Mapendo International

RefugePoint is a non-profit organization that has worked to provide lasting solutions to the world's most at-risk refugees since 2005. Since 2005, RefugePoint referred over 38,000 refugees for resettlement.

RefugePoint works to identify and protect refugees who have fallen through the cracks of humanitarian assistance, with an emphasis on serving women, children, and urban refugees. RefugePoint has three offices, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, Nairobi, Kenya, and Geneva, Switzerland.

The organization has worked primarily in Africa, in 28 countries, and over 48 locations, including: Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Djibouti, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, DRC, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guinea, Iraq, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.

RefugePoint is a member of Refugee Council USA, a coalition of U.S. non-governmental organizations focused on refugee protection.

RefugePoint was founded in 2005 by Sasha Chanoff and Dr. John Wagacha Burton. While conducting refugee rescue operations with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Sasha became aware of the unseen and therefore unmet needs of the many refugees living in urban settings.

On June 29, 2011 Mapendo announced that it changed its name to RefugePoint, "in order to better reflect its core mission of protecting the world’s most vulnerable and forgotten refugees."

Sasha Chanoff, RefugePoint’s executive director, explained that the organization’s staff have been impressed for years by the many refugees who relate that contact with RefugePoint became the turning point in their lives. “Our effort,” he says, “is to provide lasting solutions for people fleeing from persecution, war, and genocide. The new name, RefugePoint, reflects the moment when those most at risk see the possibility of deliverance from lives of fear and desperation and a path opening up toward new lives for themselves and their families.”

RefugePoint’s mission is to provide lasting solutions for the world’s most vulnerable refugees. The organization addresses the critical and unmet needs of those who fall through the cracks of humanitarian assistance and have no other options for survival, with a focus on women, children, and urban refugees.

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Wikipedia