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. 

High rates of unemployment and Covid-19 infection among New American community members has contributed heavily to lack of stable access to adequate amounts of nutritious food . Refugees and immigrants have been some of the hardest hit populations in the country, disproportionately experiencing food and nutritional insecurity due to their high rates of employment in “gig economy” and other job sectors like food, hotel, and health which have been heavily impacted by the pandemic. Help new American communities combat hunger with a gift to IRC's food security programs in the U.S.

Our team at the IRC in Kansas has been working hard to respond quickly to client needs, as everyone in the community is feeling the social, economic, and health impacts of COVID-19. While programming is currently not business-as-usual, we continue to serve refugee families and survivors of human trafficking remotely, many of whom need support from the IRC and neighbors more than ever. 

قدم متطوعي ن الصحة المجتمعية حلقة وصل مهمة للاجئين السوريين المصابين بالأمراض غير السارية في بداية جائحة كورونا .

تُظهر نتائج برنامج المتطوعين الصحيين الدور المهم الذي يلعبه متطوعو المجتمع الصحيون في تقديم رعاية متسقة وعالية الجودة للاجئين وغيرهم من الفئات الأخرى المستضعف ة . ما

The IRC in LA is helping refugees and migrants climb the 'credit building ladder' through a new micro-loan program, thanks to the partnership and support of Citi Community Development. The new program has been especially helpful in offering 'emergency grants' and 'resilience loans' to those affected by COVID-19.

The IRC's Risk Communication and Community Engagement (RCCE) Taskforce is excited to share a new platform, the RCCE website. RCCE aims to mitigate the risk and impact of outbreaks, including COVID-19 and Ebola, by offering an approach and set of resources to work with communities to prevent exposure, stop disease transmission, and mitigate the harmful effects of outbreaks.