Before giving an update on LexRAP, it is important to understand the ramifications of the Trump administration’s executive order that will be in effect as of March 16th. All refugee resettlement in the U.S. is suspended for 120 days, to examine what additional screening should be implemented. Also, the number of refugees admitted to the U.S. is to be cut in half from 100,000 to 50,000. What this essentially means is that the resettlement of refugees in the US is halted. People awaiting papers to come here are stuck where they are. Funds to all agencies for resettlement are stopped. Agencies will have to close offices, cut personnel and have a reduction of services to people who recently arrived. This means that the agencies are scrambling to raise money to offset the loss of funds from the government and the families here need help. Below you will see LexRAP initiatives to help people who are here with many ways to volunteer and many opportunities to support agencies with fund raisers in the area. Some of the fund raisers will provide aid to LexRAP and 100% of these monies directly go to support refugees in our area.

Our Steering Committee meets monthly. These meetings for those people most actively involved and those who want to explore becoming actively involved! The next meeting of the Steering Committee is Thursday April 13 at 7:15PM Lexington Community Center, 39 Marrett Rd – room 217.
(Please come early to meet new people.)
Marianne and Don

Fostering Unaccompanied Minors 
LexRAP is hosting three meetings with Ascentria to recruit foster families for unaccompanied minors. These meeting will be held at Lexington Community Center 39 Marrett Road in Lexington from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Here are the dates and times:
April 6 (Room 221), May 4 (Room 217) and June 8
​(Room 221)
Contact Bruce for more information.

Housing needed 
There are some refugee families that are at risk of ending up in homeless shelters. We're in contact with one such family right now. Do you have an in-law apartment and be willing to host a family? A six month commitment should be considered to help stabilize the family. There are many things to consider regarding hosting: language, schools, jobs, access to transportation, etc. To discuss, contact Marianne 

Tutoring
We are launching a tutoring group for a Syrian family in Carlisle. We are using the model created for the Iraqi family in Lexington where each child will have a tutor and specialists will augment those tutors. Tutoring will take place in the home and the school. The group will work directly with the public schools. The children only recently started in Carlisle and are excited and feel welcomed by the community. The smiles on the kids faces as they get off the bus from their new school are wonderful. To see the Channel 4, CBS, news story on this: click here.

Outreach
LexRAP will be doing two presentation, “How do refugees get to the U.S and what is LexRAP doing to help with their resettlement?” One is on March 26, at Sacred Heart Parish and the other on April 07 at 9:30AM at Cary Memorial Library in Lexington for the First Friday Event sponsored by the Lexington League of Women Voters. If you have a group or a faith based organization that would like a presentation contact Tom. See the PowerPoint presentation, here.

Upcoming Opportunities to Tutor
Families with both parents and kids needing ESL
Helping unaccompanied minors with homework and enrichment. If interested in tutoring OR you speak Arabic.
Contact Jane 

One of the things we have learned is that when families arrive, often the children have had dramatic disruptions in their education. The needs are both ESL and basic academic instruction. We are looking to find or create instruction for students with interrupted formal education (SIFE). If you have access to materials or knowledge and experience in this area, contact Alexandra. 

Laptop Drive
We received 26 laptops in our laptop drive! Staples gave us a grant which we used to buy some parts. The laptops were given to minors both in the Ascentria program and in refugee families. We are still looking laptops to refurbish. You can find the specs for laptops on our events page. You can Contact Jane to donate.

Refugee Dinners
If you are interested in helping to organize dinners to welcome refugee families, this is an opportunity for locals and guests to socialize and mingle. Contact Jilana 

Help with Keeping our Website Up-to-Date. Contact Amantha 

​"FUNraising" for LexRAP and our Partner Agencies Patriot’s Day Pancake Breakfast. Monday April 19, 2016 - 6:00 AM until 10:00 AM Please come join us at the Church of Our Redeemer, 6 Meriam Street, Lexington for the annual Patriots’ Day Pancake Breakfast. Church of Our Redeemer will be giving all proceeds to LexRAP to support refugees. Share fun, fellowship and a great breakfast of pancakes, sausages, juice, hot chocolate and coffee. $6.00 for adults and $4.00 for kids. 

Fundraiser for Jewish Refugee Organization
A Wicked Pickers concert to benefit the non-profit HIAS ! Guided by Jewish values and experience, HIAS has protected refugees and displaced persons throughout the world for 130 years, helping them to build new lives in safety and with dignity. The ACLU sought HIAS to serve as one of just two plaintiffs in a suit just filed (2/6) against Donald Trump’s Executive Order, challenging the constitutionality of banning refugees and immigrants from seven majority Muslim countries on the grounds that it discriminates against one religion while favoring others. Bring a check made out to HIAS and we will ensure you receive a receipt for tax purposes. Refreshments will be available. Come listen or dance, we'd love to see you there! Sat, March 18, 2017 ...7:00 PM – 10:30 PM The Barn, 293 Boston Post Road, Weston, MA

Monroe Center Fundraiser
There will be a Fall fundraiser for LexRAP sponsored by Munroe Center for the Arts Sept. 2017. Artists and musicians and storytellers will create a performance with a focus on refugee issues. If you would like to help, Contact Bruce or Amantha 

