2024-469-E-OCOEI Dept-Refugee Community Partnership-Outside Agency Funding

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1/30/24, 9:39 AM HSOA-24-6 https://chapelhillnc.workflow.opengov.com/#/explore/records/62569/react-form-details/62569 2/15 Agency's Purpose/Mission Statement brief description of your organization’s past achievements Wages and Positions Does the agency pay permanent employees a living wage? Yes Is the agency an Orange County Living Wage Certified Employer? Yes The Refugee Community Partnership (RCP) works to ensure that refugee and migrant communities experience economic and social well-being & opportunities to thrive. RCP creates systems that connect people to the resources they need while mobilizing institutions to eliminate barriers to access. Our 1,300+ Members are largely non- English speaking, representing 13 unique languages with 18 dialects, hailing from Burma, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, Lebanon, the Congo, Central African Republic, El Salvador, Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Afghanistan. Most are families with young children, and roughly 98% live below the Federal Poverty Line. Centering transformative relationships, we work at the intersection of social mobility, health equity, and language justice to disrupt threats to the safety and well-being of refugee and migrant communities. RCP’s work has garnered national attention and funding as a community-driven model for refugee support. Supported by the Towns of Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Orange County, RCP was launched in 2011 and has over 1,300+ Members. RCP’s Membership has skyrocketed, from ~500 to 1300+, driven by the COVID-19 crisis, rising inflation and cost of living crisis, and US withdrawal from Afghanistan. This spike in new Members, and the urgent need for language access within institutions revealed the magnitude and danger of language inaccess among service providers. Despite federal mandates to provide interpretation services, many don’t, and are inaccessible to non-English proficient residents. To combat this language exclusion, RCP hires and trains adults from refugee and migrant communities as Community Coordinators, multilingual caseworkers, to non-English proficient families. RCP creates tailored and streamlined “referral pathways,” deploying Community Coordinators and Bridge Builder Volunteers to provide personal interpretation and accompaniment eliminating language barriers that obstruct access to cross-sector services and stabilizing financial security. RCP has grown to a team of 14 in 2023, 10 of whom have lived refugee or migrant experience. In 2023, Members received more than 2,000 hours of native language support, 2,800 of case management, and acquired jobs and benefits worth a combined $444,380. Each year, we carry out programmatic activities within budget, and complete reporting requirements within timeframes. Docusign Envelope ID: 9A1CFCD5-41FF-4C02-9172-BC499052FC3A