia. Pau, even in Burma, shared many of...

The Story of Htoo Eh and Her Family In the years before her life was uprooted by Burma’s military junta, Htoo Eh was a primary grade school teacher in Tay Dey, a village in southern Burma. She and her husband Kle-Klo Say had been married four years and had had two children before deciding their village was no longer...

Thirty Years. Many Voices. One Vision. Your donation to RefugeeOne through GlobalGiving can help families like Abdulkarim’s (full story below) begin a new life in the U.S.  We help individuals and families who seek refuge through our organization become self-sufficient members of society as quickly as...

RefugeeOne Marks Its 30th Anniversary.  Since 1982, the organization has resettled thousands of refugees from every major conflict around the globe:  Pol Pot’s Killing Fields, people fleeing genocide in Rwanda, Milosevic’s Serbia, Jews from the U.S.S.R., Kurds from Iraq, Iranians fleeing the...

Hello All, Here are a few updates from our organization: Backpack Drive Update Thank you to all who donated to the RefugeeOne Youth Program Backpack Drive! Your generous donations allowed us to supply more than 300 backpacks for refugee youth for the upcoming school year. The backpacks and supplies will help to ensure that...

Hello All, The first day of school is right around the corner and ReugeeOne's Backpack Drive is underway. Having the right school supplies is the first step in doing well in school.  We want to ensure that refugee youths in our programs are equipped to do well in their studies this academic...

Hello, and Happy Summer! With your support, RefugeeOne was able to continue to support refugees in the Chicagoland area.   We resettled many refugees, mainly from Burma, Bhutan and Iraq.   In June RefugeeOne kicked off its 30th anniversary with two events held at donor’s homes.  The events...

Hello, and happy March! With your support, RefugeeOne was able to continue to support refugees in the Chicago area through 2010 and into 2011. As Chicago got hit with blizzards and subzero temperatures, we were able to provide clean, safe, and warm apartments to newly arriving refugees. The apartments we provide are...

Thank you again to all who made and continue to make contributions to RefugeeOne through GlobalGiving. We are pleased to give you an update on what has been going on at our agency the past few months. As snow and cold temperatures arrived in Chicago this winter, RefugeeOne continued to resettle new refugee families,...