Tolbert Reunification & Assistance Fund
Reunifications:
Click here to view picture of families TRAF has helped to reunify (PDF)
Application Form:
PDF Electronic Application Form: (Click Here)
TRAF serves refugees resettled by or living in the service area of World Relief Aurora
Our Services:
See Bryan House Page for New Home-Ownership/Family-Stability Program
1. Reuniting Refugee Families
2. Helping Stranded Family Members Abroad
3. Assisting Local Refugees With Basic Needs
1. Reuniting Refugee Families:
TRAFs ability to purchase airfare for separated family members brings husbands & wives; parents & children; brothers & sisters together without increasing their financial burden.
In the midst of conflict, refugee family members are often separated from one another. Men are frequently imprisoned, exiled or forced into militias, leaving women & children alone and vulnerable. When families get separated, they may not even know if their parents, children, spouses or siblings have survived. Applications for resettlement are based on family members that are in the same refugee camp who can prove their relation to one another. Our experience has been that about one in every three refugee families arrives in the United States with some close family member(s) missing.
Our Response:
TRAF provides financial assistance to ease the burden on families in these situations.
Lack of English & relevant job experience means that most refugees begin their lives in America with low-paying, unskilled jobs. Women who have arrived without their husbands have a particularly hard time adjusting to a new culture and new language all while being a single mom separated from the one who had likely been the major breadwinner (in most cultures). In these situations especially, a $1,000 - $2,000 airplane ticket means a loan that will be difficult to pay on top of their already stretched budget.
TRAFs ability to purchase airline tickets for these families not only removes this financial burden from an already financially struggling family, but it can sometimes lead to families being reunited more quickly since the loan process in some countries can be quite extensive.
Cost:
Depending on the departure country, even one-way tickets generally cost more than $1,000. Prices are high because most of the countries that refugees are coming from are not high-volume travel or tourist regions (the Middle East, Africa, former Soviet Republics or other Slavic nations).
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2. Helping stranded family members abroad:
While family members are waiting in foreign countries to be reunited, it is sometimes necessary to help with emergency needs such as hospital care or even assistance in escaping a particularly unstable or war-ravaged area to a temporary, more stable living situation.
It is not uncommon for families to have to endure long waiting periods even for spouses or immediate family members to be approved by the United States government to rejoin their families. Huge backlogs at CIS (Citizenship & Immigration Services—formerly INS—Immigration & Naturalization Services) mean that families must wait months & sometimes years to even have their applications reviewed. Since 9/11, applications take even longer because most refugees are coming from unstable parts of the world where terrorism may be an everyday reality. Anyone who has lost vital records (i.e., birth or marriage certificates, adoption papers, etc.) often faces longer waiting periods and Asylum seekers who are technically not refugees (only by definition) must first have their own cases approved before even starting the paperwork to have their families reunited.
Our Response:
TRAF works with war-torn families here in the Aurora area to do targeted fundraising for the distinct needs of separated family members. In some cases, TRAF has partnered with specific donors to raise funds to help family members escape life-threatening situations. For example, when the ongoing war in Congo intensified in the Eastern region of that country & along its border with Rwanda, TRAF partnered with Community Christian Church (CCC) to raise $6,000 to help the families of a Rwandan & Congolese mixed Tutsi family escape that war zone to a neighboring country. This extended family had already lost several members in the 1994 Rwandan genocide and even more in the ongoing conflict in Congo. Tragically, one additional member of the more than twenty family members who TRAF & CCC helped to escape the war zone has since succumbed to Tuberculosis, but based on the mortality rates of the area they evacuated, we know that several more family members would have likely perished had they not had this opportunity to escape. Meanwhile, the family here in Aurora, Illinois hopes that their parents, siblings and orphaned nieces & nephews will one day be able to join them here in America—safe from the war that has been taking an annual 500,000 lives for the past eight years (nearly 1,300 lives per day since 1998—see Congo country profile) In other cases, TRAF has been able to help families with emergency, hospital care; short-term basic needs; or even funeral expenses. While the needs may vary significantly from case to case, supporting family members in foreign countries is sometimes a necessary step to reuniting a family that has been torn apart by war or ethnic persecution.
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3. Assisting local refugees with basic needs:
In addition to family reunification, TRAF occasionally helps local rerfugee families with short-term critical or emergency needs such as car seats, diapers, formula, medical and other needs for children as well as one-time loans or small grants in sustainable situations where refugee families may be facing eviction or trouble maintaining transportation to their jobs.
Today, TRAF is also helping families plan for their futures by talking about issues of financial literacy and family budgets. TRAF has encouraged several families to enroll themselves in World Reliefs matched savings programs that help families achieve the goals of higher education, home ownership or micro-enterprise. In the future, TRAFs goal is to move at least three local refugee families into home ownership every year through a one-year subsidized rental program that takes rent money paid by working families and invests that money into an account for a down payment on a house. (see “Bryan E. Guzman Memorial House”)
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PDF Electronic Application Form: (Click Here)
TRAF serves refugees resettled by or living in the service area of World Relief Aurora
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