The Problem
The International Rescue Committee's Resettlement, Asylum, & Integration department serves refugees, asylees, & immigrants who are fleeing violence, war, & disaster; IRC-RAI helps its clients to rebuild their lives in the United States. Many clients come to the US with a limited understanding of the English language, which in turn limits their ability to acculturate to their new communities & advance in their employment. To address this issue, IRC-RAI offers free ESL & job readiness programs at community centers across the country. However, due to the controversial 2026 ICE surges in Minneapolis, Atlanta, and other parts of the US, many clients were afraid to come to classes, regardless of their documentation status. Fluctuations in funding, similar to those experienced by many nonprofit organizations, also impacted the amount of in-person classes that the IRC was able to offer.
The Solution
As the Adult Education Supervisor for our RAI branch, I needed to ensure that our clients could still get the ESL & job readiness classes they needed. And as an instructional designer, I had just the right tools to do this. Using Rise 360, Camtasia, and Vyond, I created over 50 online classes (and counting) for our clients which can be hosted for free on our Blackboard LMS; the classes are scaffolded for both beginner & intermediate ESL learners, self-paced, & accessible any time, anywhere. Courses were designed with stakeholder input from the RAI team as well as client community members, & clients continue to engage with the content, benefitting themselves & their families.
I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to serve alongside the IRC, an organization I have respected & supported for many years. And though RAI management made the difficult but necessary decision to downsize my team during a recent series of layoffs, I continue to create courses for the IRC on a volunteer basis. The clients are kind, hardworking, wonderful people who just want to be a positive part of our nation. They deserve a fair chance at the American Dream, & I want to help them get that chance.
