A Microenterprise Initiative Among Newly Resettled Refugees in a City of the U.S. South: Challenges, Successes, and Lessons Learned

This study analyzes the strengths and challenges of a microenterprise program developed for refugees in a city of the U.S. South region. By offering a microfinance loan of about $4,500 per client, the microenterprise program, run by a nonprofit resettlement agency (RA), hopes to provide economically poor and newly resettled refugees, who have no credit history with banks, with low-interest loans and business training needed to get integrated into their new environment, become economically self-sufficient, and contribute to the local economy. Nevertheless, the limited resources, dramatic shifts in new refugee policies, and the business, language and cultural integration skills that need to be learned by the newcomers present challenges that the microentrepreneurs and the RA are trying to overcome. Using semistructured interviews and ethnographic observations, information was collected from about three-dozen in-depth interviews between summer 2016 and spring 2017. Data from these interviews explicate the role of personal entrepreneurial agency and structural support by the RA. The study also highlights lessons learned by the RA and offers suggestions for the future. Thus far, most of the refugees who participated in the program have started microbusinesses that help them support their families and provide new services in the community where they live. They are also repaying their loans on time, in 95 percent of the cases.