Coping and Thriving

Central and South AmericaEssays & ArticlesMiddle East-North AfricaPublicationsSub-Saharan Africa

Shifting Roles in Refugee Livelihoods

Lori Zimmermann

By Catherine Wanjala, under the supervision of Kim Wilson.
During displacement, families are jolted into new realities. From navigating new foods and new educational opportunities to negotiating a maze of new customs, displaced households struggle to master their unfamiliar surroundings. Opportunities to earn a living also greatly differed from what refugees and migrants had available to them in their countries of origin. Refugees often found these new realities also shifted roles within the family.

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people learning
Central and South AsiaEssays & ArticlesMiddle East-North AfricaNorth AmericaPublicationsPutting Down RootsSub-Saharan Africa

“I’m the Everything”: The Overlooked Heroism of Refugee Youth in the United States

Lori Zimmermann

By Julie Zollmann. Nine voluntary agencies have the official responsibility for resettling refugees into communities throughout the United States. They find their clients new housing, schools, and jobs. They help them get social security numbers and open bank accounts. They play an indispensable role in helping refugees settle into their new homes. But the work of integration, of truly building a life in a new country with a new language, new transportation system, new labor market, and a whole new set of social norms is a much bigger job, one that in many families is being done stoically, even heroically, by young refugees in their teens and early twenties.

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