Community Support Teams are a newcomer's first friends and helping hands.
Form a small volunteer team to welcome an LGBTQI+ newcomer to Canada and provide the essential support they need to build a new life.
How You'll Help
Provide Friendship
Be a welcoming presence, helping a newcomer build connections and community.
Offer FriendshipOffer Guidance
Help someone navigate housing, healthcare, and employment in their new city.
Provide GuidanceGive Stability
Your support provides a crucial safety net during their first six months after relocating.
Provide StabilityBe Their Welcome Committee
A Community Support Team (CST) is a group of 3-10 volunteers who commit to supporting an LGBTQI+ asylum seeker for six months. With training and financial assistance from Rainbow Railroad, your team will be the primary support system for a newcomer, helping with everything from finding an apartment to making friends and accessing services.
A Step-by-Step Journey
Getting started is straightforward. First, assemble your team and watch our two-part orientation video. Next, submit one team application and the required forms. Once approved, your team will be ready to get matched with a newcomer and begin the rewarding work of helping them settle into their new home.
Fundraise for Direct Impact
We ask each CST to fundraise $1,000, which Rainbow Railroad matches to provide $2,500 in direct cash assistance to the newcomer you support. We provide a simple FunRaise platform to make fundraising easy, and we can offer support for teams who may not be able to meet this goal.
Success Stories
Insights from our Work: While Laws Turn Against Us, People Show Up
The Growing Movement to Support LGBTQI+ Refugees in the U.S.
Insights from our Work: Organizing Is Survival - Why LGBTQI+ Movements Deserve Crisis-Level Support
In 2024, we deepened our commitment to organizing for crisis response by listening closely to affected communities and investing in local organizations equipped to lead rapid interventions
Confronting the Double Bind of Anti-LGBTQI+ and Anti-Migrant Discrimination
Rainbow Railroad at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva