Common questions

Does it cost anything?

No, and it never will. No chapter charges for help and no chapter is asked to fund itself.

Will you ask about my immigration status?

No. Not on any form, not in any conversation, and there is no field for it anywhere on this site. If anybody claiming to represent us asks you for it, they are not representing us.

There is no chapter in my city.

Join anyway. We count the cities people are waiting in, and that count is how we decide where to open next. You will be emailed the moment one opens near you. You can also ask to start one yourself, which takes a conversation rather than an application.

Who answers when I ask a question?

A volunteer who lives in that city and has been through it. Not a call centre and not a system. That means answers take a day or two rather than seconds, and it means they are worth reading.

Can you help with my visa or my case?

No. We are not lawyers and we do not give immigration advice. What a chapter can often tell you is who locally has actually helped somebody before, which is a different and more useful thing than a list of names.

What do you do with my details?

We use them to connect you to your chapter, and nothing else. We do not sell them, rent them, or pass them outside the organisation. Ask and we delete them, without needing a reason.

How much email will I get?

Very little. When you join, when a chapter opens near you, when your chapter puts something on, and when a question you asked is answered. Every one of them has a link that stops any of it in one click without signing in.

Do I have to be African to join?

The organisation exists for African families arriving in America, and that is who chapters are built around. Nobody is turned away, and plenty of members are married into it.

I have been here fifteen years. Is this for me?

Yes, and probably more than you think. Most of what makes a chapter work is somebody who arrived a decade ago telling somebody who arrived last month what they wish they had known. That is you.

Is this a WhatsApp group?

Chapters usually have one, and you get the link when you join. But a group is where the conversation happens and this is where the knowledge stays, because nothing in a WhatsApp group is findable three months later.