“I think that when we meet someone that does not look like us and speaks a different language, they are automatically different and that they are a stranger. And then you bring them on a soccer field and they are no longer a stranger, they are your teammate.”

- Brooke Blanchard, an AmeriCorps volunteer with the IRC’s resettlement office in Salt Lake City, in NBC affiliate KKSL’s report on a soccer game organized by the IRC between a local team and refugee youth.

“It’s tough enough being a teenager. Adding the challenge of learning a new language and adjusting to a new culture and way of life can increase the students’ frustration. The one place that the field is level is on the sports field and court — no language required — just get out there and play!”

- Christine Piranio, IRC student education coordinator in San Diego. IRC AmeriCorps Literacy Teacher in San Diego Lee Gerston, quoted Christine in a letter to ESPN’s Page 2 blog describing the girls’ basketball program for refugees run by the IRC.

“There’s naturally a period of transition and adjustment once they arrive to the US, especially for children. Some of these kids have known nothing but refugee camp life, so when they come to the US they’re expected to sit in a classroom, follow a routine they may not be used to.”

- Christine Petrie, IRC deputy vice president for resettlement, speaking with BBC News, which featured a Bhutanese refugee family resettled by the IRC in New York on its Web site.

“They have been traumatized. They feel as if they absolutely cannot go home and they have nowhere to turn. It hits you right in the gut. And it is outrageous that so little is being done about it internationally.”

- Michael Kocher, acting IRC vice president for international programs, speaking about the Iraqi refugee crisis in a feature on The NewsHour about Iraqis seeking refuge in the U.S. after working for American forces.

The IRC’s founders responded to the rise of Nazi terror with swift, independent action. Thanks to the daring work of Varian Fry and others, thousands of refugees were able to escape from Nazi-occupied France. More than that, however, the IRC stayed with the suffering refugees of Europe long after the guns of World War II had fallen silent. We helped Europe’s displaced to return to their homes, and we aided the brave Hungarian revolutionaries in 1956.

By 1960, the IRC faced a crossroads. The IRC had begun as a temporary committee, arising from a crisis in Europe. The question that now arose went to the core of the IRC’s mission and was to determine its course into the 21st century. Did the IRC’s mandate extend to aiding the many thousands of refugees being driven from their homes in Asia, Africa, and Latin America?

The IRC’s leadership decided that to limit its mission to the borders of Europe would betray the impulse on which it was founded. Instead, the IRC determined that the organization had a global mission and responsibility. From 1960 to 1967, the IRC helped people fleeing Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Angola, Uganda, and Nigeria.

During those same years, the IRC began a long-term relationship with people fleeing Cuba. In 1959, rebel forces in Cuba overthrew its unpopular dictator, Fulgencio Batista. A young revolutionary by the name of Fidel Castro took control of the government. By year’s end he had drawn closer to the Soviet Union and committed a series of political executions and expulsions.

So began a new flow of refugees, one that would profoundly shape the IRC’s emerging international role.

Within a month of Castro’s rise to power, the IRC was on the scene gathering information and soon become one of the principal agencies helping Cubans to reach America, resettling more than 62,000 during the 1960s and 70s. As more and more refugees arrived in Florida, the IRC opened an office in Miami, its first resettlement office outside New York. IRC caseworkers focused on helping to find jobs, a place to live, and warm clothes for the refugees. Today, the IRC’s 25 U.S. resettlement offices carry out much the same work.

In 1969, two young Cubans hid in a wheel compartment on a jetliner bound for Madrid. One of the refugees dropped into the sea; but the other, a 17-year-old, miraculously survived the nine-hour flight. With the IRC’s sponsorship, he found a home in the United States. Then IRC president William J. vanden Heuvel reported that when asked why the young man had taken such an incredible risk, the new refugee replied, “I was looking for a better world and a new future.”

“They are clustered not in camps but in overcrowded urban neighborhoods, crammed into dark, squalid apartments,” say the four co-authors, all of whom took part in a recent IRC delegation to the Middle East. “Many have been traumatized by extreme violence. Their savings are dwindling; many cannot afford to pay for rent, heat and food; few have proper medical care.”"There is no denying that the United States has a special responsibility to help,” the co-authors say. “The sectarian violence these Iraqi refugees fled is a byproduct of the invasion and its chaotic aftermath.”

The op-ed outlines critical steps the United States and the international community should take to address the humanitarian emergency. Please read this urgent call for action in the New York Times and send it to family and friends.

