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"Rooted in Shared Soil: Refugees and the Triangle Grow Together" was created as the senior capstone project for the Human Rights Certificate class of 2025. The students created two new educational resources - one digital, one physical:
- The "Rooted in Shared Soil" StoryMap uses an online storytelling platform to explore the history of refugee resettlement in North Carolina's Triangle, the challenges refugees face, and the many ways Triangle communities (including former refugees) come together to support and welcome new refugees.
- The physical exhibit conveys this information in the form of eight vertical banners, which can be used for community education and awareness displays.
North Carolina's Triangle—Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill—has welcomed refugees since before the international community established the 1951 Refugee Convention. This project uses this Convention as a starting point and covers over 70 years of refugee resettlement in the Triangle, all the way through the renewed attacks on refugees by the Trump administration in spring 2025.
Despite barriers, refugees continue to come to the Triangle. As importantly, people from all walks of life continue to welcome and support them. For this project, students interviewed refugees, resettlement organizations, faith groups, volunteers, business owners, and scholars to ask how refugees see their journeys and why and how so many Triangle communities welcome them. They also conducted archival research and investigated some of the reasons refugees fled and why they came to the Triangle.
The "Rooted in Shared Soil: Refugees and the Triangle Grow Together" banners are available to borrow for your community event! Please contact dhrc.fhi@duke.edu if you are interested in using this display.