Blog
Posted on September 24, 2024
By Gul Siddiqi, Development Manager, International Rescue Committee WA
Ahmed, center, reunites with his son Walid at Sea-Tac International Airport. Emtisal and Ahmed from Syria were reunited with their two older children and son-in-law in February 2017. The children were barred from entering after Trump had issued an executive order banning Syrians indefinitely. A Seattle judge lifted the ban, allowing Walid to reunite with his parents and other siblings in Washington. Photo: IRC
Globally, humanitarian and resettlement needs are higher than ever before. 120 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide, a number that has more than doubled over the past ten years and increased by 10 million since last year. For far too many families and individuals seeking safety and refuge, they are greeted not by welcome but by cruelty and inhumanity.
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Posted on September 23, 2024
By Ravenna Hennane, Director of Strategic Partnerships, Global Mentorship Initiative
When Oscar Bahati launched an organization to provide support to refugees as they integrated into the United States, he knew firsthand how broad the requests would be. When he first arrived from Rwanda in 2019, he had a job, but he needed so much more. “Everything was new to me. There were so many choices, and some things seemed so hard to access. I don’t know how I would have gotten through those first few years without mentors.”
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Posted on September 3, 2024
Hurricane in the tropics. Photo: Unsplash
By Tracey Compton, Mercy Corps Senior Media and Communications Coordinator
The Caribbean has been labeled ground-zero for climate change, with each hurricane season as unpredictable as the last. Climate change is making hurricanes and other climate disasters more frequent, more intense and less predictable – with community preparedness education increasingly essential. This makes the region an ideal setting for testing new approaches to climate resilience that focus on education and building responsive community networks. Drawing on proven results from our experience in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, Mercy Corps’ is partnering with local organizations to drive resilience in a region that has faced catastrophic devastation and will remain incredibly vulnerable to climate disasters. The Resilience Hub model demonstrates what is possible when you center local communities in climate resilience and emergency preparedness efforts. This will become increasingly urgent in the Caribbean and other climate-vulnerable regions as the climate crisis intensifies.
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