To all friends!!!
January 17, 2013 in Uncategorized
Hope you can attend this theater benefit show for RiF Urban Farm Project.
Show Dates: February 6th & 17th at 7pm
TO BUY TICKETS VISIT: ticketcentral.com
thank you 
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Orientation for Asylum-Seekers
March 20, 2012 in Uncategorized
Information & Orientation on the Asylum Process
RIF will provide you with an orientation on the asylum process. Our objective is to give you up-to-date and reliable information which is essential to begin the asylum process. This timely consultation also helps prevent abuse from fraudulent and unethical immigration service providers.
Individual Legal Consultations
RIF’s legal consultant, a licensed immigration attorney, provides a detailed consultation and evaluation of one’s potential asylum claim. The attorney answers questions regarding the asylum process and can help one gather important evidence in support of one’s claim. RIF does not, however, provide direct legal representation.
Help to secure legal representation
After the assessment, where warranted, RIF will help you find a reliable pro-bono attorney within its network of reputable and experienced legal providers.
Psychological Evaluations
RIF provides psychological affidavits which are drafted by licensed mental health professionals. These are done at the request of lawyers only.
Social Support and Counseling
RIF offers a welcoming environment where you find support during your application process, while you are away from your family, and trying to adjust to a new country.
The Brooklyn Grange Rooftop farm is an RiF partner for internships
March 17, 2012 in Uncategorized
The road to asylum can be painfully long. Due to a backlog of cases in the immigration system, it is not uncommon for asylum-seekers to wait two to four years for a final decision regarding their asylum status. This situation is extremely emotionally difficult for these asylum-seekers who are barely surviving economically in New York, and who are dealing with the psychological aftermath of torture and persecution in their home countries.
In an effort to improve this situation, RIF launched the Urban Farming Recovery Project in the spring of 2011. RIF’s urban farm internship program offers a combination of horticultural therapy and green jobs training. Project participants learn new skills in urban farming in a supportive environment, which helps them recover psychologically from the traumatic aftermath of torture and persecution in their countries of origin. Three interns are working at the Brooklyn Grange during the 2011 season. See below for updates on the project and contact Maria at maria@asylumhelp.org to sponsor a 2011 intern or to learn more about this exciting endeavor.
July 2011: RIF partners at the Brooklyn Grange are featured in a Wall Street Journal video.
June 2011 Press Coverage: Urban Farm Recovery Project in the News!
Our Urban Farm Recovery Project and Erick, Florence, Kathy and Maria were featured Friday, June 10, 2011 in a NY Daily News article.
African immigrants hoping to be granted U.S. asylum have discovered a taste of home on top of the city’s largest rooftop farm.The Refugee Immigrant Fund Asylum Help Center, a Queens nonprofit that aids those fleeing persecution and torture, has partnered with a 40,000 square-foot rooftop farm in Long Island City to give refugees a unique opportunity to work the soil in their new urban home.
Read more here.
May 2011 Update from RIF Farmer Interns at the Brooklyn Grange Farm
Since last March, RIF farmer interns have started to plant tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants. They have also built new beds and recently helped to build the chicken coop to house five new chickens. They have already started to harvest radishes. They also are very proud to demonstrate what they do to visitors who come to visit the farm, and many of them come from all over the world!
May 2011
RIF interns helped build new beds and recently helped to build the chicken coop to house five new chickens at the Brooklyn Grange.
Early Spring 2011 at the Brooklyn Grange Farm
- RIF Farmer Interns’ initial farm visit. The interns visited the BG while it was still snowing!
- RIF met with Gwen Schantz, a co-founder of BG. Gwen was just about to give birth to her first baby boy, Otto.
- Florence and Katy working the beds on a cool spring day at the farm.
- BG co-founder Ben Flanner discusses new types of soil experiments during a RIF site visit in April 2011
- RIF Intern Erick displays one of many crops being planted this season at the BG.
- RIF Interns planting seedlings, April 2011