ALSO IN THE NEWS

A cover article in yesterday’s USA Today spotlights the small number of Iraqi refugees being granted refuge in the United States. The story is set in Boise, Idaho, one of nearly 20 U.S. locations where the IRC is helping newly arrived Iraqi refugees:

HOW TO HELP

Millions of Iraqis have had to flee horrific violence. You can speak out for the innocent bystanders of the Iraq conflict. Please add your name to our pledge to aid desperate and uprooted Iraqis and spread the word about their plight.

Thank you for making a difference in the lives of vulnerable Iraqi families.

Purushottam Ghimire, 30, has lived in quiet desperation for most of his adult life. Surviving on humanitarian food rations, he is unemployed and unable to leave the confines of Goldhap, a camp in eastern Nepal that houses nearly 10,000 of the country’s 108,000 refugees from Bhutan.“It’s not a good or interesting life we have here,” he contemplates as we sit down over a cup of tea under a blue tarpaulin flapping in the wind. “We have neither Bhutanese nor Nepali citizenship and we are not allowed to work. All of us here have become inactive and depressed.”In the early 1990s, the Bhutanese government began expelling its citizens of Nepalese origin, known as Lhotsampas. Seen as a demographic and cultural threat, the authorities stripped them of their citizenship and drove them from their homes in a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing. They now live in seven refugee camps in Nepal’s eastern Jhapa district.As another cup of tea is served, Purushottam tells me that he was 15 years old when his family was driven out of their home in southern Bhutan. He still remembers the harassment and abuse they suffered at the hands of the authorities before they were expelled.“We were threatened by the Bhutanese army many times before they finally chased us out,” he recalls. “They said that Bhutan was their country, not ours. And if we didn’t leave they said that they would set fire to our house at night while we were asleep. Soon after, they torched some of the nearby houses and we decided to leave for good.”

The camp is gloomy, its pathways muddy and the majority of the inhabitants are squatting under plastic sheeting after an accidental fire roared through Goldhap a month ago. Most of the refugee homes were destroyed along with a camp school. All that remain is a veritable forest of concrete pillars and charred wooden planks. The International Rescue Committee helped with hygiene kits, clothing and emergency supplies after the disaster.

On 1 March, a fire at the Goldhap camp destroyed nearly 1,300 out of 1,500 houses. All that remain
are concrete pillars and charred wooden planks. “The fire just added to our desperation,”
Purushottam Ghimire says. Photo: Peter Biro/The IRC.

“The fire just added to our desperation,” Purushottam says. “Under normal circumstances, it’s hard enough to survive. Since we can’t work, money is always a problem. If someone in the family gets sick or there are any other unforeseen costs, we have a big problem.”

Prohibited from working, some refugees have the possibility to volunteer as teachers and health workers in the camp. For this they are paid what is called incentives, which is lower than a normal salary. Most refugees, however, just kill time, Purushottam tells me.

“Sometimes people leave the camp and find small jobs in the local informal sector. But most of the time we play cards, drink homemade alcohol and wait for humanitarian rations.”

Despite these dire conditions, Bhutan has not allowed a single refugee to return and no prospects for a solution are in sight. Recognizing the predicament of the refugees, several western governments have pledged to resettle the Bhutanese, with the United States offering to receive about 60,000, which is almost half of them. In addition, thousands of refugees will get the chance to resettle in Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Norway.

Once they reach the United States, the IRC is one of nine humanitarian organizations that will resettle the Bhutanese across the country, helping them find housing, employment and access to English language instruction and health services. But since the announcement of the resettlement offer, tensions in the camps have been building because of rumours and misinformation about the nature of the offer itself. Some of the refugees also tell me that they have been intimidated by groups militantly opposed to resettlement who insist that the only acceptable solution is return to Bhutan.

“But we hope that the tension will ease as the resettlement applications are growing,” says Hari Adhikari, another of the camp inhabitants I meet outside the Goldhap school. “Of course we all want to go back to Bhutan – some of us have property that we had to leave behind – but the government will never take us back.”

Before I came here, Christine Petrie, the deputy vice president of resettlement with the International Rescue Committee, told me that resettlement in a third country is typically the very last option. But that for the Bhutanese, there is simply no other solution.

Purushottam Ghimire agrees. He has already applied for resettlement in the United States along with his family of five. Although the thought of never seeing his home country again is saddening, Purushottam says he is very eager to go. At the same time, he has no illusions that life in a new country will be easy.

“It will be very hard and a lot of competition for jobs,” Purushottam predicts. “I have no idea what life in the United States will be like, but I have to try. I can’t go on living like this.”