Logo for the Center for Victims of Torture

Communities We Serve

We are an international organization that serves refugee and asylum-seeking populations around the world who have experienced conflict-related trauma or torture in their home countries. Learn about what we are doing to help in each of our locations.

Africa

We began our work in Africa in 1999, opening a center in Guinea in 2000, where we extended care to refugees fleeing conflict in neighboring countries. That center is now closed, but CVT’s work continues to grow across the continent, with healing initiatives in locations where refugees seek care after trauma and conflict. We also partner with local care providers and organizations to strengthen and help sustain effective healing regionally.

Ethiopia

Addis Ababa

Providing administrative and logistical support across all our projects in Ethiopia.

Amhara Region

Providing mental health and physiotherapy care to Eritrean refugees and individuals internally displaced from recent regional conflict.

Gambella Region

Providing rehabilitative care to refugees, including large numbers of children, primarily from South Sudan.

Tigray Region

Providing rehabilitative care to internally displaced people in the aftermath of regional conflict, as well as some refugee populations from Eritrea.

Kenya

Kakuma, Turkana Region

Providing rehabilitative care in the Kalobeyei settlements to refugees from several Great Lakes region countries.

Nairobi

Providing rehabilitative care to Great Lakes area refugees living in the city, with a specialization in care for LGBTQ+ survivors.

Uganda

Gulu, Northern Uganda

After more than a decade providing rehabilitative care to survivors of the Lord’s Resistance Army conflict, now providing therapeutic approaches to transitional justice and peacebuilding for survivors and communities.

Isingiro, Southwestern Uganda

Providing support and training on trauma-informed approaches for a humanitarian organization serving refugees in Nakivale settlements.

Americas

We estimate there are as many as 1.3 million survivors of politically-motivated torture living in the United States. Through our office in Washington D.C., we give voice to survivors purposefully silenced by perpetrators of torture. And we work with torture rehabilitation centers across the United States so that more survivors can receive the healing and care that they need.

United States

Arizona

In our Proyecto Mariposa project, providing destination case management to asylum seekers as they enter the U.S. and move to their new homes.

Learn More about the work we do in Arizona

Georgia

In Clarkston, extending culturally-competent rehabilitative care to refugees. Also providing policy advocacy for refugees and asylum seekers, working closely with Georgia and federal governments.

Learn More about the work we do in Georgia

Minnesota

CVT was founded here and is now providing multidisciplinary rehabilitative care to asylum seekers in St. Cloud and St. Paul, and policy advocacy at the local and national level.

In addition, CVT’s Healing, Incarceration and Policing Project works on issues of violence and discrimination in the criminal legal system.

Learn More about the work we do in Minnesota

Washington, D.C.

Engaging in policy advocacy with the U.S. government to ensure protections for refugees, push for design of a trauma-informed U.S. asylum system, gain accountability for U.S. use of torture after the 9/11 attacks, and fight impunity for systemic abuses of power.

Learn More about the work we do in Washington, D.C.

Middle East

Countries in the Middle East are home to hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing conflict and violence in Iraq, Syria and other countries in the Middle East and Africa. The refugees – men, women and children – have experienced tremendous suffering, including brutal torture and other terrible human rights abuses.

Iraq

Iraq

Improving individual, family and community resilience through trauma-informed activities and trauma-focused mental health and psychosocial care.

Jordan

Jordan

Providing multidisciplinary rehabilitative care to refugees from Iraq, Syria and additional countries. Also providing training and workshops to support resilience and methods for seeking justice and accountability.