Through its Engaged Course Development Mini-Grant Program, the Swearer Center awarded  $450 to Professor Virginia Krause (French Studies) to support community-engaged learning opportunities through FREN 1410T: L'expérience des réfugiés/immigrés (the experience of refugees/immigrants), which was offered in Fall 2017.  

Course description (from Courses at Brown): “An exploration of the experience of refugees and immigrants with two components. The first component consists of close study of the French context from Decolonization up through the current refugee crisis based on literature, film, the press, and critical essays. The second component of this course will give students the opportunity to work with refugee/recent immigrant communities in Providence. This is a community-engaged course requiring substantial commitment beyond the classroom. Taught in French. Prerequisite: a course at the 0600- or 0700-level or equivalent proficiency. Contact the instructor to verify your proficiency if you have not taken French at Brown. WRIT”

Students in the course were required to dedicated 60 hours over the course of the semester to a number of projects with Women’s Refugee Care, “a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization providing services and support to refugee families from the Great Lakes Region of Africa (Congo, Burundi and Rwanda) - referred to as ECGLC - who reside in Rhode Island.” 

Among the projects pursued by students were this video (above) and series of interviews and blog posts.