The Primate's World Relief and Development Fund: Stories

Global Refugees June 20, 2010

Debra Fieguith

“They have taken my home but they can’t take my future.” These poignant words are the 2010 theme of World Refugee Day June 20. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees  (UNHCR), an estimated 35 million people are currently displaced in the world, either in their home countries or elsewhere, due to conflict and persecution.

Some live in camps provided by the UNHCR, where they have their very basic needs and little else looked after; others slip into urban centres and try to scrape together a living. A relatively small number of fortunate refugees are able to resettle in welcoming countries such as Canada.

Urban refugees, who make their way to cities like Nairobi and Cairo, are usually more mobile than those in camps, says Naba Gurung, PWRDF’s Humanitarian Response Coordinator, but often become the objects of harassment and exploitation. Through a partnership with the Episcopal Diocese of Cairo, PWRDF supports churches there that have been reaching out to urban refugees from Sudan, Egypt and other countries.

The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund  supports refugees in several ways. In the Tamil Nadu region of India, for example, PWRDF partners with the Organization for Eelam Refugees Rehabilitation (OfERR), which was formed in 1984 to help the Tamil refugees who had begun arriving there with few possessions after fleeing ethnic violence in Sri Lanka.

“We are working with about 72,000 refugees in India, all in camps,” says OfERR secretary Sinnathamby Sooriyakamari, who gave a presentation on her work at General Synod in Halifax this month. OfERR supplements nutrition provided by the government of India, develops income generating programs, especially for women, and supports students in continuing their education. Sooriyakamari works both in India and Sri Lanka, where she is based. When 250,000 people were displaced from their homes there in the early months of 2009, PWRDF provided emergency relief assistance through the Canadian Foodgrains Bank, of which PWRDF is a member. One of the women expressed her gratitude, says Sooriyakamari, by saying the help was “higher than the Himalayas.”

Just a small amount of cash can help someone get on their feet again. A woman named Maheswary returned to Sri Lanka from India with nothing to find her house had been destroyed. She received a $300 grant from PWRDF, started a poultry farm with 50 chicks, and now has more than 250 chicks, two cows and a vegetable garden.

The current need is for about 300,000 internally displaced people in Sri Lanka to be rehabilitated, now that there is relative peace, says Sooriyakamari. Once they are settled, refugees who have spent up to 20 years in South India will begin to move back home.

They are not all languishing in the camps there though, according to Sooriyakamari. Conditions have improved with the extra financial assistance, and the Tamil refugees have been quick to reach out to others who have experienced trauma. When the 2004 tsunami devastated the lives of many people in a part of Tamil Nadu, the refugees were among those to offer assistance, especially by giving psychological support.