The American Rescue Project and Tradinghouse Global Create New Model for Refugee Sustainment
How the forgotten Afghans of Albania are changing the way refugees and displaced persons are being sustained by support organizations. The new model is at once more affordable and better for the "travelers" mental health and well-being.
WASHINGTON, March 6, 2023 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- For a group of Afghan evacuees forced to flee their home country in the fall of 2021, a tourist village on the Albanian coast became more than just a temporary stopover on their way to the US.
The group arrived in Albania in September of 2021 and believed their stay would be a short one. However, that was not the case as what happened in the following months was indicative of what happened to the many Afghans who were evacuated by private charters just after the departure of the final US troops on 31 August 2021. That is to say, the US government ignored them for over a year and it fell to small non-profits to pay the bills for their extended stay. Those funds were limited and the expenses at the resorts were onerous and the NGOs were strained under the burden of the high costs per person. It was simply unsustainable.
In September 2022, the American Rescue Project (ARP)—which operates under the mandate that every life matters—stepped in and took it upon themselves to make come up with a solution to the housing and sustainment costs that was economically viable in the long term.
ARP's solution was a unique blending of commercial support organizations and non-profit organizations that allowed for the "business" agility required to create an entirely new non-profit business model that utilizes an almost "joint venture" like structure to rapidly make joint business decisions to solve issues that arise immediately in an emerging situation vice the slow non-profit model of a series of board meetings and slow decision making that seems to hamper larger and less agile humanitarian organizations.
This test case for this new type of assistance model was put to the extreme test in Albania where, with limited resources, the new "joint venture" consisting of the American Rescue Project, along with its partners TradingHouse Global, a South Africa-based commodities and goods trader—with vast experience and varied expertise in operating in the most challenging situations in the most out-of-reach places and the Uruci Foundation, and Albanian NGO who provided on-the-ground knowledge and support, rapidly stepped into the situation and within a few weeks had moved over 340 Afghans, who were facing eviction, to new apartments and provided food assistance and medical support for a fraction of the monthly cost previously encountered in the preceding months.
The seemingly insurmountable set of tasks that required the sourcing and securing of accommodation, the provisioning of food for three meals a day, specialized medical care, stipends to be paid, and education to be provided and all within under a 30-day window was completed, proving that the new model was not only workable but in many ways preferred to the existing models for the support of refugees around the world. The new "joint venture" model has the advantages of being agile, rapid, and extremely cost-effective. The other advantage as the team has found out is that the people in transit towards their new lines get to participate more in caring for themselves in their daily lives by doing things like shopping and preparing meals which leads to better mental health and less of a feeling of helplessness. The new model was a win-win in every way.
The new team now aspires to take this new business and support model and replicate it wherever there is a need to sustain refugees while in transit toward their new homes or wherever displaced persons need a place to temporarily call home.
Media Contact
Kurt Warner, American Rescue Project, 1 9102298884, [email protected]
Lindsey Baldwin, American Rescue Project, 5125855099, [email protected]
SOURCE American Rescue Project
Share this article