International Institute of St. Louis

The International Institute of St. Louis will open the Anna E. Crosslin Center for Multicultural Excellence in January. The center will provide cultural workshops, training, programming and events to residents and business owners.

The International Institute of St. Louis is ready to welcome more Afghan families and refugees from other countries. Officials with the U.S. State and Health and Human Services departments and the International Nonprofit Immigrant Organization met with International Institute officials Monday.

The Biden administration’s Uniting for Ukraine program allows people from the war-torn country to temporarily stay in the U.S., and hundreds are coming to St. Louis. But Ukrainians don’t qualify for the benefits that other refugees receive, leaving local agencies and American sponsors scrambling to help them.

Business leaders, immigration activists and Missouri politicians are urging the federal government to issue visas to 380 more refugees who fled Afghanistan in 2021 and are now stranded in Albania, a small country on the Balkan Peninsula. The first members of the group arrived in St. Louis on Monday, but hundreds more are waiting on the U.S. government to issue them visas.

Nearly 600 Afghan refugees now have a place to call home beyond hotels. An effort to bring more Afghans to St. Louis will mean doing much more.

Dozens of young refugees from Afghanistan gather on Saturday afternoons for something that’s crucial to their successful resettlement in a new land: getting to just be a kid.

In the past year, St. Louis has resettled 538 Afghans who arrived in the U.S. as refugees of their war-torn country.

Zamzama “ZZ” Safi discusses her life in St. Louis, where she settled after fleeing Afghanistan five months ago.

The International Institute of St. Louis is changing its resettlement playbook and asking outside nonprofits to help for the first time in recent history.

The donation by Pershing Charitable Trust will go toward the $3.5 million the International Institute aims to raise.