The Refugee Response dba Re:Source Cleveland
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : k*****n@r*************e.o*g
Mission Statement
Re:Source Cleveland (formerly The Refugee Response) empowers resettled families to grow roots, supporting them in becoming engaged, self-sufficient, and active members of their new communities. We believe in the importance of the resettled community and its unique contribution to the region and country. At Re:Source Cleveland, we provide quality, individualized education and personal support, while placing the voices of resettled families at the center of our decision-making.
About This Cause
Re:Source Cleveland is a Cleveland-based 501(c)(3) founded in 2010 that operates 8 unique programs for individuals and families resettled through the national refugee resettlement program. In 2023 Re:Source provided services to over 1,000 individuals from over 12 different nationalities or ethnic identities speaking upwards of 20 languages and dialects. While Re:Source works with children and adults, in the past two years Re:Source has seen the highest demand as well as the biggest growth in services directed towards teens and young adults. Ohio City Farm (OCF) is a five-acre urban farm located in the heart of Cleveland, OH. Founded in 2010, the farm is a self-sustaining social enterprise run by Re:Source Cleveland. The farm employs newcomers at an hourly rate significantly above average farm wages in the state. OCF has become a robust and resilient business through small-scale organic farming and a diversified means of sales including a 350-member Community Supported Agriculture Program. Youth Mentoring (YMP) links refugee students with mentors to help children meet their academic and personal growth targets. The YMP program places a particular focus on literacy and social-emotional learning by providing learning lab space to youth and robust training and support from staff to mentors. The program has demonstrated a profound impact on students’ English proficiency, with YMP clients’ growth on annual English assessments exceeding the statewide average year-to-year progress by 70%. More importantly, mentor-mentee relationships foster personal growth, confidence, and excitement about learning. Teen Response (TR) was launched in 2018 to serve refugee high school students. Through cohort-based activities, guest speakers, field trips, tutoring, and one-on-one support, Teen Response supports students to successfully graduate on time and prepares them for life after high school. TR students achieved growth on their English fluency assessments by 75% over the state average. With intensive support, all Teen Response seniors in the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 school years not only graduated on time but were also accepted to college. Graduating clients in 2020-21 received $401,040 in scholarships and financial aid. Content Creation (CC) launched in late 2019 and has created over 200 unique, short, animated videos in over 12 languages. With an initial focus on how to adjust to life in the U.S., the program pivoted to create dozens of videos on the coronavirus and safety that were viewed over 100,000 times in countries all over the world. The program continues to create videos that are targeted to newcomers and has secured partnerships with a variety of agencies to produce original content for refugee populations in the U.S. Corner65 (C65) was founded in 2017 on the near west side to provide a safe place for youth to gather and engage. In 2020 Re:Source incorporated Corner65 as a formal program. Serving over 100 youth and teens, C65 provides a wide range of both structured and drop-in programming. Activities include soccer leagues, Kung Fu classes, sewing and arts programs, tutoring, driver’s education, and more. An active youth leadership council informs program and activity choices. Adult Tutoring (AT) first started in 2018. The program was put on hold due to COVID-19 concerns but has just been relaunched in late August 2022. This program provides individual English language tutoring support for newly arrived Afghan refugees in their homes. Live instruction is delivered by an online ESL teacher to clients connecting from home, accompanied by tutors who assist them in person with practicing and using the language skills being taught. This program started with an initial cohort of 28 clients and is poised to expand in early 2023. The Community Advisory Board (CAB) was founded in 2020 and is made up of 12 members of the refugee and immigrant communities of Cleveland. The CAB is both an advisory board to Re:Source as well as a programmatic board. Members can propose and receive funding for projects and needs specific to their community, while also working collectively on a larger joint project. CAB’s 2022 project is to provide scholarships for teens to take Driver’ Education courses. The Client Administration Support Services (CASS) team was established at the height of the pandemic to provide wrap-around support and referral services to families with a member enrolled in Re:Source programming. Assistance can include processing for food stamps, rental assistance, Medicaid, childcare, unemployment insurance applications, and more. The Newcomer Navigators (NN), which contracts Newcomer Navigators from 7 priority resettled communities in Cuyahoga County, works hand in hand with the CASS team to provide professional development, advocacy, and coordination support to Navigators, enabling them to successfully direct a targeted 120 families through the process of enrolling in social services, including health care, public assistance, childcare, education, employment, and entrepreneurship. Re:Source Cleveland serves people who have entered the U.S. through the national refugee resettlement program, those seeking asylum, with temporary protected status, or on humanitarian parole visas. Re:Source’s educational programs serve refugee students in the 4th through 12th-grade levels in the Cleveland area, including the Cleveland Metropolitan School District and Parma City Schools. While Re:Source does not require financial data from most clients, nearly all clients who disclose income information are low- or middle-income, and most qualify for government assistance programs like SNAP. In the 2023-2024 school year Re:Source will serve 400 refugee youth and teens across three programs: the Youth Mentoring Program, Teen Response and Corner65. These programs offer academic support, one-on-one mentorship, and social-emotional development to clients, and offer practical support to their families through home visits and case management referrals. Students in our Youth Mentoring and Teen Response programs have been in the U.S. for a median of six years. Most of the clients in these programs come from Syria (27%), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (16%), or Afghanistan (13%). Corner65 was initially launched to serve African refugees, and most African refugees admitted to the U.S. since 2016 are from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While the program is now open to all nationalities, African refugees still make up the majority of its members. Most refugees who enter through the resettlement program were displaced from their homes by war or persecution and have spent years living in refugee camps, where poverty and violence are widespread. Refugees who entered the U.S. through the humanitarian parole program, including most of the Afghans who fled the country after Kabul fell to the Taliban as well as Ukrainians fleeing the Russian invasion, have recently experienced sudden and violent displacement. According to the World Health Organization, refugees are 10 times as likely as non-refugees to exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. Refugees who enter the U.S. as children have grown up in traumatic circumstances, and have often been deprived of important coping systems, like consistent education.