Building a national advocacy movement

In 2020, USA for UNHCR began to lay the groundwork for building a national advocacy movement to positively impact policies and programs that support refugees globally and resettled refugees in the United States. Priority issues included supporting emergency and humanitarian relief, welcoming resettled refugees to the United States, advancing refugee women and girls equality, health and safety and supporting livelihood and education opportunities.

Accordingly, our initial awareness and engagement campaigns in 2020 focused on the importance of keeping borders and pathways to asylum open during the COVID-19 pandemic. In September, we also launched a civic engagement campaign in the midst of the U.S. elections cycle. The campaign featured community leaders and former refugees Basma Alawee and Fiston Mwesige and, through our digital Civic Action Center, we  provided tools and resources for people across the country to register to vote, sign up to be a poll worker, look up their political candidates and find their polling location.