ACCU member colleges aid refugees

ACCU member colleges have been responding to the current child refugee crisis even before signing the recent Statement on Child Refugees. Recently, university presidents have been speaking out about the role of Catholic Higher Education in this crisis.

Students in the interpreting program at Loyola University New Orleans have been volunteering their time, interpreting for lawyers and immigration advocates serving unaccompanied immigrant minors in the New Orleans area. Not only are these students assisting in a current humanitarian crisis – they are also learning about the daily struggles and lives of these new immigrants.

The Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Boston College has been working with community partners in order to develop a toolkit for recent immigrants. The toolkit is called “Know Your Rights – English for Speakers of Other Languages.” This toolkit innovatively merges English language learning and rights literacy so that toolkit users can improve their English while simultaneously learning their basic human rights and practical applications for difficult situations they may encounter as immigrants.

Within the past few weeks, Villanova CRS Ambassadors ran a letter-writing campaign to address the crisis of unaccompanied children crossing the border. They used resources from the ACCU blog (like the USCCB video ) to educate ambassadors on the situation and to help them write an advocacy letter with CST as the driving force.

What is your campus doing to aid refugees?  Let us know!