Refugee Work Grows, Sparks New Appeal
Episcopal News Service. August 10, 1978 [78228]
NEW YORK -- An urgent Church World Service appeal for sponsors in the United States for refugees highlights the fact that refugee relief and resettlement work is becoming a greater and greater task faced by Churches and other private voluntary organizations.
President Carter recently authorized admittance of 25, 000 more Indochinese "boat people": the thousands who flee Communist rule in often unseaworthy craft. Official figures suggest that, at any given time, there are probably 5,000 of these people on the China Sea. Probably half will drown and those that make it to shore find physically intolerable and politically inhospitable refuge.
The 25,000 permitted to come to the U.S. must be placed with sponsors who provide guarantees of basic life support. Church World Service is a major channel for sponsorship, and the Episcopal Church has traditionally attempted to take on about onefourth the CWS total.
Most of the Episcopal Church Work is done through the Refugee Resettlement Office in the Presiding Bishop's Fund for World Relief. In appealing to parishes for sponsors, the Fund's Executive Director, the Rev. Samir J. Habiby noted that the "boat people" were simply one facet of an increasingly global problem.
"The situation continues to worsen," he said, "and the ability of the Church to respond is totally dependent on the concern of congregations both for sponsors and for the supporting funds."
In addition to the domestic resettlement work, the Church is heavily involved -- through the Fund's All-Africa Refugee Appeal -- in attempting to meet the increasingly massive needs of refugees in southern, central and northeastern Africa. This work -- launched in 1977 -- is having some success in providing basic pastoral and life support ministries, especially to the thousands who have found themselves in Kenya.
Throughout it all, the work with refugees from the Middle East and from Europe continues and the numbers increase there also.
In response to these varied needs, the Eighth Province of the Church had asked that a special committee be formed to examine coordinated refugee ministries. The Executive Council agreed to this and asked Fr. Habiby to convene an ad-hoc committee on immigration and refugees. This committee held its first meeting in mid-August in Los Angeles bringing together a number of specialists in this field to plan for a wider strategy meeting that will be held in the Fall at the Church's national conference center, Seabury House, in Connecticut.
Any parish that is interested in sponsoring a refugee family is asked to contact Mrs. Isis Brown, Refugee Resettlement Office, the Episcopal Church Center, 815 2nd Avenue, New York, NY 10017.