Blogs

To run a successful business, one must possess a combination of drive, creativity, and motivation. This is true for entrepreneurs living in the United States and across the world. However, the financial and technical hurdles in this country are difficult to overcome for anyone seeking self-employment. This is especially true for refugees and asylum seekers, who have already overcome tremendous struggles to simply survive.

For true entrepreneurs, however, the determination to succeed in self-employment can be indomitable.

Zaid in his studio  

Catholic Charities, Diocese of Camden, runs the Refugee Individual Development Account Program in the State of New Jersey. This program is funded by the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement to assist Refugees, Asylees, Cuban and Haitian Entrants and Victims of Human Trafficking. An IDA program works with clients to teach financial literacy and coach them in saving towards a goal.

One of the highlights from the December RAPP conference was seeing IRC’S aquaponics system. With little more than pvc pipes, fish tanks, rocks, plywood, and a water pump contained in an urban greenhouse, 12 hydroponic vegetable beds are watered while 1,400 small tilapia are simultaneously raised for harvesting. This type of innovative water system is not all that difficult to assemble yet creates a symbiotic growing system in which ammonia from the waste of the fish is converted to nitrates which the plants absorb.

Photo: AP/Sayyid Azim, accessed from VPR website

Vermont Public Radio celebrated the hard-won achievements of several Somali Bantu refugees on the January 26 broadcast of Vermont Edition.

Lai Len Thang at World Relief Spokane

Through hard work, perseverance and patience, Lai Len Thang joined the ranks of Spokane’s entrepreneurs two year after arriving in the United States from a refugee camp in Malaysia.

A group of Burmese refugees at Aliiances Office talk about the challanges to save money