A Friendship-Based Network for Refugees and Immigrants
Cultivating mutual relationships among South Bend area’s immigrant and non-immigrant community
Our Community Network
A place begins to feel like home when a person is well connected—connected to friends, connected through sustainable employment, connected to community happenings and local systems. Through volunteer community liaisons, we help the South Bend–area refugee and immigrant population find their home.
Get Involved
Volunteer
By joining a Neighbor Circle, you become a community liaison, a mutual friend, and a bridge for a refugee or immigrant friend.
Donate
By giving to Neighbor to Neighbor, you support our efforts to cultivate mutuality in our community, creating a safe, welcoming, and sustainable home for all.
Advocate
By spreading the word about Neighbor to Neighbor, you help others understand who our refugee and immigrant neighbors are and how we can stand in solidarity with them.
Standing in Solidarity with Our Neighbors
Trauma
The events that bring refugees and immigrants to our community are often traumatic. The compound impact of the causes for a person to leave their country, the journey itself, the holding period, and then the acclimation to a new country, language, and set of systems often has long-lasting effects.
Resilience
Despite experiencing trauma and entering into a whole new way of life, most refugees and immigrants possess a great amount of resilience. According to a recent study done by New American Economy, immigrants in three Northern Indiana counties contributed $2.7 billion to the regions GDP, 53.3% are homeowners, and 23.3% hold a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Support
Neighbor to Neighbor seeks to support our resilient refugee and immigrant neighbors through friendship, community networking, local advocacy, and creative enterprises. We can all do this good work—singles, families, young, and old.
TALES FROM A VOLUNTEER
" It shocked me to learn about the situation in her home country because I haven’t seen any news about it here."
“Becoming a ‘neighbor’ to an immigrant in my community has been so enriching and eye-opening! I’ve been meeting a few times a month with a young woman who is seeking asylum in the United States, and I have been so blessed to get to know her. So far our meetings have been one-on-one, but I look forward to introducing her to my family soon. She is smart, brave, and kind, even as she’s going through some difficult circumstances.
As I’ve been getting to know her, one thing that has surprised me is the realization of how little I know about some of the different places in our world. Prior to meeting my friend, I knew of her country of origin in name alone…