The Worcester Refugee Archive emerged from the pragmatic need to centralize the growing number of materials and research papers produced by Clark students and faculty about refugees and other forcibly displaced people living in Worcester, Massachusetts. Starting with a wealth of original research conducted by graduate students enrolled in the International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE) as part of their final research requirement, the collection has expanded to include faculty research, reports, action research projects with community partners, and grey materials such as handbooks, conference materials, unpublished reports, and ephemera produced by refugee agencies, community organizations, and others.
More recently, the collection has obtained student and faculty research projects from sister universities in Worcester, including Becker College, Worcester Polytechnic Institute and Worcester State University. It is our hope that this growing repository of knowledge produced by and about refugees in Worcester will serve the needs of the constituencies for a space where the important but often partial or hidden histories of Worcester’s refugee newcomers are made available.