Refugee Resettlement Project

 
The Kenan Institute for Ethics is engaged in a multi-site community-based research project in eastern Nepal; Cairo, Egypt; northeastern Kenya; and Durham exploring the effects of resettlement upon refugees.

Durham is one of many communities nationwide that takes in refugees from around the world as they arrive in the US for third-country resettlement. The project was inspired by a semester-long faculty/student working group on refugees led by our first practitioner-in-residence, Fiona Terry.

The project is directed by Institute Acting Director Suzanne Shanahan, and it emerged from a class she taught in Spring 2010 with undergraduate and graduate students interested in ethical and health-related issues surrounding refugee resettlement. With the project, the Institute has sent teams of graduate and undergraduate students on six-week research trips to Nepal during Summer 2010 and Summer 2011, and sponsored the 2012 Duke Winter Forum: Refugees, Rights, Resettlement. Currently, the project encompasses an annual month-long research trip through DukeImmerse to Nepal and Egypt, as well as a variety of student-led community based projects with the Durham refugee communities, sponsored by the Institute.

These include:

  • ESL classes for refugee youth, which are held throughout the fall and spring semesters, and adult ESL classes and curriculum development, which lay the foundation for creating a language partnership and cultural exchange program. Developing public school educational materials to teach freshman students at local high schools about refugee issues.
  • Recreational and community-building events for local refugee families and children, including attending World Refugee Day in Raleigh, an Independence Day weekend picnic, and an outing to the Museum of Life and Science.
  • A social entrepreneurship project relating to the livelihoods of locally-resettled refugee women. The first stage of the project is a business plan for a nonprofit cleaning company to employ and be managed cooperatively by refugee women. The plan also includes English language and job skills training, including basic accounting.
  • A mental health project involving research and community outreach components, investigating mental health, well-being, and service use of newly resettled refugees in the Triangle area.

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