Below you’ll find photos, stories, and videos – read on to learn more about Refugees Northwest Foster Care and what welcoming a refugee or immigrant teen is really like!

Zerkel Family

“We don’t have to be spectacular parents…All we have to do is be willing to open up that empty room that is sitting in our house and provide a quiet, safe place.”

Read about Sarah’s experience welcoming refugee foster teens into her family, click here.

 

 

 

Choega

“In my village, nobody graduates high school, nobody does. But I did here…I’m proud of myself.”

Listen to Choega’s story of resilience and success, click here.

 

 

 

Adrianna and Doi Bu

“It was intuitively the right thing to do. I just decided to do it.”

Read about Adrianna and Doi Bu’s experience becoming a family, click here.

 

 

 

To continue learning about the children and families in our program, visit the links below.

• For an update on Doi Bu (featured above) click here.
• Mohamad Imran, a Rohingya teen and unaccompanied refugee minor, fled persecution in Myanmar and eventually found safety in a Refugees Northwest foster home. Hear him share his story on KUOW as well as on New Day Northwest.
• Angelica and her family have welcomed refugee and immigrant foster youth into their home for 13 years. Read about their experience here.
• Blaise Nkufo and Steve Zakuani, two Seattle Sounders players, met with a group of Congolese youth from the Refugee & Immigrant Children’s Program. Read more here.
• This article looks back at the experience of some of the young people placed in the Refugee & Immigrant Children’s Program in the past, and provides an introduction to the experiences our youth still face today.
• Read about Emmanuel and Victor, Sudanese refugees who resettled with Refugee & Immigrant Children’s Program families in the early 2000s, click here.
• Here, Emmanuel shares his own story of fleeing violence in Sudan and starting his life in the US with the help of a foster family.
• This story in the Seattle P-I follows Melvin, an unaccompanied minor that fled violence in Guatemala and eventually made it to a foster home in Seattle.
• Visit this link to read about Peter, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan who resettled with a Refugee & Immigrant Children’s Program family in 2004.
• Frankie fled upheaval and political violence in Haiti, escaping to the U.S. but in need of adults to care for him. Read this story from 1996, highlighting Frankie as a “Sensational Grad of ‘96.”