We serve refugees in the Amarillo area by removing the language barriers refugees face, honoring their cultures so they can integrate without sacrificing their heritages, overcoming relational and emotional hurdles to build leaders within their communities, facilitating systemic solutions for long-term issues, and engaging with local churches. Learn more about how these mission objectives get us to our vision of the flourishing of refugee communities.
The Refugee Language Project is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in Amarillo, Texas. Launched in 2017, we became a standalone organization in 2020. Our Executive Director is Dr. Ryan Pennington, a linguist who previously worked with undescribed and unwritten languages in Papua New Guinea. Refugee Language Project (RLP) is funded primarily by monthly recurring donations, alongside generous one-time gifts and strategic grants. Learn more below.
Follow us!
We're on Facebook and Instagram,
and you can find some videos on our YouTube channel.
WOW! Look at how generously people have given during the past 8 days. We are blown away by the outpouring of support from so many of you in our community! We are already over our goal and gifts are still coming in! Thank you to everyone who has given generously, sacrificially and hopefully as we prepare to open The PLACE in January. Our newsletter will be hitting your inboxes soon with more details, so make sure you are on our email newsletter list by signing up on our website.
If you haven't given yet, you still can! There is no limit, even though you already blew our goal out of the water! Give by following the link in our bio. The Panhandle Gives is running until midnight! 🙂 #thepanhandlegives
I loved getting to sit down with Broc Carter @thepanhandlegives and share a little slice of what RLP is doing in Amarillo. You can check out the interview over on our Facebook page. Today and tomorrow are the last days to give during The Panhandle Gives campaign! We are at 90% of our goal and we are so thankful for everyone that has given and shared our stories and posts. Follow the link in our profile to give!
#refugeelanguageproject
Now that we are in the thick of the holiday season, don't forget to get your donation in to The Panhandle Gives campaign before it ends! You can give through Tuesday, November 30th at 11:59 PM! Give online at the link in our bio or give by cash or check at sponsoring banks.
Betty has been involved with RLP since the very beginning, when we first started running Table Talk out of Margaret Wills Elementary School. She attended the RHPNA conference with us a few years ago and has helped with childcare, set up tables, been in our Face to Face mentorship program, and so much more. Her passion to use her gifts and time to serve others has been at the heart of RLP since day one. Here’s what she had to say about why she’s fundraising for us this year:
"I moved to Amarillo in 2016 from Puerto Rico. I had been working within the non-profit world and as an ESL professor for 5 years and wanted to continue serving others after moving to Amarillo. I heard about Dr. Ryan Pennington's and his wife's desire to serve the refugee community in Amarillo soon after. I immediately knew I wanted to help them in whatever way possible...
Recently, I had been meeting with Thu Zar from Burma every Wednesday. Whenever I met Thu Zar, she seemed to be shy, but she had a desire to learn English in order to interact with others within her community. She saw that I was curious about her traditional foods and in her garden; soon after, Thu Zar developed a habit of cooking for me and my 2 year old traditional Burmese recipes. We became friends, and I too shared traditional recipes with her and her 19 year old son. I got to listen to her stories about living in Burma and about her family. Thu Zar was hired at a restaurant full-time and had to stop meeting with me, but the friendship we developed in such a short time and the memories I have with her give me so much joy. I hope we will be in each other's life somehow."
We are so thankful for Betty! You can give now to support us as we recruit and equip mentors like Betty to connect in meaningful ways in our community. Link in bio to give. @thepanhandlegives
Shopping today? Whether you are doing it in person or online, take a second look at that list and see what can be procured from local businesses in your area. Then take 5 minutes and head on over to thepanhandlegives.org and give to your favorite local non-profits, including Refugee Language Project. Thanks for supporting the Amarillo area! #thepanhandlegives #refugeelanguageproject
This year we are raising money for a new multicultural community center that is set to open in January, specifically in response to the influx of Afghan evacuees in Amarillo. This community center will have a large gathering space, childcare, classrooms, a computer lab and offices. It will be a great place to connect across cultures!
We'll still be based out of our current location, but programs and classes will take place in this new space. It's an exciting time, and we can't wait to share more in the coming weeks. Make sure you stay connected via social media to know what's happening and how you can get involved.
Give to support the opening of The PLACE during @thepanhandlegives by clicking the link in our profile.
To see what else RLP does, swipe through the slides to read about our vision and mission.
