Refugees Work
"We helped over 60 refugee families, furnished over 40 homes, paid for classes to almost 100 driver licenses, provided free or near free 20+ cars, and much more"
Our refugee work focuses on establishing the refugee, providing basic needs, helping them navigate the day-to-day tasks, improving language skills, and getting a driver's license, a car, and a job.
We conducted our refugees work under two initiatives:
Roots for Refugees is a local community endeavor that aims towards welcoming new refugee families to Murfreesboro.
Home away from home, or Middle Tennessee Refugee Helpers is a local community endeavor that aims towards welcoming new Syrian refugee families to Middle Tennessee.
Our approach steps are:
Step One: The family arrives and settles through an agency. We connect, visit, collect family basic information, and provide basic urgent needs. This step may include food, personal care items, clothes, toiletries, health connections, house/neighborhood orientation, and more. Items in this step are collected ahead of in most cases. Some are purchased.
Step two focuses on household items: Once in an apartment, we assess the needs for furnishings, appliances, and more. We then help the families receive basic household needs, furniture, and more to make the house more equipped and cozy. This may include kitchen needs, cooking supplies, a Microwave, vacuum, iron, furniture, washer and dryer, TV, rugs, and more. These items are collected on a peer-to-peer basis and/or purchased when needed. We have a small storage unit for overflow.
Step three aims to give self-independence, In this step, we provide services that will help better equip them to be self-sustaining and independent. It may include Language orientation, transportation orientation, house orientation, shopping orientation, , driving school, health orientation, bill pay orientation, WIC, Education orientation, Driver's license school, Jobs, and more.
Step Four: In this step, we stay in touch with the family for around 90 days. We provide non-monetary help to them. Help them learn how to do day-to-day tasks and navigate their new life. This step is done in most cases by a paired family or group. We do not provide any financial help or bill pay help unless it is a true emergency. We limit each family's total help period to less than 6 months.
We limit each family's financial cost to a maximum based on income and bank balance.
