Ways To Help Refugees On World Refugee Day 2010

By envisionGood | June 20 2010 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

Today is World Refugee Day, a special day to remember the over 40 million people worldwide who have been uprooted from their homes due to conflict, persecution and natural disasters.

In the video below, António Guterres of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees calls attention to these refugees, and shares that in the last decade a million refugees have been able to return home every year. However, due to the persistence of conflict in places from Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo, only a quarter as many were able to return home last year – the lowest number in two decades.

Although we often see media photographs of refugees living in isolated refugee camps, the reality is that four-fifths of refugees live in the developing world, mostly in urban cities. Guterres talks about the generosity of the many developing countries that host these refugees. Specifically, Guterres spotlights and thanks Tanzania which has granted over 160,000 people from neighboring Burundi citizenship in their new home, Tanzania.

In a speech given in Washington, D.C. on World Refugee Day last year, UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie acknowledged that “the threat of climate change, the competition for resources, and ever-growing global inequality have created deepening, intractable conflicts. Mass migrations will be a feature of our future. We must look beyond the simple numbers,” she said, “and look instead at the individual.”

There are a number of ways to help refugees. A number of ways are noted below. If you know of other ways to help, please do share in the comments below.