The Make Welcome journey started in 2012 when our founders each separately met a new refugee friend. They were both impacted by how lonely the refugee women in the community were, and so when Beth and Julia shared their experiences over coffee, they realized they had a shared vision for a place of welcome and friendship for refugee women.
The first classes started in a small apartment in east Charlotte, graciously provided by Refugee Support Services. 6 refugee women and 4 American women, plus a host of little kids, got together to sew, laugh and learn.
The program grows.
In the intervening years, Charlotte has gotten more expensive. Apartment rents have drastically increased, but job wages for refugee families have not kept pace. Women needed to go to work to help the families stay financially afloat. While we’ve placed plenty of women in sewing jobs, we discovered that many of our sewing class students COULDN’T take these sewing jobs because 80% were full-time, and the majority of our students have limited work hour availability because of childcare needs.
We realized it was time to pivot. We began to spend lots of time in the community, listening to refugee women talk about their felt needs, their economic & social problems and their barriers to employment. We heard again and again that part-time jobs are needed, as well as connections with childcare options, and “safe” workplaces that their spouses would approve of. We then partnered with Charlotte Works to find job opportunities that were both high-demand and yet part-time. Through these conversations and partnerships, a new chapter of Make Welcome was born.
In 2024, we launched our Make Welcome Refugee Women’s Center program. This program is focused on providing a holistic approach to job training for refugee women. We’re providing free childcare for all students; vocational training in the areas of childcare/nanny work, housecleaning; & sewing manufacturing; soft job skills training and culture classes; concurrent ESL classes for levels 1-4; transportation assistance via bus & Uber; resume building, social capital creation, job applications and employer outreach; and finally, women’s health classes so that students can deal with trauma from their refugee journey and understand options for reproductive health, as they didn’t have access to this information before.
There’s much to come in this new journey and we’re excited to see what is ahead. If you want to help, please buy items off of our wishlist! We regularly update it with needed program supplies. But just in case there’s nothing on there, well, donate money! Funds go to pay rent, teachers’ salaries, bus passes and more. Our program can only happen when our community undergirds it because people care for our precious refugee friends.