Is online giving not your thing? Well, there’s more than one way to give during @thepanhandlegives 2021, going on NOW through Nov. 30. Give by check, cash or money order at any of the sponsoring banks. That means any FirstBank Southwest, Amarillo National Bank or Happy State Bank will take your donation and get it in the right hands. Just be sure to make that check out to “The Panhandle Gives” and put your favorite non-profit organization in the memo line. As always, give securely and quickly online by following the link in our profile. Thanks, Amarillo area! #thepanhandlegives #amarilloareafoundation #amarillonationalbank #happystatebank #firstbanksouthwest
Day 1 looks good, y'all! 23% of the way there...Thanks for getting out there and giving to RLP and so many other area organizations. We are just getting started with #thepanhandlegives
Still 8 days left to give! #refugeelanguageproject
Today's the day! The Panhandle Gives is finally here! Go to thepanhandlegives.org and search up your favorite local non-profits and show them some love! Search for Refugee Language Project while you are there, or find the link to give directly to RLP on our profile or through the donate tab on our website. Swipe to see other ways you can give! #thepanhandlegives #igivewhereilive #9daysofgiving
We are Refugee Language Project - Part 3: On our own two feet
2020 left people with plenty of time to think. Table Talk and in-person connections were on pause, so RLP turned to the information they had gathered through community dialogues, surveys sent to local ESL programs, and conversations Ryan had with refugee leaders across the city. As he put all of this information together into a strategic report, a new need was knocking at the door.
When COVID hit hard, the health department and city leadership was faced with a communication crisis. How could test results and health information be delivered accurately and clearly in so many different languages? Here is where deep trust and relationships began to pay off. RLP was able to source interpreters from many different language communities that the health department could hire to make phone calls, do contact tracing, and deliver life-saving information to people who were sick. People with these language skills emerged at the front lines, and were happy to not only have income from these new jobs, but serve their communities in vital ways. It brought out new leaders previously unknown. Because RLP was nimble and had focused on depth over breadth, they were able to rise to meet the challenges of the times and shift their activities to support such endeavors.
Ryan also had made changes to RLP in those months. He knew he needed a team of employees to carry out the organization’s goals and programs more effectively. So, he hired a team of part time employees to oversee the women’s literacy class, our face to face mentorship program, and Table Talk — with the prospect of in-person meetings looming once again. (continued in comments)
We are Refugee Language Project - Part 2: Student and Teacher
As Ryan finished up his doctorate and began looking around for work, he tried many different avenues that seemed to fit with his linguistic background - teaching ESL, working in local higher education, or serving as a missions pastor somewhere. Door after door closed, but he and Crystal kept hearing about the large refugee population in Amarillo. Crystal had grown up here, but had never learned about these communities in the city. Slowly it began to look like maybe there was a place for Ryan’s odd mix of language and culture knowledge to be useful in the Panhandle.
In 2017 he attended the Refugee Highway Partnership of North America’s Roundtable conference in Dallas, and met other passionate cross cultural workers from all over North America who were strategizing together and sharing ideas of how to welcome forcibly displaced peoples in their own communities. Ryan learned about the paths refugees take to be resettled, the problems that exist for those communities, and creative programs in other cities designed to fill in the gaps. It was then that he and Crystal began to look at the chasm that existed in Amarillo between these communities and the average resident. As hospitable and generous as Amarillo is, people were largely afraid of and suspicious of the unknown when it came to refugees. Ryan knew that people needed to connect across boundaries in order for the whole community to thrive. And could Amarillo thrive as a whole unless all of its overlooked residents were also thriving?
He and Crystal also remembered what it was like to be on the other side of the table, perceived as an outsider whose invisible, but valuable skills weren’t easily seen by their new neighbors. It would be through the connection of people, across language and culture barriers, into authentic community that real change would come. There were already talented, smart, gifted leaders in these refugee communities, and Ryan had begun to meet many of them. Now he wanted to help give them a voice. (continued in comments)
We are Refugee Language Project - Part 1: Another world
The story of RLP didn’t start in Amarillo. In fact, it’s hard to draw a line and say what was the beginning. But we can’t talk about who RLP is today without tracing the story of two young kids, newly married, who moved to the other side of the world. Ryan and his wife Crystal decided to plant their feet in the country of Papua New Guinea, a country roughly the size of California with one of the most linguistically diverse populations in the world. Their job was to pick one of those viable languages to start a Bible translation project in. Translation wouldn’t start for many years, not until they had studied this previously unwritten language, described the grammar and phonology, and then developed a trial alphabet. Even though they had training in linguistics, anthropology and culture, nothing quite prepared them for immersion into a culture so very opposite from their own. It was during those first years overseas, having babies, learning languages, and experiencing true community and cross-cultural hospitality, that the first seeds of a vision for RLP were planted. They didn’t know it at the time, but sitting on the side of the table as the learner, the outsider and the recipient of generosity taught them the lessons they would use many years later to connect with people from other distant places.
It was eye opening to feel like a needy child as an adult. It didn’t matter that they had college degrees, could navigate rush hour traffic, or use a computer with ease. They now needed help with cooking, walking down the mountain, and surviving. Intelligence in this new culture was measured in one’s ability to hike barefoot through the rainforest to daily tend a garden, haul large amounts of firewood on your head down a muddy slope, and build a house with just a hammer and a machete. They weren’t stupid or incapable, they just needed to hone a different set of skills, maintain core parts of their identity and have cultural insiders help them navigate all that was new. (continued in comments)
We are Refugee Language Project - A three part series.
