World Refugee Day this Sunday will celebrate the efforts of the United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) and its partners to find homes for displaced people through repatriation, integration in the country of asylum, or resettlement in a third country.
– All of us need a place to call home, a place where we belong. But for the millions of refugees and displaced people around the world today, home is little more than a distant dream, said UNHCR chief Ruud Lubbers.
This years theme is “A Place to Call Home.”
Mr. Lubbers was scheduled to join UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie on Sunday in Barcelona, Spain, to take part in a discussion on “Conflicts: Prevention, Resolution and Reconciliation,” and present the annual Nansen Refugee Award to the Russian Memorial Human Rights Centre.
Ms. Jolie joined Secretary of State Colin Powell of the United States to launch World Refugee Day celebrations Wednesday at the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. They presented awards to three winners of a student poster competition.
– If you have never met a refugee, you do not know what you are missing. They are some of the most amazing people you could ever meet, Ms. Jolie said, describing her trip to help refugees who fled into Chad from militia attacks in Darfur, western Sudan.
– I continue to be in awe of their courageous spirit and their ability to go on despite the difficulties they face. It is that strength of spirit we celebrate today,” she said.
The Oscar-winning actress donated 500.000 US dollar to UNHCR to establish a National Legal Resource Centre that will work in partnership with the Office of Refugee Resettlement within the US Department of Health and Human Services to provide lawyers for children arriving alone in the United States after fleeing from desperate circumstances.
The United States is the largest donor to UNHCR and the largest resettlement country in the world.
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