Our Story & Partners
Welcome to Refugee Protection International's Shop for Humanity!
It is our honor to bring refugee-made and local goods to our online Shop for Humanity at RPI after years of funding refugee women's skills training overseas with our community-led training partners and selling through RPI's booth at markets across New England.
RPI was founded in 2015, with the vision of facilitating impactful refugee-led relief work. RPI's Shop for Humanity builds on this vision by placing the power of getting ahead directly in the hands of refugee artisans, community training partners, and you.
Artisans craft their way out of dependence on aid. Shoppers wear their cause. And giving partners promote their favorite local artisans by donating their crafts, skills, and time.
Our aim is to vastly expand our impact on the lives of women and children in regions of conflict and to make it more enjoyable for you.
Join us and shop for humanity!
Yours Truly,
Jennifer Hill, Founder & Executive Director, Refugee Protection International
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Our Story
Refugee Protection International (RPI) is thrilled to share our journey with you and livelihoods training partners Multi Aid Programs (MAPS), Kids Paradise (KP), Union of Relief and Development Associations (URDA), Olive Branch Organization, and Odessa Charity Fund "Way Home."
Since late 2015, RPI and its wider network of refugee-led and community partners have assisted nearly 1 million civilians affected by conflict through medical aid, nutrition, education, shelter, protection, psychosocial and self-reliance support.
We first funded livelihoods training for displaced women in southern Syria in 2016 with Turkey-based, refugee-led charity Olive Branch, expanding this support to refugee women in southern Turkey in 2019 with refugee-led charity Kids Paradise thanks to a grant from NEID Global's Giving Circle on Refugees. We extended this support to camps and cities in northern Syria with Kids Paradise, helping displaced women craft for their children who have seen so much sorrow, make soap for camp schools, and develop amigurumi skills for the market.
By 2021, we began transitioning our means of supporting Syrian refugee children's education in Lebanon with refugee-led charity partner Multi Aid Program from donations - a big thank you to American Securities Foundation, Together Women Rise (formerly Dining for Women), and the Dunn Family Foundation - to funding refugee women's livelihoods skills training, selling their goods on the US market, and regranting proceeds to support their income and MAPS' non-formal primary education centers for 3,000 refugee children each year. To reduce our joint environmental footprint, we funded refugee skills training in recycling and weaving plastic into colorful tote bags together with Lebanese charity URDA - Union of Relief and Development Associations.
By mid November 2025, we had sold over 32,200 items, including 30,500 refugee-made gifts, at artisan markets across New England, braving the cold at the festive Snowport Holiday Market, the summer heat at the Greenway Artisan Market, and enjoying our customers at the New England Christmas Festival and other events.
This transition to a hybrid self-reliance revenue model allowed us to continue supporting vital relief work across the Middle East even as media attention shifted toward Ukraine (where we also provide aid) in 2022, including malnutrition screening and treatment in northwest and northeast Syria for some 160,000 war-affected children under the age of 5-years-old and pregnant and lactating women with refugee-led partners Innovative and Powerful Vision (IPV) and Orkide and third-party in-kind support to their work. This revenue model also supplemented generous funding from MathWorks Inc & others in 2023 to scale humanitarian support to war-displaced and local host communities affected by the devastating earthquakes along both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border.
After half a dozen aid trips into Ukraine between March 2022 and 2023, RPI expanded its humanitarian programming for civilians in Ukraine to include support for children's art therapy, displaced women's pottery training and their access to a mental health specialist with our Ukrainian training partner Odessa Charity Fund "Way Home."
When the time is right, we will invite women to craft for our shop from the ruins of the Gaza-Israeli war (where we support Kids Paradise and our joint partners to cook and deliver hot food, tent insulation, hygiene materials and repair water wells), and from parts of Africa, Asia, and beyond.
We know that suffering has no borders and that people even far removed from a crisis can experience secondary trauma on behalf of their communities. We respect the immense emotional toll that today's wars have taken on society at large, as we support impartial, needs-based humanitarian aid.
Join us in bringing our global community back together out of a shared compassion for our earth's children and ecosystem. May war give way to peace and resilience.
Thank you for taking the time to shop from our refugee and local artisans. For more selections and one-of-a-kind styles, visit our booth at an event near you. We look forward to meeting you!