Clients participate in cooking demonstrations at the IRC in New York community garden in the Bronx and learn about healthy eating in America.

Turlock-area volunteers helped IRC clients gain valuable economic empowerment skills May 19 during the Love Turlock day of community service. Several Afghan clients who formerly served the U.S. government in their home country received the opportunity to practice job interviews, improve their English skills, and receive cashier's training. The project was one of many taking place throughout Turlock during the day.

Modesto Junior College instructor Emma Berdino didn’t have much hope when she learned her ESL class would be forced to go online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.   Many of her students, all women from Afghanistan recruited by the IRC in Turlock, were too tech-challenged to use a phone app to complete their homework prior to the viral outbreak.   “Most weren’t able to figure it out,” she said. “I thought, oh my goodness, we’re totally going to lose this class, because they’re not going to be able to do it.”  Berdino is grateful to be wrong, as nearly two-thirds of her students continue to take the course remotely after going exclusively online. 

This briefing aims to bring attention to ongoing issues of concern and provide concrete recommendations for improving the response for this highly vulnerable group of children.

The civil war in Syria—now in its sixth year—has created the worst humanitarian crisis of our time and in tandem with other brutal conflicts has sparked the largest global displacement of people in recorded history. Join our response.

The IRC’s Nancy Dent describes her experiences confronting the largest European refugee crisis since World War II.