Rohingya Culture Center

The Rohingya Cultural Center is a community based social service organization aimed at serving the needs of the Rohingya refugee population in Chicago as well as raising awareness of the persecution of the Rohingya in Myanmar. The United Nations lists the Rohingya Muslims of northwestern Burma (Myanmar) among the most persecuted people in the world. Burma’s 1982 Citizenship Law denied the ethnic minority Muslim group legal status, rendering them stateless, and denying them the right education, work, and travel. Since then, many of the Rohingya have been displaced by ethnic violence and have been forced to flee the persecution. The Rohingya Cultural Center was established in 2016, in Chicago’s West Ridge/West Rogers Park neighborhood, to serve the needs of the growing Rohingya refugee community. As many as 1000 Rohingya have been resettled in Chicago since 2010, with the overwhelming majority of them living in this. One of only a few Rohingya organizations in the country, RCC is well-known by Rohingya in the diaspora. It started by addressing immediate basic needs – providing information and practical assistance, homework help for children, and a place where the community could come together. The Center has been steadily expanding its service offerings to meet the needs of the growing refugee population in Chicago. It now has adult ESL classes with childcare for parents, a citizenship class, provides casework, employment assistance, and several youth sports programs. RCC also assists new families, and provides translations for medical centers and local schools. It sponsors Iftar during all 30 days of Ramadan, seeks out Zakat funds and distributes them, as well as handles donations of food, winter coats, etc.