Our Crowdfunding Groups
HOLIDAY SEASON UPDATE:
Dear all,
Happy holidays! From now until the end of our crowdfunding campaign on Dec. 27, we will be offering Refugees in Towns gift certificates to anyone who makes a donation as a holiday gift to a relative, friend, or loved one. Gift certificates will read:
"This holiday season instead of getting you a material thing that you don’t need, I gave a gift in your name to someone in need,"
and will have space to write in the recipient's name(s).
Certificates are available in Christmas red and green, or in Tufts blue (see example certificates below).
To receive your certificate, after making a donation of any amount please email Program Administrator Charles Simpson at <charles.simpson@tufts.edu> with your color preference, and your certificate will be sent to you as a PDF.
Any contributions will go a long way in helping refugee communities around the world. Many thanks your continuing support!
Warm wishes,
The Refugees in Towns Team
Overview
The Refugees in Towns project (RIT) supports towns and urban neighborhoods in becoming immigrant- and refugee-friendly spaces that take full advantage of the benefits brought by refugees while finding ways to manage the inevitable and long-term challenges of immigrant integration. Our work is critical for addressing the over-simplified and toxic political rhetoric about refugees and migration, and provides a nuanced and informed understanding about the process of integration.
Why we're asking for funding
An underlying goal of the RIT project is to understand refugee experiences from their perspectives: we therefore aim to commission localized refugees as researchers who are living in towns undergoing integration between refugee and host communities. We have had more requests by refugees to contribute to the RIT project as case study researchers than we have funding to support, so we are asking you for help.
Our pilot case studies involved graduate students and professional researchers, our pending case studies will rely on a refugee as the central researcher, supported by guidance from faculty, staff, advisory group members, and students. All of the funding raised through crowdfunding will go towards refugee researchers, and will provide these individuals with:
You can fully fund a refugee researcher for $2,000, or support sections of their work for smaller amounts, including transportation reimbursements, research equipment like audio recorders, and food and refreshments for community focus group discussions. Any and all contributions will have an impact on supporting refugees and their communities. We will update all donors on the refugees being commissioned from your contributions, the work they are doing, and the impact they are having in their communities.
We have five refugee researchers currently ready to begin work who simply need funding (totaling $10,000 in needed funds), and nine more who have approached us with interest who will need funding too, but are still in the early planning stages of their case study project.
Objectives
RIT focuses on achieving two primary objectives:
For more information, you are encouraged to visit our website, and read the latest article on the RIT project by Prof. Karen Jacobsen, "Refugees in towns: experiences of integration," Forced Migration Review Issue 56.
All contributions are tax deductible donations to Tufts, fileable with an automated receipt and the university's tax ID number 04-2103634. More information on tax deductions is available here.
Our methodology allows our funding to go directly to a refugee researcher, rather than going toward expensive airfare and hotels for an outsider to fly in and do the work. However, it still costs a small amount to wire funds to our researchers. For $25, you can cover these costs for one researcher.
Inconsequential tools for an academic faculty member--like notepads, audio recorders for interviews, and printing costs for surveys and consent forms--may be luxury items to a refugee case study researcher. We reimburse these expenses with documentation from receipts.
A key instrument of qualitative field research is the focus group discussion: an opportunity for members of a community to participate in guided talks about the challenges and opportunities they have experienced in the refugee integration process. These discussions are best conducted in a neutral space--often that must be rented--with food and refreshments to create a shared, communal atmosphere facilitative of open conversation. These discussions allow communities to process their challenges with integration, and for researchers to collect data. We reimburse the costs of hosting a discussion, documented with receipts.
All of our refugee researchers will work on mapping and ethnography on important urban spaces where refugees and hosts interact, as well as conduct interviews with key members of refugee populations, host communities, aid organizations, and government institutions. Transportation by bus, train, or taxi for this work can be expensive, particularly for many refugees' already stressed budgets, so we reimburse all transportation costs, documented with receipts.
While this compensation for their laborious and valuable work is a relatively small amount, we feel it is important to fairly compensate our researchers for their time and effort. Compensation provides a refugee researcher with: -Training and valuable skills in qualitative research methodology, data collection, university practices, English language, and a local and international professional network; -Support for understanding their town or city's challenges and opportunities as refugees and hosts undergo integration, developing and sharing good practices and lessons, and; -A temporary and small--but relatively significant--source of income that fairly compensates them for their work.
For this amount we can provide a full stipend for one refugee as a case study researcher. This includes their compensation and research-related reimbursements such as ground transportation.
