LSI SEED Grant Winner Emerges From Twelve Excellent Submissions
Tallahassee, Fla. – At the 2025 Learning System Institute retreat in January, institute director Rabieh Razzouk requested proposals from faculty and staff for a new LSI SEED grant. After two weeks to submit proposals and an evaluation process, Dr. Celia Reddick, Julie Twomey and Dr. Brenda Wawire were selected for funding for their proposal “Strengthening school experiences for refugee young people, families, and their teachers in Tallahassee.”
“The quality of the proposals we received was excellent,” said Razzouk. “I was thrilled with how our LSI team embraced this challenge and the wide-ranging territory covered in these submissions. We hope all the proposals that didn’t receive the SEED grant are enhanced and submitted to funding agencies. More than anything, this process has me excited for the future of LSI.”
The winning proposal will facilitate the first systematic study of the educational experiences of refugee students, their families and teachers in Tallahassee. The researchers will conduct a comparative case study looking across scales to examine education for refugee young people in Tallahassee. They will also conduct an arts-based project with refugee children and their peers in middle school, targeting two refugee-serving schools in the city.
According to the proposal, the idea for the project came from a conversation with a former staff member of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) in Tallahassee. Dr. Wawire learned that resettled refugee students in Tallahassee face challenges at school due to language, culture and academic progress. There is also bullying, as well as issues related to financial literacy, health insurance, disabilities and other concerns.
“All the proposals were extremely well crafted and relevant to LSI’s work,” said Razzouk. “The proposal the committee chose grasped the challenge of embracing collaboration within LSI and opens avenues for each member of the proposal to help in a specific area of expertise and learn from one another during the life of the project."
Refugee young people and their families in Tallahassee are struggling to find their footing in a small city that is very different from the refugee camps where they most recently lived, the IRC staff member recounted. Despite the pressing needs of refugee young people and their families, there is little data about this population in Tallahassee. Even identifying how many refugees live in Tallahassee has been a challenge.
The long-term goal of the activity is to seek external funds to establish an expansive policy-relevant research agenda centered around promoting justice, well-being, improved education outcomes, and transition to the workforce among refugee youth in Florida and across the United States.
“This proposal stood out for its timely and impactful focus on refugee education, its commitment to improving school experiences for resettled families and its innovative approach to integrating research with community-based interventions," said Razzouk. "We are particularly excited about the potential to build bridges between refugee students and their peers, provide valuable data to guide local educational policies and serve as a foundation for future large-scale funding opportunities.”
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