She didn’t plan on starting a non-profit organization.

But when Randolph native Destiny Gates lived in a refugee camp in Palestine from 2018 to 2022, she knew it was time.

Gates founded Refugee Alliance International, a non-profit that is working on the ground in the West Bank, Gaza, and Egypt. Its mission is to empower refugees and survivors of trauma in the Middle East to develop a safe and sustainable future.

Gates recently spoke at the Jamestown Unitarian Church about Gaza.

After a year at Jamestown Community College, Gates graduated from SUNY Fredonia with a degree in Political Science and International Affairs, specialization in Peace and Conflict. She was in the Study Abroad program at American University of Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates.

She said some Palestinians had told her about what was happening there, and then she traveled there.

“So I decided to go to Palestine in 2018, so I could kind of see for myself what was happening. And so I lived in a refugee camp in Bethlehem for about four years, full time, and experienced a lot there. And we developed a youth program that was in the refugee camp,” Gates said.

Gates added that after four years, the refugee camp was growing, so she decided in 2022, to travel back to the United States, and register it as a non-profit organization.

“I wanted to come back to the US to register as a non-profit so that we could get donations and it would be easier for to get the funding. So then I came back here. We were registered in 2022 as a nonprofit, tax exempt, and then during the current escalation, I decided that we needed to expand our programs to serve Gaza as well as the West Bank,” Gates said.

Destiny now has been living in Egypt since 2024, in response to the current escalation in Gaza. Over 100,000 evacuees from Gaza have come to Egypt for medical assistance.

Refugee Alliance is delivering life-saving assistance to communities that have lost access to food, clean water, healthcare, and shelter. It provides emergency medical care, food and water to those in desperate need, orphan sponsorship, and psychosocial support programs to help children heal from trauma.

Gates said providing shelter to people is proving difficult because of rent issues – especially in Egypt.

“Shelter is the most difficult, especially in Egypt, because you have to think of long term,” Gates said. “There are some groups that were doing shelter for Palestinians, but now it’s going on three years, and those groups are not able to continue paying the rent for these people, so then they’re getting kicked out on the street.”

According to refugee-alliance.org, the alliance development programs help strengthen community resilience through sustainable refugee-led projects, including the planting of rooftop gardens and education initiatives. Projects such as these are vital in immediately supporting the continued livelihood of refugees, while also contributing to long-term success. Sustainable development projects allow refugees to not only have a say in the future of their community, but to be a driving force for change that will create meaningful, long-lasting improvements.

For more information about the non-profit, visit refugee-alliance.org.