Talk:Every Campus a Refuge

Requested edit 28 April 2022

• What I think should be changed (include citations):

Every Campus A Refuge

Every Campus A Refuge (ECAR) was founded by Diya Abdo, who is the Lincoln Financial Professor of English at Guilford College, in September 2015.[1][2][3][4] ECAR was inspired by Pope Francis' call on every parish to take in refugees, and animated by Guilford's history and Quaker testimonies.[6][7][8][9][10] Every Campus A Refuge is based on the idea that university and college campuses have everything necessary to host refugees, from housing to food, care, and required skills to support them as they begin their lives in their new homes.[6][11][12] Like the Pope's call on every parish to host one refugee family, ECAR calls on every college and university in the world to house refugees on campus grounds and assist them in resettlement.[6][7][13] ] Since its inception, 10 campuses have joined with 7 actively hosting refugees on their campuses. The active campuses include: Guilford College (the flagship campus), Lafayette College, Siena College, Old Dominion University, Russell Sage College, Wake Forest University, and Agnes Scott College. Inactive chapters include Denison University, Northampton Community College, and Rollins College. There are many other institutions who are in various stages of mobilizing to become ECAR chapters. ECAR also works with a number of resettlement campuses- universities which partner with local refugee resettlement agencies to host refugees on campus grounds and support their successful integration. Collectively, ECAR chapters have hosted dozens of refugee families from around the world, with the flagship Guilford College chapter hosting more than 80 as of spring 2022.

Mission and Vision

ECAR Mission

Mobilize colleges and universities to host refugees on campus grounds and support them in their resettlement.

ECAR Vision

Transform the landscape of refugee resettlement and higher education by creating thousands of sustainable resettlement campus ecosystems.

Program

Under this program, each refugee family is temporarily housed on campus grounds until they can resettle successfully.[6][18] They are provided with free housing, utilities, Wi-Fi, use of college facilities and resources, and a large community of support in the form of the college campus and its friends.[19][20] The daily work of hosting and assisting in resettlement is done by trained community volunteers: students, alumni, faculty, administrators and staff; their spouses; faculty, students, and staff from nearby colleges and universities; local faith communities; and the college’s friends and neighbors. All of the volunteers utilize their personal skills towards the common goal of hosting and assisting refugees. Students are also able to contribute to the effort by drawing on their disciplinary training to research, write, create artwork and craft podcasts for the initiative’s public forums and to design and implement assessment instruments to evaluate the project’s work.

Participating individuals receive a powerful experiential education on pressing global issues (the refugee crisis and forced displacement) and local concerns (local immigrant and refugee life) all while and because of actively engaging in real-world principled problem-solving. This place-based educational experience, connected as it is to real rather than theoretical people, has transformed volunteers’ lives and, through their efforts, positively impacted the refugees’ lives. By hosting refugees and teaching students about the challenges that many people face across the globe, students feel like part of a movement that really makes a difference in the world. Very importantly, this “radical hospitality” makes a clear statement about the institution’s commitment to compassion, empathy, and awareness and helps shape more positive public narratives and community discourses around refugees and immigrants, something which is especially pertinent and necessary now more than ever.

Flagship Chapter- Guilford College

Through ECAR, Guilford College has partnered with the Greensboro office of Church World Service (CWS) – a refugee resettlement agency – in 2015 to make this happen.[10] ECAR also regularly partners with other local organizations working with refugees such as the Center for New North Carolinians at the University of North Carolina in Greensboro, the New Arrivals Institute, and the North Carolina African Services Coalition, among others. The program is housed in Guilford College's Center for Principled Problem Solving and Excellence in Teaching.[5] Since January 2016, Guilford has hosted 66 refugees and 16 Afghan evacuees (clients of CWS) in campus houses and apartments; 34 of them have been children between the ages of 10 months and 17 years.[12] The campus has hosted refugees from Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, the DRC, South America, and Afghanistan. [15][14]Guilford College has dedicated a campus house to ECAR which hosts a refugee family, through CWS, every semester.[11][9]

CPPS Minor:

In Fall 2017, the ECAR 16-credit minor was piloted at Guilford College.[16][17] In this Principled Problem Solving Experience minor, students learn about what creates refugees, centralize refugee voices and experiences, receive training in advocacy for refugee issues, create and implement projects that assist refugees, and work with refugees hosted by Every Campus A Refuge.

The ECAR minor includes two mandatory classes, which are two credits each.[16] These courses allow students to receive training from refugee resettlement agencies and volunteer for 40 hours with recently resettled families.[16] Also, students participate in 10–15 hours of Skype conversations with Syrian refugees through Natakallam and study topics related to forced displacement and migration.[16] Along with the two required classes, students also choose one course on causes of forced displacement, one course on voices and perspectives of immigrants and refugees, and one course on community organizing and advocacy.[16]

Recognition

The ECAR initiative has been recognized by the White House during the Sixth Annual President's Interfaith and Community Service Campus Challenge Gathering.[28][5] It has also been featured on NPR's All Things Considered, Inside Higher Ed, Ted x Wake Forest University talk, The Academic Minute, The Chronicle, in The Washington Post, and the State Department's Toolkit on how universities can help refugees.[29][17] Every Campus A Refuge won the Gulf South Summit's 2017 Outstanding Service-Learning Collaboration in Higher Education Award, as well as the Washington Center's Civic Engagement in Higher Education Award for 2017. In 2020, ECAR was recognized in second place by the Yousif Badri Civic Engagement International Prize, [30][31][32][5] and most recently, ECAR was the recipient of the prestigious 2021 J.M. Kaplan Innovation Prize. Furthermore, Guilford College and Every Campus A Refuge were invited to participate in the United Nation's Together Campaign and its Summit held on January 9, 2018. Along with nine other colleges and universities (from the U.S., the U.K., Brazil, Cyprus, Germany, and China), Guilford College signed the UN Together Campaign Action Charter pledging active support for refugees and migrants' safety and dignity.[33][34][35] This led to ECAR being invited to join the Global Compact on Migration as a nonprofit partner in Marrakech, Morocco on December 19, 2018. Recently, ECAR joined a White House roundtable on Colleges and Universities Across America Marshal Support for Afghan Refugees. ECAR also co-led a webinar with the US Department of Education about how the higher education community can support Afghan newcomers and other refugee groups in February 2022.

• Why it should be changed:

It would be easier to remove previous sections and add in these sections instead; all sections need to be changed/amended. The currently existing information is outdated whilst as the information suggested above is more up-to-date and reflects ECAR developments, growth, mission, vision, and recognitions received throughout the years. It also makes a distinction between ECAR as a national organization and the flagship chapter at Guilford.

Christellebarakat (talk) 17:35, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

I would suggest breaking up your request into several smaller requests so it would be easier to tell what has changed. In addition, you have not provided any citations. Samanthany (talk) 00:32, 18 June 2022 (UTC)

References

Section heading for mobile users added by Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 19:36, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

@Christellebarakat: I am closing this request as declined because citations were not included in the request to verify the information that the requester would like changed/updated. The requester can open a new request below, with citations included, if they so wish. Z1720 (talk) 23:34, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Fixing name

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

• What I think should be changed (include citations): The title should be Every Campus A Refuge not Every Campus a Refuge.

• Why it should be changed: The organization's name has a capital "A" and so it is incorrect to have a lowercase a.

Walidm94 (talk) 13:58, 24 May 2022 (UTC)

References

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.