Serve and Empower Those Among Us

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What is a Home Team? We consider the refugees in our community some of the most vulnerable among us. We work to meet their needs by providing compassionate care and intentional empowerment for their journey to self-sufficiency.

A Home Team is a Community Sponsorship Team of volunteers from a faith group or community group who assist a Resettlement Agency’s or another resettlement organization’s case worker to resettle a newly arrived refugee and who will continue to come alongside them for a 12-month period: building mutual friendships, introducing them to American culture, providing material support and advocacy, and teaching them how to access their community services more efficiently in order to help them become independent and vital contributors within their communities.

 
 

Here are some practical ways a Home Team can partner with a refugee family:

  • Finding Long-term Low Income Housing Resources

  • Finding Employment Resources

  • Following up with Social Services

  • Familiarizing the Parents with Children’s School System

  • Navigating the Healthcare System

  • Finding Community Mental Health Resources

  • Finding Close ESL Classes

  • Counsel on Education and Future Career Goals

  • Helping practice for Drivers Permits/Licenses

  • Finding Legal Services

  • Helping with Pathway to Citizenship

 

Here are some ways a Home Team and refugee family develop a friendship:

  • Providing orientation to United States’ culture

  • Asking questions about their culture and their family story and sharing about your culture and family story with them

  • Showing the family the sites of their community online

  • Connecting them to their religious faith’s resources and congregation in their area (Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist) thru websites and contact information

  • Inviting the family to join your family celebrating virtually United States’ holidays and your family’s religious holidays

  • Just chatting over the phone or virtually together

  • Offering genuine and mutual friendship

 

We hope to engage refugee by connecting them to American friends through our teams of volunteers. Our volunteers are a vital component of the resettlement process as they provide ongoing cultural orientation to America, transportation for various needs, but most importantly, friendship and love.

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START A HOME TEAM

Faith groups and community groups from a variety of communities have already answered the call to help refugees resettle throughout Southern California. Are you feeling inspired? Find out what it takes to get involved in a refugee family's life.

 

How will Home for Refugees work with you?

We will work with your group, both before and after you are matched with a new or existing refugee family, that your group will help resettle. We will provide guidelines on how to structure your core group of volunteers, we will train members of your core group, and once you are matched with a family, we will help you identify goals and objectives you wish to accomplish over approximately a 12 month period. Along the way we work closely with a designated team leader, and at times the entire team, to coach and equip when necessary, as obstacles to achieving goals emerge along the way. until the refugee family has achieved its resettlement goals.

Beyond the tools, resources, and coaching we provide, we will give you the encouragement you need to experience the blessing of entering into a journey with a family who wishes to achieve self-sufficiency.

 

What can you expect?

Refugees have been through a lot. In most cases they have fled countries where there was little respect for their human rights. On the move and some living in refugee camps for years, many experienced insults, humiliation, and a sense of helplessness. Arriving in the United States, not speaking English, they are initially dependent on our services and assistance. Given our relationship with refugees, if we are not careful, we might treat them as just needy people. Please remember, one of our most important jobs in refugee resettlement is to help refugees regain their confidence and sense of control over their lives. We do this by focusing on partnership, empowerment, and treating them with respect. 

More than that, we expect you to experience the joy of helping families navigate a new geography, culture, and society, and achieve fulfillment and success on their way to successful resettlement.