About the Map

NiJeL partnered with Community Outreach and Advocacy for Refugees (COAR) to develop a community based-mapping tool to assist the refugee community and their providers (including professional caseworkers and volunteers) by creating a web based mapping tool, which will allow quick access to the spatial data and a forum for anyone to add content. Users will be able to immediately locate:

• an affordable apartment
• nearby governmental services and offices
• local schools
• nearby faith-based organizations
• child care, and
• local commercial services, like grocery stores, clothing stores, and banks

Every year, up to 70,000 refugees—uprooted from their homelands by war, political conflict, and social, ethnic, or religious persecution—are resettled in the United States. Many come to the U.S. disoriented and have a difficult time navigating a new culture. In the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area, many organizations help to ease the transition for newly arrived refugees.

Refugees , volunteers, and case workers develop local knowledge about resources in their communities that can benefit others, yet there is no comprehensive and current directory which all parties can use to share these local resources. Refugees and service providers spend valuable time searching for basic resources such as housing, employment, child care, and transportation, as well as culturally-specific resources such as faith centers and ethnic grocers. With each new refugee and new volunteer, the search process repeats itself. To address this, COAR has teamed up with NiJeL to create a web-based mapping tool: a "one stop shop," powered by refugees and volunteers, that will assist service providers with finding resources near homes and workplaces.

This mapping tool will allow users to update and add resources as needed. Sharing local knowledge through maps not only will allow refugees and volunteers to learn about a nearby resources long before they otherwise would, but it will also continually build new and better data as more people participate.