About Us
Our Mission
The Carolina Refugee Resettlement Agency (CRRA) believes all refugees and asylees deserve the chance to begin successful new lives in the United States. CRRA’s mission is to enable our clients to become self-sufficient and contributing members of American society by:
- Providing resettlement services to refugees and asylees who are escaping violence, persecution, and repression, without regard to their race, religion, nationality, ethnicity, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group.
- Connecting refugees and asylees to other service agencies
in the Charlotte area.
What we do
At the Agency we embrace refugees who arrive in Charlotte, recognizing their troubling experiences, trying to ease their transition into a new country, and respecting their need to remember where they came from. Our infrastructure allows us to settle refugees of all nationalities and religions.Since 1996, we have have settled more than 1,500 refugees from 36 countries. Currently we are settling Bhutanese from Nepal, Iraqis, Montagnards, Burmese, Liberians and Somalis.
Today we resettle just over 300 people a year into the Charlotte region.
While hardly a dent in the estimated 4.7 million registered refugees, or 826,000 asylum seekers, we also recognize we must use great care to avoid creating any undue burden on local resources and the goodwill of our community.
Our agency, working through HIAS and the United Nations High Commisioner for Refugees, receives a Resettlement and Placement federal grant administered via the Department of State. This grant covers basic services for refugees during their initial period of resettlement.
We furnish apartments and stock them with food so that once our caseworker meets the refugees at the Charlotte airport, they have a home. They receive help registering their children for school and obtaining Social Security cards and are able to attend classes for English as a Second Language (ESL).
Our employment counselor endeavors to find them work. Additional grants provide more case management, employment services, classes, and a small cash allowance.