who we fund
We are unlocking funding for refugee-led organizations (RLOs) so that they can lead solutions for their communities. Learn about the partner organizations of RRLI and their impact.
In May 2021, the Resourcing Refugee Leadership Initiative was selected as the winner of the $10 million Larsen Lam ICONIQ Impact Award, one of the largest ever investments in the refugee leadership movement. This award was the first step in our efforts to establish the first-of-its-kind Refugee Leadership Fund, a fund managed by refugees for refugees. RRLI has established a funding and support model that will enable at least 50 RLOs to sustain and scale their impact within the next five years. Through this effort, we will reach over 1,000,000 people across every major refugee-hosting region globally with holistic, community-driven support and solutions.
With this latest round of grants - US$1.18m in direct funding - RRLI has now funded over $3.6 million directly to refugee-led partner organizations. We invite you to get to know our incredible new partner organizations that are expanding their community-led work thanks to the Refugee Leadership Fund.
our grantee partners
El Derecho a No Obedecer (“The Right to Not Obey”)
El Derecho a No Obedecer (“El DANO”) is a Venezuelan youth-led initiative that promotes and advocates for social and cultural integration among migrants, refugees, returnees and their host communities, and fights against unjust narratives of xenophobia. They do so primarily through a three step theory of change: create spaces for conversation between varied stakeholders including the refugee community, host community, government, private sector, and academia; convene networks that act upon the recommendations of those stakeholders; and support the mobilization of network campaigning through strategic advocacy and communications, including through social media and research.
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Faysel Community School - Cairo
Faysel Community School’s mission is to develop well rounded, confident, and responsible individuals who aspire to achieve their full potential. They do this by providing a welcoming, happy, safe, equitable and supportive environment to access educational opportunities, as well as legal services and counselling. Faysel Community School runs the largest refugee community school system in Cairo, with four sites and a variety of programs reaching 1400 students of all ages annually.
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New Vision
New Vision was founded in 2017 and is a refugee-led community-based organisation that works for and by migrants and refugees in Cairo, Egypt to build the capacity of migrants and refugees to improve the quality of their lives. New Vision provides key legal, psychosocial and education support services. Among other programs, New Vision offers adult education that supports labour market entry, income generating activities for women, children’s creative expression programs, and legal services that support registration with UNHCR, access to birth certificates, and referrals to other community services.
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Tafawol Association for Special Needs and Development
Founded in 2016, Tafawol is a Refugee-Led Community Based Organization (CBO) which started as a small initiative that supported children with special needs inside of local school settings. They have since expanded into a multi-site, full-service refugee support agency that provides a wide breadth of services, including a year-round school for migrant children with disabilities; speech training for disabled children; legal aid programming; employment skills training for migrant women and single mothers; a kindergarten; online education video production; and migrant psychosocial support programming.
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Care the Displaced Children (CDC)
CDC is a refugee-led preschool and education center open five days a week that offers educational programs to refugee children coming from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and others. This organization is new. They are seeking to address an important and unmet need for refugees of Indonesia: access to kindergarten and preschool. The founders are well-connected to the community and have long, personal histories working with their fellow displaced people in Indonesia. They are educators, lawyers and advocates for the rights of forcibly displaced people.
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HELP for Refugees
Refugee Learning Centre
Refugee Learning Centre (RLC) was established in Indonesia in 2015, and is a non-profit, non-religious, nonpolitical, refugee-led community centre. The centre provides education to refugee and asylum seeker children who are not able to enter the education system in Indonesia due to their status as displaced people. RLC is also a source of optimism, motivation, inspiration and hope in an otherwise untenable environment for refugees.
In 2017, RLC expanded their services to include access to a General Educational Development (GED) program, which was the first formal secondary education opportunity to be offered to refugees in Indonesia. They additionally have monthly medical and dental clinics, and a youth group sports program. Today, RLC reaches 200 refugee youth, and 129 refugee adults with programs daily. Of note, RLC’s volunteer teachers receive extra training and support. Three teachers with their GED diplomas are now teaching the GED program at other learning centres, ensuring access to secondary education grows in Indonesia.
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Ettijahat - Independent Culture
Ettijahat – Independent Culture was founded in 2011 with the mission to support and empower independent Syrian artists and cultural practitioners principally in Lebanon, but in other countries where displaced Syrians reside too. Ettijahat supports the production of art, the production of knowledge, support for refugee-led artistic initiatives, the success of artists through scholarships, and advocacy for work rights and protections for refugees and other marginalised populations. Ettijahat believes that an investment in culture goes far beyond purely artistic outcomes. They understand that an investment in culture is an investment in a new generation of social actors who believe in the values of tolerance, openness, and attachment to society. It is an investment in accessible education, a more equitable labour market, and a means for vulnerable people to earn decent livelihoods while producing social boons.
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Makani
Makani is a well-established social enterprise that supports women to find freedom and confidence through (1) arts and (2) opportunity. The aim of Makani’s arts program is to provide a space for women to process trauma, gain confidence, and collectively address common concerns. Current arts projects include Film for Freedom (a project that supports women to produce their own short films and use these to raise awareness about the issues that affect them) and the Women’s Strike (a women-run theater project that puts on public performances). Current projects for the opportunity program include Oshana Social Enterprise (handicraft sales) and supplemental education and training programs for the women involved that support literacy, English language acquisition, and computer skills classes. With the confidence gained through these projects and programs, the women involved in Makani engage in advocacy that supports the health and wellbeing of refugees in Lebanon.
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Tomorrow Vijana
Founded in 2014, Tomorrow Vijana operates In Rwamwamanja Refugee settlement (Nkoma / Katalyeba), where nearly 80,000 mostly Congolese refugees live. Tomorrow Vijana helps youth rebuild their lives by ensuring they have access to education, youth vocational and life skills, psychosocial support/counseling, empowerment programs for women & girls, livelihood & environment protection, and capacity building for small groups. Tomorrow Vijana has reached over 10,000 people with these wraparound services since 2014 -- all on an annual budget of just 70,000 USD.
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Kandaakiat Organisation for Women Empowerment and Development
Kandaakiat organisation for women empowerment and development (KOWED) is a refugee women-led organisation operating both in Kampala as well as Keryandonog Settlement. KOWED envisions a society where women are collectively and individually self-reliant and free from injustice. Their efforts are workshops and programs focus on empowerment, livelihood skills development, women’s rights education, women’s health education, food security and environmental sustainability (including through a robust agriculture program). Many of their programs offer a space for the facilitators to discuss women’s issues/rights in a holistic and open setting with other women - and to tackle feelings of isolation among the women in these settlements.
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