English Language Learning
Who Are Refugee Children?
The Illinois Department of Human Services is the recipient of a Refugee Children School Impact Grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to provide social and educational services to Illinois' school-age refugee population.
The Consortium of Refugee Social Service Agencies provides direct services to schools that have enrolled refugee students.
Refugees are individuals who enter the United States under the Immigration and Naturalization Service classification of refugee. They or their parents may have come from any of the following countries:
- Afghanistan
- Algeria
- Albania
- Burkina Faso
- Burma
- Burundi
- Cambodia
- Cameroon
- Chad
- Congo
- Cuba
- Djibouti
- Eritrea
- Ethiopia
- Gambia
- Ghana
- Guinea
- Haiti
- Indonesia
- Iran
- Iraq
- Ivory Coast
- Kenya
- Kuwait
- Laos
- Liberia
- Nigeria
- Romania
- Rwanda
- Sierra Leone
- Somalia
- Sri Lanka
- Sudan
- Syria
- Togo
- Uganda
- USSR (former): (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan)
- Vietnam
- Yugoslavia (former): (Bosnia & Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia)
- Zaire
For more information about the program, please contact Sherry Johnson at (312) 814-3850 or sjohnson@isbe.net or Carol Rech at (312) 793-7120.
