Guidebook for Refugees

This resettlement guide, revised in 2004, was funded by the Department of State, Bureau for Population, Refugees, and Migration (PRM). It resulted from numerous meetings and the work of a special Cultural Orientation Task Force convened by the State Department/PRM. The Task Force, comprised of PRM staff, staff of national and local refugee resettlement agencies, state refugee coordinators, overseas orientation implementors, former refugees, and the Center for Applied Linguistics was formed to undertake a review of overseas pre-departure orientation/briefings to make sure the orientation refugees were receiving was relevant to their needs as identifed by resettlement agencies and by refugees already in the U.S.—and to ensure that each U.S.-bound refugee receive consistent information about resettlement.

A copy of this resettlement guidebook, which has been translated into thirteen languages in addition to English, is given to all refugees overseas once they have been approved for resettlement to the U.S. Wherever possible, refugees also receive a face-to-face orientation or briefing conducted by refugee processing or U.S. Embassy staff. The Guidebook is intended to give refugees information about fundamental aspects of life in the United States and includes the following chapters: Pre-Arrival Processing, The Resettlement Agency, Community Services, Housing, Transportation, Employment, Education, Health, Managing your Money, Rights and Responsibilities, and Cultural Adjustment.

Guidebooks are provided in limited numbers free of charge to Refugee Resettlement Agencies, and are available in English, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, Farsi, French, Karen, Kirundi, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, and Vietnamese. The Guidebook can also be purchased online from the CALstore in any of these languages, for $10.00 a copy.

Please note: an online copy of the 2004 English-language edition can be downloaded for printing, while the 1996 English-language edition can be read on the web.