//
Leading up to our largest fundraising campaign of the year, we wanted to introduce ourselves properly to those of you who might be new around here. Stay tuned over the next three days to learn a little more about who we are, what we are doing, and why it matters. Then starting on November 22, you can give to support our non-profit during @thepanhandlegives, where your gift gets amplified by other generous donors at the end. It’s the only time your gift goes farther, so read on, and then show some love to your favorite area non-profits during the Panhandle’s biggest 9 days of giving!
We are so honored to live in a generous community of people that care about the wider world. Thank you for your support since we started RLP over 4 years ago. It's exciting to look at how the voices of leaders in Amarillo's refugee communities have been given a platform because of donors and volunteers like you. Let's keep working together to ensure everyone has a seat at the table, making our community more resilient than ever!
///
Five more days until The Panhandle Gives campaign is open! Stay tuned for all the details on where and how to give... #thepanhandlegives #refugeelanguageproject
10 more days until The Panhandle Gives Campaign!
@thepanhandlegives is an annual event hosted and coordinated by the Amarillo Area Foundation (AAF). The event begins on the Monday before Thanksgiving and ends on the global day of giving known as Giving Tuesday. This year, that's November 22 - November 30, 2021.
One hundred percent of all donations raised by Refugee Language Project go directly to our organization. In addition, each participating organization that raises at least $250 during the campaign receives a percentage match of the total amount of the Amplification Fund. That means your gift gets added to in the end by this special fund.
If you are a regular supporter of RLP, please consider holding onto your gift until the campaign begins to help it go a little farther. If you have been considering making a one-time or year-end donation, please do so between 11/22 and 11/30 this year.
Even though you can't give yet, check out our page to see what your dollars will be supporting this year. Then go ahead and bookmark our page so it's ready to go on the 22nd! Thanks for all your support! Link in bio.
https://www.thepanhandlegives.org/organizations/refugee-language-project
We honor those veterans who have served and continue to serve, both at home and abroad. For all of your sacrifices, those that are seen and the many more unknown, we say thank you.
Tyson Foods @tysonfoods is collaborating with Wesley Community Center @wesley_community_center_ama and the Maverick Boys & Girls Clubs of Amarillo @maverickboysandgirlsclub to offer childcare to their employees. This is groundbreaking! This is a need we have been talking about for a long time. This was one of our 8 Key Recommendations during our Amarillo Refugee State of the Union presentation last January. We're excited to watch area partners do big things that serve refugee families in our community. Thank you Tyson Amarillo TX!
//
Read the story in the Amarillo Globe News, link in bio.
Our e-newsletter hit your inbox this morning! If you didn't get it, click the link in our bio to read about how we are currently supporting the efforts of local resettlement agencies as they resettle over 200 Afghans like David (pseudonym) in Amarillo before January. We need your help to rise to the challenge! These families and individuals need friends who will step up and be a consistent, familiar face to help them figure out how to thrive in a new place.
//
As always, you can subscribe to our e-newsletters on refugeelanguage.org!
We've heard it said that time is our most valuable possession. It is finite, more cannot be bought or made, and we Americans tend to hoard it when we can. If that is true, giving time to another human being is perhaps the ultimate gift . In general this is something Americans struggle with as we live and die by the clock. Many refugees in our city hail from cultures where relationships take precedence over time. We'd love to connect you to people in our city that see the world differently than you or I. You'd be surprised who ends up filled when you decide to pour your time and energy into these neighbors who have just as much to teach us as we think we have to teach them. Contact us today to jump in!
//
You pour into me, then I'll pour into you. That way neither of us ends up empty.
Save the Date!
///
The Panhandle Gives is an annual event hosted and coordinated by the Amarillo Area Foundation (AAF). It begins on the Monday before Thanksgiving and ends on the global day of giving known as Giving Tuesday. This year, that's November 22 - November 30, 2021.
One hundred percent of all donations raised by Refugee Language Project go to us. The AAF generously covers all credit card and platform fees so that we get exactly what you give, plus some! When the event ends, RLP will receive a percentage match of the total amount of the Amplification Fund. The Amplification Fund is a separate fund made up of money given by foundations, corporate sponsors, and individual donors, and was established by AAF to AMPLIFY the amount of money participating organizations receive during the campaign.
If you are considering an end of year gift or are a regular donor, please give during November 22-November 30 this year and help us meet our goal!
Check out RLP's giving page by following the link in our profile. You can see what we're raising funds for this year and read about the impact RLP has in this city. You won't be able to give until the 22nd, but go ahead and bookmark that page!
