This Friday, June 20th, is World Refugee Day. This year, the theme is “protection.”

But who is a refugee? And why do they need protection? Read the rest of this entry »

Iraqi refugees in Lebanon may feel they’ve exchanged one war-torn country for another. Thousands of Iraqis who fled their homeland now live in poverty in Lebanon’s capital city of Beirut, where political tensions reached the boiling point last week.

Catholic Relief Services’ partner in Beirut, the Caritas Lebanon Migrant Center (CLMC), continues to help Iraqi refugees and other vulnerable people in Lebanon, such as Sri Lankan migrant workers. CLMC is the only Iraqi service-providing NGO to remain operational during this crisis.

Iraqis are feeling the economic effects of the fighting, although the areas where they live were not affected directly by fighting. Two hundred families were in line as of Monday morning to request food coupons and items like diapers. The Migrant Center has four facilities on standby if temporary shelter is necessary, with approximately 600 beds total.

“Iraqi refugees are showing signs of post-traumatic stress,” says Najla Chahda, director of the CLMC. “Some Iraqi refugees have expressed extreme fear, having already survived violence in Iraq and, in some cases, the July 2006 war in Lebanon. Their most urgent need now is food and non-food items, whose prices have risen dramatically since the fighting began on Wednesday.”

Two Iraqi refugee boys outside a social services center in Beirut, Lebanon. Photo by David Snyder/CRS

Representatives from Catholic Relief Services are participating today in a forum at the National Press Club in Washington that is highlighting the plight of the 2 milliion Iraqis who have been displaced by the war. CRS is co-sponsor of the event, Villanova Law Schools Ryan Forum on Law and Public Policy.

Many Iraqi refugees have fled to Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, where they live as “illegal immigrants” and are unable to get jobs, schooling for their children or even basic medical care for their families. As they try to start new lives, they are forbidden to work in many cases, and shut out from services that citizens receive. These refugees wait out the days — hoping against hope that they’ll get visas to third countries.

Catholic Relief Services is working through our partners in the Middle East, like Caritas Lebanon, to provide food, medical care and help with rent to thousands of refugees. Mark Schnellbacher, our CRS Regional Director for the Middle East, and Najla Chadra of the Caritas Lebanon Migrant Center, participated in today’s panel.

CRS is also working to bring this issue to greater visibility here in the United States, particularly among American Catholics. Our CRS Advocacy staff has kept our grassroots legislative network informed on this issue and urged them to support appropriate legislation addressing the crisis. Earlier this year, CRS sponsored a delegation of eight women religious to Syria and Lebanon, where they saw first-hand the conditions in which these Iraqi refugees live and the challenges they face. They returned to the U.S. and mobilized to raise awareness of Iraqi refugees’ suffering, speaking in their congregations, universities and the media, as well as briefing members of Congress. And after speaking here today, Najla is scheduled to speak about the situation for Iraqis in Lebanon to several more groups in the Northeast.

You’d think that a woman with a loving husband, newborn baby and a master’s degree in physics would be set for life — or at least not hiding out in a dank basement room bare of anything but two thin mattresses on the floor.

A few years ago, Rana [name changed] had a successful career in Iraq. Today, she fears for her life. One of an estimated 50,000 Iraqi refugees in Lebanon, Rana does not leave the tiny apartment in Beirut where she, her husband and her 10-week-old daughter wait out the time until another country accepts them as immigrants.

A young Iraqi refugee in Lebanon holds her baby daughter, whose name in Arabic means “Flower.” A Muslim, the mother ordinarily veils only her hair. Here, she has veiled her face for fear of being identified and deported. Photo by CRS Staff

A softspoken 30-year-old new mother, Rana explains that her father was murdered for his political beliefs. As his daughter, she herself was later threatened directly. She fled to Beirut to join her husband, who was in Lebanon already.

Lebanon proved not to be the asylum she hoped for. Having moved into one apartment, Rana heard rumors that her father’s enemies knew her whereabouts. She and her small family moved to another apartment, which the talented and well-educated Rana does not leave. “I am afraid all the time,” she says.

Stories like Rana’s are painfully familiar to the staff of the Caritas Lebanon Migrant Center, one of the few charities in Beirut reaching out to those fleeing Iraq’s violence and chaos. Funded by Catholic Relief Services and other donors, the migrant center helps the refugees with rent payments, medicine and household needs like mattresses.

The vast majority of Iraqi immigrants live illegally in Lebanon, unable to receive work permits or access public schools and health services. Many put their names on a long U.N. waiting list, hoping against hope that countries like Canada will take them in. Forbidden to work and afraid to go out often for fear of arrest, they sit in near-empty apartments and watch the months drag by.

This week, a group of U.S. nuns are visiting programs for Iraqi refugees in Lebanon. Hosted by CRS, the sisters have made home visits, seen shelters and met with women religious working in and around Beirut.

They are sharply aware of Lebanon’s limitations in dealing with the flood of refugees. Just a few days ago, a car bomb meant for a U.S. embassy vehicle killed several people on the streets of Beirut (everyone in the CRS delegation is safe). Lebanon has been in political turmoil for the past year and without a president since the end of November 2007, the country’s government has more problems than it can handle.

Private groups like the Caritas center are trying to bridge the gap, with case workers putting in long hours and struggling to find more resources. “There are just so many” Iraqis needing help, says one social worker.

“They are not refugees,” says a Lebanon-based Sister of the Good Shepherd that the delegation visited. “They are our brothers and sisters, because the world belongs to all of us.”

The book won’t hit the shelves until September, but a website is already up and running. Solidarity Will Transform the World: Stories of Hope from Catholic Relief Services is a collection of testimonies by the people served by CRS. It was written by Jeffry Korgen, the director of social ministries for the National Pastoral Life Center in New York.

The stories in Solidarity Will Transform the World highlight the lives of people in the developing world and the fight against poverty and injustice. Through these accounts, Korgen explores issues like immigration, HIV and AIDS, and peacebuilding.

Solidarity Will Transform the World will take you on a journey to visit the lives of people in Mexico, Zambia, India, Rwanda, and Nicaragua. Read about people in Mexico who are making a better living through Fair Trade coffee and microfinance programs, or about Zambians who through the miracle of antiretroviral drugs have been given a chance at living with HIV and AIDS and who now fight for the lives of their fellow countrymen.

Visit http://storiesofhope.crs.org/, the official website for the book, to read excerpts from all five chapters. The site also contains multimedia about CRS projects around the world — and will soon feature lesson plans and study guides for use of the book in classrooms.

An EnComún microcredit group conducts its bi-weekly meeting.

Microfinance has received a lot of attention lately, especially after the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Grameen Bank and its founder, Muhammad Yunus.

Maura Armenta has worked as a hair-stylist for many years. With her loan she was able to open her own hair salon in her home.

CRS has been involved in microfinance since 1988, helping to empower poor people, especially women, by providing access to financial services – ranging from credit and savings to insurance.

Several years ago, we helped to establish a micro-lending project in Nogales, Mexico with our partner, Border Links. That pilot has blossomed into an independent non-profit, EnComún de la Frontera, that operates in the border communities of Nogales and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. It lends between $100 and $600 to entrepreneurs who want to start or expand small businesses. Participants organize themselves into groups of 10 to 15 people, and members of the group are responsible to each other for paying back their loan.

The Arizona Daily Star profiled EnComún earlier this week: Micro-lending effort in Mexico helps poor families stay home.