Resettlement involves permanently relocating refugees to a safe country where they can rebuild their lives.
Supporting refugee resettlement is a longstanding priority of RefugePoint. Since the agency was founded in 2005, we have helped over 102,153 refugees access resettlement and other pathways to safety.
In Nairobi, our resettlement program is designed to prioritize our most at-risk clients for this life-saving solution, while our global partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) allows us to send staff to dozens of other countries, expanding our resettlement impact by reaching thousands of refugees each year. In addition to our direct services, we use the occasion of our casework to assess, troubleshoot and improve local resettlement systems and practices. This field building, in turn, supports our global effort to promote systems change that leads to more equitable access to resettlement for those who need it most. Child Protection is a critical consideration that is at the foundation of our resettlement work, as children at-risk are very often among the refugees most in need of resettlement. Learn more about what RefugePoint Child Protection Experts do.
Direct Services
Providing services to meet the needs of individuals and households
RefugePointâs resettlement program is grounded in direct casework. At any given time, we have around 25 Resettlement Experts helping refugees in some 20 countries. These staff interview refugees, document their experiences, and refer them to governments for resettlement consideration.
They also identify the refugees most in need of resettlement through âprofilingâ exercises, conduct child protection assessments for especially vulnerable children, and do quality review of casework completed by others. Through these services, in addition to our direct referrals, RefugePointâs work allows several thousand more refugees to be considered for resettlement each year.
100,000
Since 2005, we have directly assisted over 100,000 refugees to access resettlement and other pathways to safety.
Click to read moreWe partner with the UN to reach at-risk refugees, focusing on locations that are historically underserved.
300%
300% Increase in total resettlement from Africa.
Click to read moreRefugePoint expanded access to resettlement to many more locations across Africa and boosted the capacity of the referral system, resulting in a 3-fold increase in total referrals from Africa between 2005-2016 (13,897 to 43,078).
Field Building
Supporting other organizations to accelerate and expand programs for reaching refugee populations
Capacity-building is one of the hallmarks of RefugePointâs resettlement program. Each year, our team of Resettlement Experts hosts trainings for hundreds of partner staff from UNHCR, other non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and the governments that host refugees.
In addition, our Resettlement Experts identify gaps in systems and practices and develop the tools needed to address them.
Staff routinely develop materials â including referral forms, standard operating procedures, case tracking mechanisms, and more â to ensure that refugees in need of resettlement are promptly identified and efficiently guided through the resettlement process. As a result, more refugees are able to gain access to this solution.
Systems Change
Influencing policy and decision-makers to drive large scale change
While RefugePoint believes that all refugees in need of resettlement should have equal access, a number of factors interfere with that goal. Crucially, the need for resettlement far outweighs the âquotasâ available globally.
Also, some countries are only willing to accept those who meet specific criteria related to nationality, language, job skills, family composition, or health status.
Other countries only accept refugees from specific geographic locations, or are only able to process applications in a few locations.
To address these imbalances, RefugePoint actively works to reach locations and refugee populations that have been overlooked by the global resettlement system.
And we advocate to increase the number of global resettlement slots available each year.
Reach the Overlooked
We actively work to reach locations and refugee populations that have been overlooked by the global resettlement system
Equal Access
We believe that all refugees in need of resettlement should have equal access
Increased Access
We advocate to increase the number of global resettlement slots available each year