The Re:new Project: Helping Refugee Women to Flourish

Re:new exists to come alongside and invest in the lives of women through holistic renewal of their lives—economically, socially and spiritually. Re:new is creating hope for refugee women and sharing the love of Christ with them.

The story behind the Re:new Project is a story about life, about how being in community is the best way to live. It is about how God sees fit to enable us all to flourish while on this earth— creating and being renewed day by day.

Maku was just a small child when her parents died. As an orphan in Bhutan, a country in northeast India, she and her siblings were sent as refugees to live in Nepal with their grandmother.

They lived in poverty and received no education. In their culture, girls were married off at a young age, and Maku was married by the time she was 15 years old.

Unfortunately, she married a bad man and was then divorced. She had hope for a brighter future when she married again. Those hopes were not realized as she faced challenges in her marriage from a husband who didn’t want her to even go outside of their house. Kept shut in with her three children, she had no opportunities to gain the education not available in her childhood.

At age 29, Maku, her husband and children came to the United States and were accepted into World Relief’s resettlement program.

For a refugee, adjusting to life in America is complex and overwhelming. The challenges increase exponentially for refugees who do not speak English and have little or no education. And one of the largest pieces of the resettlement puzzle is employment—especially for women. Some refugee women are considered unemployable due to the language barriers, health challenges, lack of transportation, childcare needs and/or lack of transferable skills.

These were the challenges Maku faced when she arrived in the United States. But this wasn’t the first time Maku faced obstacles in her life. Though an orphaned refugee living in poverty, she had overcome, so Maku was determined to help make a good life for her family. She just needed the opportunity.

That opportunity came when she met a Re:new volunteer at a local English as a Second Language (ESL) class. She was invited to join our ESL classes. As a result, Maku not only learned English, but she also joined the new student sewing class, where she acquired skills to equip her to find a job as a seamstress.

Re:new is a nonprofit organization that provides training, employment and community for refugee women living in DuPage County. In 2009, the Re:new Project was birthed out of a desire to empower refugee women to gain a viable skill in a safe community of women with a dignified and flexible work environment. It started with a 350-square foot room with five machines and four students. Now, ten years later, the project encompasses a space of 2,500 square feet with five employees, along with our trained artisans and students each semester from such countries as Somalia, Turkey, Nepal, Iraq, Bhutan, Sudan and Tanzania. The number of women and places they’re from grow and shift all the time. We are a team of more than 50 women volunteers, staff and artisans working together to design, create and market beautiful locally handcrafted products as we provide a space for refugee women to thrive.

Re:new artisans are women who have survived war, persecution and political conflict—women like Amal who left her home country because of threats on her life. After traveling from place to place to hide out, she and her husband were always found. They knew they had to leave their home country for the sake of their lives, and the life of their unborn baby. After arriving in the U.S., Amal found her way to Re:new and to our community where she felt safe and comfortable. She has developed friendships with other women who had been through similar experiences.

Each woman has a compelling story. Za Lian grew up in a valley village in Burma. When she married her husband, she moved to a mountain village with her mother-in-law. All the children of the village would go out and play together in the streets and were safe because everyone would keep an eye out for them. (Here, her daughters had no friends and found themselves pent up inside with only parking lots to play in. They miss community.) Soldiers would come into the villages and order people to carry goods for them. These orders were random and often under threat. One time her husband was ordered to carry goods, but he was very sick and refused. He was repeatedly told that illness was no excuse, but he still refused. He became afraid that the soldiers would come back for him, so the following day he fled the country.

It was a long separation. Za Lian’s husband could not re-enter the country, because there would be trouble for him. Their mail to each other rarely reached its destination. Her older daughter was often ill and heart-sick for her father and she would constantly ask, “Where is he?”

After a few years, her husband’s brother helped arrange Za Lian’s passage to Malaysia, so she could join her husband. As illegal immigrants there, they were constantly hunted by the police, who jailed many illegals who would later die in prison. But the police were not allowed to barge into people’s rooms, so Za Lian and her family would hide away.

Her family was caught in no man’s land. They could not return home, and they could not stay where they were. There was the potential to be found and thrown in jail either place. They registered with the UNHCR, and Za Lian says they saved her family when they resettled here in the U.S.

She has loved to sew for a long time. She has always made clothes for her daughters, even if they weren’t professional. A friend told her about Re:new, and she came wandering through the building where we were first located in search of us. She filled out her application and was on her way! World Relief found work for her husband and her girls (8 and 10) now go to school here. Her elder daughter joined the school orchestra and Za Lian recently sewed a dress for her violin performance.

There are two global crises happening at this moment: the refugee crisis and the COVD-19 crisis. Around the world, 25 million refugees have fled their homes. Like the rest of the world, we at Re:new have all felt the effects of COVID.

Since the outbreak, we have repurposed to join the fight against the pandemic by making reusable cloth facemasks according to CDC guidelines to donate to care centers, medical facilities and other nonprofits. To date, we have made more than 11,000 masks, 65% of which have been donated. We are truly blessed to keep our refugee Artisans employed during this time while meeting an urgent need.

In honor of World Refugee Day (June 20 this year), we donated 620 masks to refugees who have been resettled through World Relief, a local resettling agency that has worked with many of our Artisans. These masks are made by refugees, for refugees.

Our Mentoring Program, set to begin this fall, will help the artisans to integrate into American workplace norms and provide tools to help them assimilate well into their communities. We will also assist in launching the artisan into a new career or calling by walking alongside her journey at Re:new and exposing her to the healing love of Jesus, helping her recognize her God-given potential as she rebuilds her new life in the U.S. This will be done through one-on-one mentoring relationships with godly women in our Christian community who have a heart for refugees and their families.

Getting to know the Artisans and hearing their stories has been an extraordinarily enriching experience in my life. What I’ve learned is that despite our diverse cultural backgrounds and religious differences, these women have the same hopes and dreams for themselves and their families as I have. We can connect deeply as we share our lives with each other as we work together, and around the lunch table where food from many different countries is celebrated and shared.

We rely on the talent, skill, passion and creativity of our volunteers to further our mission, and on donors who invest in the professional and personal development of the amazing Artisans in our program.

If you have never visited our shop and sewing studio at 483 North Main Street in Glen Ellyn, please stop by and see us! Check out our website— www.renewproject.org—to see some of our beautiful products, each one unique and handmade from upcycled textiles, or if you are interested in becoming involved as a volunteer or donor.

About the Author | Terri Kraus

Terri has had the privilege to volunteer at Re:new for the past five years as a designer and now is on the board of directors. College Church attenders, Terri and her husband, Jim, are recent empty-nesters as their son, Elliot, is a recent Taylor University grad.