Walk for Refugees
Join the RIM (Refugee Immigration Ministry) Walk for Refugees  This year's Walk for Refugees with be held May 20, 2017 at Lake Quannapowitt in Wakefield, MA. Gathering and Registration will begin at 9:30am with the walk starting promptly at 10:00am. To register for the walk, you can download a registration form here. or sign up online You can also download a pledge sheet here. Donations pledged by LexRAP walkers will go straight to LexRAP! Organizing for the LexRAP group are Abdu and Peter 

Fundraiser for IINE
Suitcase Stories: Fundraiser for IINE (International Institute of New England). Story telling (similar to Moth Radio Hour ).
April 05, Umbrella Community Arts Center, Concord. (tickets $35.-$200)
May 7, Regent Theatre in Arlington, June 1, Lowell.
June 22, Needham. 

Grant Writing
If you know of grant sources for funds, we are interested in providing no interest loans to refugees for retraining and education. Contact Pat Moyer 

Get this newsletter sent right to your inbox. Subscribe now.
Please tell anyone you know who cares about the fate and well-being of the thousands of refugees currently living in our area about LexRAP to learn about the work that we do.

Read the full article at the New York Times.

Definitions of refugee and asylee.  Following World War II and in response to the large numbers of people fleeing Eastern Europe, the United Nations 1951 Refugee Convention, as amended by the 1967 Protocol.
Refugee: "A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it.”  (in Article 1.A.2) The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)  is the United Nations program mandated to protect and support refugees.   An unprecedented 65.3 million people around the world have been forced from home. Among them are nearly 21.3 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18. http://www.unhcr.org/en-us 


Asylee: Asylum status is a form of protection available to people who meet the definition of refugee and are already in the United States. An asylum-seeker is someone whose request for sanctuary has yet to be processed. Until their case is processed, an asylee may not work and is not eligible for state or federal aid. The UNHCR estimates that every year, around one million people seek asylum. https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/refugees-asylum ​

Who are we and what is our goal?

We are a group of concerned people from Lexington or connected to Lexington calling itself the Lexington Refugee Assistance Program or “LexRAP.” Our focus is to make Lexington a welcoming place for refugees and to help them directly.
​
The mission of LexRAP is to support and assist refugees and asylum seekers to integrate into American society. This assistance would include a support network for housing, food, clothing, transportation, health care, education (especially English), employment, legal aid, and socialization. Beneficiaries of this assistance will be all people legally seeking or having received permission to live in the U.S., either temporarily or permanently.  LexRAP is a 501C non-profit organization.


We need volunteers and donations.


We are currently seeking volunteers, with either major or modest time commitments. Examples of volunteer opportunities include:


o Legal services, such as assisting with immigration issues
o Housing – helping individuals or families find temporary accommodations or long term housing
o Hosting an individual or family
o Transportation, such as providing rides to doctor or other scheduled appointments
o Agency liaison – identifying appropriate support agencies, advocate
o Job placement – offering or helping identify employment opportunities, helping prepare a resume
o Foster family for an unaccompanied minor
o Translator services (especially Arabic)
o Tutoring
o Child care – providing directly or organizing
o Socialization support – community orientation, integration with local society, connections
to ethnic and cultural communities
o Point‐person for their parish or organization to coordinate additional volunteer resources
o Fundraising and outreach


We need donations to support our client families. Our goal is at least $10,000 this year.
We are now helping four families. One of the families is a Syrian woman with her toddler daughter who came here seeking asylum. While she waits for a legal status that would allow her to work, she has no access to housing, food stamps, or other support from the government. A family in our group has offered her room in their home, and we need to support this mother and daughter financially for at least a year.

​Donate today!


Volunteer here or contact us for more information about LexRAP.

On Tuesday evening May 3rd2016, at 7:30 p.m. in Sacred Heart Parish Center, Follen Road, Lexington, there will be a presentation and discussion about two Biblical references, first the Hebrew Scripture’s admonishment to “Love the stranger” and then the Christian Scripture’s pressing question “Who is my neighbor?”  The presenters will be Deborah K. Rambo, President of Boston Catholic Charities and Marjean A. Perhot, Director of Refugee Services, also from Catholic Charities.  This is the fourth annual event of the “O’Donohoe Lecture Series,” a memorial to honor the late Fr. James A. O’Donohoe, a longtime priest of Sacred Heart Parish, professor of Moral Theology and Canon Law at Boston College and well known medical ethicist in the Boston medical community. 


The topic is a timely one in terms of present world conditions.  Debates and discussions abound about the international response to this world-wide tragedy involving the immigration crisis and the plight of refugees around the world.  Both groups have been thrust from their homes in their search for hope, safety and life throughout the world.  Our own country is also struggling about our awareness of, and response to these moral tragedies regarding the plight of immigrants and refugees. 


Deborah Rambo and Marjean Perhot are longtime social work professionals, working at Boston Catholic Charities.  The agency is part of nation-wide network of Catholic Charities comprising the largest private network working with the U.S. State Department in the resettlement of refugees in the country.  Catholic Charities also provides a range of services to support immigrants in their search for stability in their new environment. 


While donations are accepted, there is no admission charge for the evening’s activities.  All are welcome to learn, question and participate in the discussions, which will be followed by a period of fellowship and hospitality.