Refugee advocates prepare for World Refugee Day
Episcopal News Service. June 17, 2010 [061710-01]
Dan Trudeau, Program Associate for Episcopal Migration Ministries
In her 43 years as a school teacher in Baghdad, Aylin Manook read a lot about the United States to prepare lessons for her students. At the time, she had no way of knowing the transformative role the far-off land would play in her life.
Manook is a refugee, forced to flee Iraq amid the chaos of war. Fourteen months ago, she came to the United States through the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program. She has lived in Chicago ever since.
Despite all the chaos and upheaval that's she gone through, Manook is optimistic, focusing on her new life rather than on the things she left behind in her home country.
"I love Chicago, because here I see Burma, Pakistan, Iraq -- every nation in this country. I know that I am human in this country. I live free in this country," Manook said recently during an event held by a coalition of Illinois refugee-resettlement agencies in Chicago.
Manook's story of success will be among the thousands celebrated June 20 on World Refugee Day, a day set aside by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugeesand observed by refugee advocates worldwide.
Every year on June 20, celebrations and events are held around the world to bring awareness and attention to the more than 15 million refugees and many more millions of other people seeking asylum worldwide. Episcopal Migration Ministries – the Episcopal Church's refugee-resettlement agency – will mark the occasion with observances and an advocacy day in Washington, D.C., June 22.
The U.S. government works with 10 agencies – including EMM – to resettle thousands of refugees like Manook who have fled their home countries because of violence, war or persecution.
Manook was one of nearly 75,000 refugees admitted to the United States for resettlement in 2009.
EMM works through 31 affiliate offices in 27 Episcopal dioceses nationwide to resettle approximately 5,000 refugees annually. These affiliates help refugees find housing and employment, learn English and American cultural literacy and achieve economic self-sufficiency.
As the U.S. job market continues toward slow recovery, however, refugees continue to have a hard time finding jobs, said EMM Director Deborah Stein.
This reality, she said, coupled with the diverse needs of refugees coming from 80 different countries, has left many resettlement-support programs overburdened and underfunded.
"Refugees bring many gifts to this country, but they also have many needs," Stein said. "Communities do a lot to welcome them, but refugees are facing some challenges right now, and they need more resources."
On June 12, refugee advocates, including Stein and others from EMM affiliates, hosted a luncheon in honor of Illinois Democratic U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin at the Ethiopian Diamond restaurant in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood, home to many of the city's refugee populations.
Durbin met with former refugees – including Aylin Manook – and refugee advocates during a roundtable discussion, hearing their stories of displacement and resettlement in the United States and pledging his support.
The senator said he was impressed with the courage of the refugees he met and promised to help find resources for programs that provide employment training, English language education and medical and mental-health services for newcomers resettled here.
"I will work with you to make sure that the money is there to help refugees adjust and become part of this great nation," Durbin told an audience of refugees and supporters. "So many of you have struggled for so long to be here right now. Our battles ahead are small in comparison to the battles you've already waged in your lives. And I hope to stand with you in those battles."
As Senate majority whip and a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Durbin has influence over policy priorities in the Senate as well as on spending for government programs. He also sits on the Subcommittee on Immigration, Refugees and Border Security.
Meeting resettled refugees caused him to reflect on a trip he took earlier this year to a refugee camp in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which offered a glimpse of the hard lives the displaced live overseas, Durbin said.
"The camp was built on the volcanic rock – this jagged, cutting rock – that these children were walking on. This was their life," Durbin said. "And for them, a chance to come to America, to come to Chicago, would be an impossible dream. But this morning I met with many refugees who realized that dream."
The event was organized by the Golden Door Coalition, a group of 27 Chicago-area nonprofit agencies with ties to refugees, including Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries, an EMM affiliate. The coalition came together in February to coordinate efforts in reaching out to Illinois' elected leaders.
Durbin's visit was a valuable opportunity for the resettlement community, said IRIM Executive Director Greg Wangerin, predicting that face-to-face interactions with refugees would show the senator the contributions they make to the community.
Wangerin called on Durbin and other members of Congress to provide more dollars for refugee social-support programs. Those programs exist by federal mandate, he said, but many have had their funding reduced even as demand increased.
"We need [Durbin's] assistance to ensure that refugees are resettled with dignity," Wangerin said.
Georgianna Gleeson, a former IRIM board member and executive director of the Diocese of Chicago's Episcopal Charities and Community Services, has spent more than 25 years assisting refugees. In an interview before Durbin's arrival at the restaurant, she called ministering to sojourners a core element of the Episcopal Church's mission.
"What we offer to refugees is that sort of extended family and a leg up to get started," Gleeson said. "The tradition of being hospitable to the stranger in your land goes back to the roots of our religion. Jesus was a refugee; let's remember that and treat all refugees as if they were Jesus."