7 Refugees Paving the Way on Disability Rights
UNHCR
Four years ago Maya Ghazal fled the fighting in Syria. All refugees come to a new country hoping for a fresh start, but Maya stands out because of the determination with which she has pursued her goals. Now a trainee pilot, she’s advocating for opportunities for refugees.
It was as joyous a boat trip as they will ever take. The passengers sang cheerfully from the moment the launch left the dock in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. They were refugees, 200 of them returning home across the Oubangui River, to the Central African Republic, or CAR, for the first time in six years. They had fled violence and upsurges of civil conflict that erupted in 2013. Now, thanks to a voluntary repatriation agreement signed in July between the governments of the two countries and UNHCR, they were going back.
On graduation day, proud parents Osmar and Valeria beamed with pride. But this very special graduation honoured the accomplishments not only of the couple’s two school-age children, but rather of the whole family, marking their completion of a programme aimed at helping lift refugees out of extreme poverty and giving them the tools to rebuild their lives.“They trained us in entrepreneurship, and we also took a class about how to manage our finances,” said Valeria, a 32-year-old former hairdresser from Venezuela, who opened her own event planning business after fleeing to Ecuador. After receiving accommodation assistance from UNHCR and its partner in Ecuador, the family was selected to participate in a refugee integration and poverty prevention programme known as the Graduation Model.
In this quiz, you are the leader of a country which is about to become home to a large number of refugees. What kind of leader are you?
With a bag of seeds and a lifetime of knowledge, Syrian refugee Salem has regrown his precious flowers in Lebanon to provide his family and others with a vital income.
It is important to recall that everyone has the right to seek and enjoy asylum from persecution in other countries, as set out in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Rather than abiding by international law simply because it exists, we need to remind ourselves why it exists. It is rooted in our collective desire to protect the vulnerable and render what help we can to those most in need of it.
A new social media campaign launched by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, celebrates the strength, resilience and skills that refugees can bring to their new communities. The campaign kicked off with a powerful multi-voice video in which refugees are joined by celebrities and advocates to rally support around the core message of the Global Refugee Forum – that everyone has a role to play in helping refugees.
UNHCR is expanding cash-based assistance so that the millions of people that it serves can meet their needs in dignity, are protected and can become more resilient.
What is it like to live with a disability when you’re displaced?
In the mid-1970s, Marta Duque's father sent her from her home in the Colombian city of Pamplona, tucked into a far eastern range of the Andes, to the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, to work as a live-in maid. She was 12 years old. Long since back in Colombia, today, Marta has her doors open to thousands of Venezuelans in their hour of need. It all began in 2017 when she turned her garage into a makeshift shelter for Venezuelan refugees and migrants making an often precarious overland journey to destinations throughout Colombia and further afield. Some two years later, even the living room furniture has been put into storage to make room for the mats where up to 100 people sleep cheek-by-jowl.
If you’re stateless, ‘just going to school is a problem’
What does it mean to be stateless? It's a question that's being discussed all this week in Geneva, at an event organized by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to help millions of people without official paper