Our Mission & Vision

Giving displaced mothers a permanent voice in the decisions made about them

The Refugee Archive is a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit, EIN 41-3858591. We record and preserve the oral histories of displaced single mothers and female-headed households, then make that record available to the researchers, educators, and humanitarian organizations working to support them.

U.S. 501(c)(3) EIN 41-3858591 Oral history archive

Who We Serve Displaced single mothers and female-headed households affected by war, civil conflict, terror, or climate disaster.
What We Do We collect long-form oral histories with trained local partners in refugee and internally displaced communities.
How Records Are Preserved Each interview is preserved through a university special collections partner in audio and transcript form.
Who Uses the Archive Researchers, educators, humanitarian organizations, policy teams, and public-awareness programs use the archive to understand needs that standard data often misses.

Who We Mean by Displaced

Current displacement, documented in real time

We focus on women who are the primary caregivers for their families and who have been displaced by war, civil conflict, terror, or climate disaster. Some are refugees living outside their home country; others are internally displaced persons living within it.

This is not a broad collection of hardship stories. It is a current oral-history archive documenting women living through active displacement right now.

Our Mission

Record, preserve, and make testimony usable

We collect long-form oral histories from displaced single mothers and female-headed households, working alongside trained local partners in the communities we serve. Each interview is preserved through a university special collections partner, in audio and transcript, so the record survives long after the crisis that caused it ends.

Researchers, educators, and humanitarian organizations use this record to understand what these families actually need, including information that existing international data often does not capture.

Our Vision

A world where her story is not lost because she had to move

We envision a world where a displaced mother's story is never lost simply because she had to move. Where she is heard in her own words, her history is protected, and her experience shapes the policies and programs built to serve her and her children.

How the Archive Is Used

From testimony to practical support

The archive is the center of the work. Training, research, policy, public awareness, and economic support all begin with listening carefully to displaced mothers in their own words.

01

Local capacity

We train community members in the regions where we work to conduct interviews themselves, so the work is led by the people closest to it.

02

Economic advancement

We are building a microlending fund, informed by what we learn through oral histories, to give women direct access to capital to start or grow small businesses.

03

Research and education

Universities and independent researchers draw on the archive to study displacement's effect on women and children over time, using firsthand testimony instead of assumptions.

04

Policy

Our policy tracker pairs the archive with legal and policy research in the countries where we work, giving humanitarian groups and policymakers a clearer picture of where laws are and are not reaching the women they are meant to protect.

05

Public awareness

Our Art of Oral History program works with young artists in the countries we serve to translate parts of the archive into visual work, helping stories reach audiences beyond academic and policy circles.

The archive makes lived experience part of the record.

The Refugee Archive exists so displaced mothers are not treated as invisible data points. Their histories are collected with care, preserved with institutional partners, and used to improve the decisions made about their lives.