{"id":2512,"date":"2019-09-26T21:18:57","date_gmt":"2019-09-26T21:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.refugepoint.org\/?p=2512"},"modified":"2023-10-27T19:56:55","modified_gmt":"2023-10-27T19:56:55","slug":"the-interdependencies-of-self-reliance-refugepoints-runway-approach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.refugepoint.org\/the-interdependencies-of-self-reliance-refugepoints-runway-approach\/","title":{"rendered":"The Interdependencies of Self-Reliance: RefugePoint\u2019s Runway Approach \ufeff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By: Amy Slaughter (Chief Strategy Officer)<\/strong> <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Would you be able to work if your kids weren\u2019t in school? Or if you didn\u2019t have stable housing? What if you had a serious, untreated health condition or lacked food security? <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/jrs\/advance-article\/doi\/10.1093\/jrs\/fez060\/5549575?guestAccessKey=b0674e54-c0b9-48c8-bb4d-b686f6b0dd10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"The factors that allow us to thrive and support ourselves are all interconnected. (opens in a new tab)\">The factors that allow us to thrive and support ourselves are all interconnected.<\/a> So too are they for refugees, and yet refugee assistance programs are often siloed by sector: \u201cgo here for health care, there for counseling, another place for housing or food, and a fourth place to see if you can enroll your kids in school.\u201d Good luck, without transportation or speaking the local language. Good luck, with little money and few social contacts. And good luck even getting through the entry gate when you\u2019re one of thousands of refugees in need of assistance.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Siloed programming starts with siloed funding, which is typically how it comes from governments and multilateral donors who issue separate contracts to \u201cimplementing partners\u201d to provide a particular service: food, education or health care, legal protection or water and sanitation. Refugees in urban areas are left to connect the dots \u2013 to try to assemble the complement of services that they need, often at great expense in terms of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.unhcr.org\/research\/working\/4f070ace9\/cost-living-analysis-time-money-spent-refugees-accessing-services-nairobi.html\">time and money<\/a>, and often with little luck. Interactions between aid workers and refugees abroad are typically \u201cone-off,\u201d with no coordination of care or \u201ccase management.\u201d It is little wonder that refugees remain dependent on aid when no attention is given to eliminating their barriers to self-reliance in a planful, coherent way.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>RefugePoint sought to change that in Nairobi for its own clients and to test approaches that might improve refugee service provision broadly. Borrowing lessons from the U.S. program for resettling refugees and helping them get back on their feet, RefugePoint offers a one-stop-shop of coordinated services to address housing, food, healthcare, psychosocial counseling, education, livelihoods, and small business capital needs. Case managers accompany families throughout their journey, making the needed internal and external referrals. Clients help create their own case plans and goals, drawing on their strengths and assets as well as identifying areas for which support is needed.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Using this approach, RefugePoint has been able to \u2018graduate\u2019 nearly 3,000 refugees off of its assistance, with sufficient income to support their families. This despite the fact that most clients were initially considered highly \u2018vulnerable\u2019 or at risk. While the approach is still being refined and tested, early results point to the possibility that a coordinated set of stabilizing services \u2013 that explicitly eliminate barriers to self-reliance \u2013 can result in self-reliance for refugees desiring it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These are the sorts of services that resettled refugees receive when it\u2019s assumed they are remaining permanently in their new country. Treating refugees in their \u201ctemporary\u201d host countries as if they are being resettled makes sense since history tells us many will be there indefinitely. And if not, if they get a durable solution (repatriation, permanent local integration, or resettlement), so much the better. They\u2019ll be better prepared for any eventuality, will have preserved their strengths and assets in the meantime, and will have added value to the socio-economic life of their host communities.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To find out more about RefugePoint\u2019s approach in Nairobi, read this <a href=\"https:\/\/academic.oup.com\/jrs\/advance-article\/doi\/10.1093\/jrs\/fez060\/5549575?guestAccessKey=b0674e54-c0b9-48c8-bb4d-b686f6b0dd10\">field report<\/a> published in the Journal of Refugee Studies in August. Creating the \u2018self-reliance runway\u2019 approach (i.e. helping highly vulnerable refugees reach a point where they can engage in economic pursuits) would not have been possible without private donors and foundations that were willing to take a chance on innovation and buck the norm of siloed, sector-based responses. Let\u2019s hope that their investment leads the way for the large bilateral and multilateral donors to expand successful program approaches, particularly as the field looks for ways to operationalize Goal 2 of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unhcr.org\/en-us\/the-global-compact-on-refugees.html\">Global Compact on Refugees<\/a>: \u201cexpanding self-reliance.\u201d<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Quotes from our clients about self-reliance:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p><em>\u201cWhen you\u2019re on assistance, your well-being is unstable.&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p><em>You never know when you will be cut off.\u201d\ufeff<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p><em>\u201cNow that I have a business, I feel more integrated into the community. <br>I can even help my neighbors when they need help.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote\">\n<p><em>\u201cIt is stressful being on assistance. It would be better to be self-sufficient.\u201d\ufeff<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By: Amy Slaughter (Chief Strategy Officer) Would you be able to work if your kids weren\u2019t in school? Or if you didn\u2019t have stable housing? What if you had a serious, untreated health condition or lacked food security? The factors that allow us to thrive and support ourselves are all interconnected. So too are they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2514,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":{"extra_image":false,"disable_featured_image":false,"article_style":"default","hide_post_date":false},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Interdependencies of Self-Reliance | RefugePoint<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Discover the interconnectedness of self-reliance in RefugePoint&#039;s innovative Runway Approach. 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