RefugePoint Founder, Sasha Chanoff, recently presented at Expanding Global Refugee Labour Mobility: Implementing the Three-Year Strategy, hosted by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada and UNHCR. The title of Sasha’s talk was Refugee-Centered Labor Mobility Sasha spoke about the importance of ensuring that this pathway to a new life is rooted first and foremost in the …
Hakizimana is the proud owner of a barbershop nestled in the Eastleigh suburb of Nairobi. “I used to work for someone here in Eastleigh, a Kenyan. I enjoy doing this work as a barber, and I saw that if I can do it by myself, it would be better than working for someone else,” he …
After facing difficult circumstances upon arrival in Nairobi, Juvenal can now proudly care for himself. When he arrived in Kenya from his native country of Burundi in 2015, Juvenal was ailing from complications in his spine, which limited his mobility and made him unable to stay on his feet for any period of time. He …
RefugePoint implements a robust community health program that reaches approximately ten thousand refugees annually with critical information of public health importance. RefugePoint also partners with local government health departments in support of immunization and other public health campaigns. When refugees are struggling with mental and physical health issues, they cannot work and support themselves and …
By: Anne-Marie, Galgalo & John RefugePoint Community Navigators The poem “A Victim of Circumstances” was co-authored by three Community Navigators from RefugePoint. We are staff members and refugees ourselves, working in the communities around Nairobi where our refugee clients live. We hail from Rwanda, Ethiopia, and DR Congo. Our group’s diversity made for a variety …
Read the full report here. Or read the 2-page executive summary here. The past few years have taken a heavy toll on refugee resettlement. The total number of refugees resettled worldwide dropped from a high of 163,000 in 2016 to a low of 40,000 in 2020, primarily due to the contraction of the U.S. resettlement …
From a very young age, DJ Montana* always knew that he wanted to become a DJ—he describes music as something in his blood. Unfortunately, in 2015, war broke out in his home country of Burundi, and DJ Montana was forced to flee. He ended up in Nairobi, Kenya, and refused to give up on his …
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mary, a refugee from South Sudan, supported her family of 15 by running a business selling roasted peanuts and peanut butter to members of her local church. Mary also bartered her products at a community school in order to enroll her children there. The profits from Mary’s peanut business were …
In 2015, at the age of 14, Patrick and his family were forced to flee their home in Congo and sought safety in Nairobi, Kenya. Patrick’s parents struggled to provide for the family by selling mobile phone accessories and milk. In 2017, Patrick’s mother passed away, leaving his father to support the family. Patrick’s father …
In February 2020, Balolwa, a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo, completed RefugePoint’s Business Development Skills training and received a small grant to expand her business selling tomatoes. Balolwa used the grant to add onions and garlic to her vegetable stand. Her business was doing well, but in May 2020, all of Balolwa’s vegetables …
