About the Refugee Education Center

Our Mission and Vision

We support refugees in their journey to become fully participating members of the West Michigan community. We envision a thriving, multicultural West Michigan community where all have an opportunity to pursue a better future!

Our History

The Refugee Education Center was founded in 2006 by a passionate group of Somali Bantu refugees who, as an ethnic group in their native country, were persecuted and prohibited from receiving formal education.

On arrival to the United States, community leaders recognized the incredible new opportunity to receive education and participate in the community as equals. They organized and created what is now the Refugee Education Center. With a vision of supporting refugee children in West Michigan, they began their new education in a foreign land. Since 2006, the Refugee Education Center’s programs and services expanded to address additional needs of families - serving more than 6,000 refugees along the way.

Throughout the years, our vision has stayed the same. It has been, and is, central to the organization to share the knowledge learned from a first-person perspective of navigating the education system and refugee services, and ultimately supporting the estimated 25,000 refugees in West Michigan to become fully participating members of the community (via these program services) and help create a thriving, multicultural West Michigan community where all have an opportunity to pursue a better future!

The Refugee Education Center is a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit based in Grand Rapids, MI.