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Community Programs → Events

Texas

2021 World Refugee Day Celebrations throughout Texas

Friday, June 18, 20219:00 am -
Sunday, June 20, 2021
7:00 pm CDT
📍
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Check out all of our in-person and virtual events happening at all of our sites across Texas that you and your community can be a part of!

For a list of live and virtual events in a city near you, please visit: Refugee Services of Texas Events Near You


AUSTIN

In partnership with the Austin Refugee Roundtable, RST will host both live and streaming events throughout the month of June!

Check out our LIVE events (in-person and virtual) that you can register to be a part of below:

  • 6/18 | 9AM - 12PM Volunteer Day at New Leaf Farms

    It's a World Refugee Volunteer Day with the Multicultural Refugee Coalition at New Leaf Farm! New Leaf Agriculture offers refugees from traditional farming cultures the chance to reconnect and grow in a trade that they are already passionate about. Volunteers help the refugee farm crew in building out our twenty-acre regenerative farm.

  • 6/18 | 12PM - 1PM Juneteenth Panel Discussion

    Juneteenth Panel Discussion: Learn the History, Significance and Celebration of Juneteenth with Simone Talma Flowers and Dr. Kazique Jelani Prince

  • 6/19 | 10AM - 11:30AM RST's Saturday Book Club

    Join us on Saturday, June 19th at 10:00AM CST for our Saturday Book Club featuring Somewhere in the Unknown World by Kao Kalia Yang.

    All over this country, there are refugees. But beyond the headlines, few know who they are, how they live, or what they have lost. Now, with nativism on the rise, Kao Kalia Yang—herself a Hmong refugee—has gathered stories of the stateless who today call the Twin Cities home.

    In Yang’s exquisite, necessary telling, these fourteen stories for refugee journeys restore history and humanity to America's strangers and redeem its long tradition of welcome.

  • 6/19 | 4:30PM - 6:30PM Native Filipino Dinner Experience

    Benz Adriano, survivor of human trafficking and intern at Refugee Services of Texas, will be serving a native Filipino dinner including: vegetarian fried rice, hand-made eggrolls, Filipino pork kabobs, and a very special dessert!

    Refugee Services of Texas will also be introducing our cookbook currently in production, Plated Stories: Legacies from Home to Table, featuring stories and recipes collected from refugees, trafficking survivors, and asylum seekers. Book contributors Ivana Ilic of Facebook and Ahmed Abbas of RST will also speak about their experiences as a refugee and asylum seeker, and what recipes they added to the Plated Stories cookbook!

    Tickets: $25
    seating limited, to-go orders also available!

  • 6/24 | TBD What's Your Why?

    Panel Discussion with refugee resettlement volunteers to learn their "why" about volunteering, donating and serving the refugee population in Central Texas!

  • 6/27 | TBD What's in a Word?

    What's in a Word? A Roundtable Discussion with Language Interpreters!

Click here for EVENTS IN OTHER CITIES

What would you do if you had to leave everything behind?

By the end of 2024, more than 123.2 million people worldwide had been forcibly displaced from their homes due to war, persecution, or human rights abuses.

An increase of 7.2 million over 2023, that’s more than 19,619 people every day — roughly one person every 4.4 seconds.

They arrive in refugee camps and other countries, like the US, seeking the one thing they’ve lost: safety.

Fleeing political imprisonment, ethnic violence, religious persecution, gang threats, or war crimes, they come with what little they managed to carry:

Legal papers – if they’re lucky.

A single backpack.

Sometimes a child’s hand in theirs.

They also carry the weight of what they left behind: fractured families, homes they’ll never return to, professions they loved, friends and relatives they may never see again.

They carry loss most of us can’t imagine – but also the truth of what they’ve endured.

At TSOS, we believe stories are a form of justice. When someone shares their experience of forced displacement, they reclaim their voice. And when we amplify that voice – through film, photography, writing, and advocacy – the world listens. Hearts soften. Communities open. Policy begins to shift.

That shift matters. Because when neighbors understand instead of fear…

when lawmakers see people, not politics…

when a teacher knows what her student has survived…

Rebuilding life from the ashes becomes possible.

We’re fighting an uphill battle. In today’s political climate, refugee stories are often twisted or ignored. They’re reduced to statistics, portrayed as national threats, or used to score political points.

The truth – the human, nuanced truth – gets lost, and when it does, we lose compassion.

We are here to share their truth anyway.

At TSOS, we don’t answer to headlines or algorithms. We are guided by a simple conviction: every person deserves to be seen, heard, and welcomed.

Our work is powered by the people we meet — refugees and asylum seekers rebuilding after loss, allies offering sanctuary, and communities daring to extend belonging.

Your support helps us share their stories — and ensure they’re heard where they matter most.

“What ultimately persuaded the judge wasn’t a legal argument. It was her story.”

— Kristen Smith Dayley, Executive Director, TSOS

Will you help us keep telling the truth?

No donation is too small — and it only takes a minute of your time.

Why give monthly?

We value every gift, but recurring contributions allow us to plan ahead and invest more deeply in:

  • New refugee storytelling and advocacy projects
  • Resources to train and equip forcibly displaced people to share their own stories
  • Public education that challenges fear with empathy
  • Local efforts that help communities welcome and integrate newcomers

As our thank-you, monthly supporters receive fewer fundraising messages — and more stories of the impact they’re making possible.

You don’t have to be displaced to stand with those who are.

Can you give today — and help carry these stories forward?

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