Citizenship Lab project works toward solutions for resettled refugee youth

This year, The Kenan Institute for Ethics has supported a Bass Connections project through the Silver Family Fund connecting locally resettled refugee youth with Duke researchers to identify solutions to ease the transition for refugees. Dubbed “The Citizenship Lab,” the project works to encourage civic engagement by the youth as well as together find ways to overcome cultural and linguistic barriers that often make access to resources, jobs, education and social support difficult. As quoted in the Duke Chronicle, fourth-year graduate student Alex Oprea says:

Since this is our first year, our first challenge was to understand the particular challenges faced by a displaced population. For all of [our students], we hope that because they know so many more people in the community, they’ll be able to use these community resources as they move forward. We’re trying to help them build a network and to understand that they’re not outsiders.