Refugee Resettlement
Background
According to UNHCR, approximately 60,000 refugees of the 1,400,000 UNHCR designated most vulnerable refugees were resettled in western countries in 2019 (approximately 4%). We prefer to use broader definitions of both total refugees (regardless of current vulnerability designation)—25.9 million—and resettlement (which includes Canada’s private sponsorship program)—80,000. The result is an even more pitiful 0.3% resettlement rate.
Expanding Resettlement
Inspired by our success with community sponsorship in Boston and Canada, we recently launched a pilot project in the UK to resettle orphan refugees. Our partners Home for Good, Reset and Social Finance UK have identified communities which have both community sponsorship programs and foster care in an attempt utilize resettlement spaces under the “Dubs Amendment” under the Immigration Act of 2016.
In the US, we are working with our partners at OSF and IRIS (Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services) to advance a form of community sponsorship (co-sponsorship) which aims to expand Canadian-style private sponsorship with the cooperation of national and local resettlement agencies.
Back in Canada, we have an exciting pilot project in Pictou County, Nova Scotia to expand resettlement via a new federal program called EMPP—Economic Mobility Pathways Project. The goal is to utilize EMPP to match skilled refugees in Kenya and the Middle East with employers seeking to fill vacant jobs. Working with IRCC, three organizations in Pictou— The Pictou County Regional Enterprise Network (PCREN), Safe Harbor and Glen Haven Manor— along with international partners RefugePoint and Talent Beyond Boundaries (TBB), we are hoping to create a model which will result in dozens of incremental refugees being resettled, with jobs and the deep involvement of the community, in Pictou in 2020. Our plan is to identify other rural Canadian cities with similar employment needs which can be met through identification and matching with skilled refugees. This program is purely incremental, with refugee-sponsor matches being executed outside of the current Canadian resettlement programs.