Want to change the world this summer? Here’s a great way to get started.
World Refugee Day, held each year on 20 June, celebrates the strength and courage of the more than 80 million people — half of them children — who have been forced to flee their homes due to war and persecution.
Refugees often struggle to find shelter, let alone doctors to care for them, schools or even a place to run around and play. UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, works with refugees every day to help them build better futures.
This World Refugee Day, we call for…
Right now, someone is running for their life because of who they are or who they love.
Today, on the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, welcomed LGBTIQ+ activist Bianka Rodríguez as its first trans woman “High Profile Supporter” —someone who works closely with the organization to support forcibly displaced and stateless people around the world. Bianka, executive director of the El Salvador based advocacy organization, Comcavis Trans, has spent decades safeguarding the rights of LGBTIQ+ people in her own country.
When many people think of refugees, they think of people fleeing war. But…
Refugee Rose Nathike Lokonyen ran from horrific violence in South Sudan — all the way to the Olympic Games.
When Rose Nathike Lokonyen was eight-years-old, she and her family watched as soldiers began killing their neighbours. When night fell, Rose’s parents grabbed her younger siblings and set out for safety. Rose, the eldest, followed close behind. The family made it to the border South Sudan shares with Kenya. From there, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, provided trucks to take them to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya’s northwest. The camp, established in 1992, hosts nearly 200,000 refugees, making it the largest in Africa. Many of the refugees there, like Rose, are from South Sudan, where war and tribal conflicts have…
On World Cities Day, we celebrate the importance of including everyone in building strong and vibrant hometowns.
When many people think of refugees, they picture sprawling camps filled with tents. But did you know that most people who have been forced to flee their homes from violence or persecution live in cities? More than 60 per cent of the world’s roughly 26 million refugees and more than 80 per cent of the 46 million who have fled their homes but remain inside their country’s borders (internally displaced people), live in urban centers.
People forced to flee war or persecution– as well as those who lack a nationality (stateless)– frequently lack access to quality education, health care and…
On the International Day of the Girl Child, let’s pledge to protect the safe space school provides girls in the East and Horn and Great Lakes region of Africa — and around the world.
By Clementine Nkweta-Salami
October 11 is the International Day of the Girl Child, a day that means a lot to me. For more than two decades, I have worked with refugees across Africa. I have seen how being forced to flee their homes due to violence or persecution affects young girls. For too many, their educational journey ends. With little money and no universal access to education, families make tough choices about which children can attend school. Many girls are forced to stay home to take care of chores and siblings, or married off far too young. Refugee girls face…
Around the world, displaced and stateless people are taking action to halt climate change, achieve gender equity and solve other complex problems. The COVID-19 pandemic is not about to stop them.
In 2015, the United Nations adopted a set of goals to end poverty, eradicate inequality and halt or reverse the severe effects of climate change by 2030. These 17 goals — known collectively as the Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs — commit the world’s leaders to acting now and leaving no one behind. The UN Secretary-General urges all sectors of society to contribute— including businesses, nonprofits and individuals — and recently declared this a Decade of Action.
At UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, we know that those most adversely affected by the world’s challenges are often best placed to discover…
The latest Education Report from UNHCR offers inspiring stories of refugees continuing their education despite the odds against them. Read and learn.
By Filippo Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees
Schools closed, exams cancelled: COVID-19 has played havoc with children’s education worldwide. According to UN figures, around 1.6 billion learners across the world, including millions of refugees, have had their education disrupted.
However, as so often when faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges, the determination of refugees to secure life-changing educational opportunities has again come to the fore. …
The postponement of the Tokyo Olympic Games gave Olympic runner and South Sudanese refugee Yiech Pur Biel an opportunity to reflect on his life story so far — and the chance to improve his time for 2021.
In this essay, Pur discusses training in America, where he will study and run cross country at university* this fall. He also talks about the three principles that guide his life, what sports taught him about how people respond to unspeakable trauma, and his new role as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency.
In 2005, when I was 10, armed…
The principles under-pinning the Global Compact on Refugees provide the tools we need to respond to the impacts of the coronavirus on refugees and the communities that host them.
By Gillian Triggs
Just over a year before the novel coronavirus emerged, countries around the world came together to adopt the Global Compact on Refugees (GCR) — a new framework for managing large movements of refugees more equitably among States.
It represented a political commitment of unprecedented force and a model for better international cooperation. …
The police brutality that sparked protests in the United States and beyond reminds some refugees of the bigotry they fled — and sometimes still encounter in places they now call home. Here are some of their voices.
When protests erupted in the United States over the killing of George Floyd, Pastor Yves Kalala vowed to lead his mostly white church in a village in Ontario, Canada, in tackling unconscious bias in its ranks.
Yves’ decision to broach the issue with his congregation and fellow pastors took courage. He grew up in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and came…
UN Refugee Agency
The official account of UNHCR. Follow us as we provide vital aid and protection to the forcibly displaced around the world.
