The Jewish Community Alliance for Refugee Resettlement (JCARR) was thrilled to be awarded a Kraus Immigration Justice Mini-Grant of $5,000 to support vulnerable children during the Covid-19 pandemic. The Kraus grant is an initiative of the Reform Movement’s Religious Action Center, which was formed in 1961 “to educate, inspire, and mobilize the Reform Jewish Movement to advocate for social justice”. The Kraus grants this year are being given “to support and to encourage our congregations’ essential work with immigrant children and young people during the pandemic.”
Founded in 2015, JCARR is a coalition of Congregation Beth El-Keser Israel, Congregation B’nai Jacob, Congregation Mishkan Israel, Congregation Or Shalom, Temple Emanuel, and the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven to further immigration work the congregations had separately engaged in since the 1980s. Temple Emanuel submitted the grant application on JCARR’s behalf.
JCARR has successfully resettled four refugee families from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Syria, and Iraq, co-sponsoring them with Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS), the main refugee agency in Connecticut. We are also assisting IRIS with support for one asylum-seeking family from Angola. Three of JCARR’s families have young children, ten in all. All these families have been impacted by the Covid-19 crisis, especially in terms of their ability to keep up with the demands of distance learning for their children and their ability to pay for basic household needs.
Our Kraus mini grant will address these needs. Specifically, we will: (1) upgrade internet speed in each household so that the children can better participate in remote learning;(2) create a “lending library” of print and electronic educational materials that are age-appropriate and proficiency-appropriate for children who are English learners; (3) provide training to the parents and ongoing tutoring for the children to make use of these materials, some of which will be gifted permanently to the families; (4) use a small portion of the funds to cover emergency expenses to allow families to continue to create a stable home environment for their children during the pandemic.
As a condition of the award, Temple Emanuel and Congregation Mishkan Israel, both Reform synagogues, have signed the Reform Movement’s Brit Olam, a “covenant to create a world in which all people experience wholeness, justice, and compassion.” As signers, these synagogues commit to participate in peer-to-peer learning, sharing their successes and challenges, and holding themselves accountable to the larger Brit Olam community across North America.
JCARR’s vision for refugee resettlement is rooted in our Jewish traditions of welcoming the strangers among us and of tikkun olam. We are an all-volunteer organization. Our work is funded solely by contributions from fund-raising activities, grants, and individual donors.
JCARR has committed to matching funds for the grant. If you would like to make a donation to support this or JCARR’s ongoing work with immigrant and refugee families, you can send checks, payable to The Jewish Federation with JCARR in the memo line, to The Jewish Federation, 360 Amity Road, Woodbridge, 06525; Attention: Amy Holtz.
