Finding a New Home: Attending the UN Panel Discussion on Refugee Resettlement Work

Every once a while living in New York City allows me an opportunity that I otherwise would never have.  Today was one of those days.

I found out a while ago that LDS Charities was organizing an event with the UN. The Director of Public Affairs for the LDS Church in the New York New York Stake wanted our help to fill the room.  So I signed up for a ticket and then promptly forgot about it.

About a month ago, I had a chance to fly to Utah to be with my husband and son. We were going to all fly back to NYC on the 13th of April.  I looked at my calendar and saw that it was the day of the UN meeting.  I decided to stay in NYC so that I could attend.

Best decision ever.

I decided to get there early since I knew we'd have to go through security and you know, I get lost a lot.  I always try to budget "Don't know what I'm doing" into my itinerary whenever I go somewhere new.

Well, I over compensated and ended up being the first person to walk into the conference room.

See how empty it is?

 It was just like what I imagine from the movies.  Tons of microphones and screens at each desk.  Large, padded leather chairs to allow for sitting for long periods of time were arranged in large semi circles.

I'm not sure if this is the same room, but it looked just like this.

  I finally walked up to someone to find out where the "nobodies" like me were supposed to sit.

"You can sit wherever you'd like," she said.

"You mean I can sit here?" I said pointing to the leather chairs.

"Sure, you are the first one here so get a good seat."



I could see that the best seats in the house were being reserved so I chose front and center, three rows back. I had a beautiful view of the panel and the screens.  In fact, I ended up seeing myself on the screen quite a bit throughout the meeting.

CARYL STERN

The moderator of the event was Caryl Stern who is the President and CEO of the U.S. Fund for UNICEF.

Before she introduced the panel, she told two very personal and contrasting stories.

Her mother was a refugee who left in 1939 to escape Hitler's regime.  She was 6 years old and accompanied by her 4 year old brother who traveled with a woman who escorted them to New York City on a boat.  Once they arrived they lived in an orphanage in the lower East side.  For as long as Caryl can remember she has heard about how it was because of this woman, that her mother safely made it to America.

The other story is of her grandfather who was on that fateful ship, the SS St. Louis, or more commonly known as the Voyage of the Damned.  For those who don't know, a group of Jewish refugees arrived in Cuba only to discover that they had false documents and Cuba would not accept them.  They stayed on the ship for 40 days while the nations argued as to what to do with them.  No country would accept them and they were sent back to Germany and for many, their deaths.  Fortunately her grandfather survived, but again this story was retold many times in Caryl's family.

What Caryl subtly told us with her two stories was that we have a choice.  We can create our own story in how we respond to the millions of refugees in the world today.

JEAN BINGHAM

The first panelist to speak was the recently called General Relief Society President for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jean Bingham.  Jean's credentials definitely made it clear why she was there today.  As a former member of the General Primary Presidency for the LDS Church she has traveled the world visiting children in need.  She has taught English as a second language to immigrants and for nonprofits.  Just 6 weeks ago she was in visiting children in Africa in association with UNICEF.

Despite how shell shocked she must still feel that she is now the General Relief Society President, she spoke clearly and eloquently about what the LDS Church is doing to help refugees around the world.  She also spoke about how important it is to work with other faith-based organizations in this effort.  I would say the theme of her speech was that small and simple ways to help really do make a difference.

ANWAR KHAN

Even thought I'm not Muslim, I really had a soft spot for the next panelist, Anwar Khan.  He is the CEO of Islamic Relief USA.  This is a man who must overcome more obstacles than he should to provide relief to Muslims around the world who are suffering.  He must constantly deal with those who do not agree with his beliefs or what he is doing.

My favorite line from his speech was,

"We answer their hate with love."

He made it clear to me that what we see on your 24/7 news feed is not reality.  There are many faiths working together to help those in need.  He told the story of a group of people who came to Washington DC to welcome a group of refugees to the airport.  "This is more of what we need to see on TV," he said.

BARBARA DAY

Barbara Day must have a business card the size of an index card.  She is the Domestic Resettlement Section Chief at the State Department's Bureau of Population Refugees and Migration.  In English that means that she helps place refugees in the US by working with official resettlement refugee organizations.

She made it clear that they do not select organizations based on their faith or if they are even faith-based.  Each organization is held to the same standard.  Every refugee that is resettled in the U.S. receives the same goods and services no matter what their faith is.  She said that any organization can be nimble, and it can also be root bound.

What impacted me about her speech was when she said that a woman from Bosnia said that what she wanted most was someone to have a coffee with.  She said the greatest gift we can give, is a gift of friendship.

REV. CANON E. MARK STEVENSON

Rev. Mark Stevenson is the director of the Episcopal Migration Ministries, which is the official refugee resettlement program of the Episcopal Church.  He said that they aren't the largest resettlement organization, but they definitely have a punch above their weight class.  Last year they resettled 5,000 refugees from 32 countries.

He pointed out that Jesus Christ was a refugee due to infanticide.  He had to flee because of his beliefs and his religion.

I was brought to tears when he said this profound statement,

"I cannot conquer the evil in the world, but as a Christian I don't have to.  Our Savior already has."

This brought peace to my soul.  Learning about the refugee crisis can definitely be overwhelming and discouraging.  But that is not how we should feel about this problem.  We should feel empowered to do something about it.

ABDUL SABOOR

Abdul Saboor is a resettled refugee from Afghanistan.  He's currently getting his Master's at Syracuse University.  He is currently a match grant program coordinator at Interfaith Works.

He told his experience about having to leave his home and community.  He said that his community was on fire.  He had to choose between survival and death.  But he learned that there is something stronger than fear, it is hope.

He said that now we have refugees here because their homes are on fire.  But, he pointed out, we are all refugees.  None of us are living in our true home, which is with God.

MARIA FARE

I think Maria Fare was a new addition to the panel, because her name and bio is not listed in the program.  She works for the UN with their Sustainable Development Goals.  I'm so glad she made it on the panel.  I couldn't get enough of her.  She resonated with me with her talk about citizen participation, something I'm passionate about.

She said that in 2000 people from the UN got together and created eight Millennial Development Goals that were to be accomplished in 15 years.  She pointed out that no one asked the people in the developing countries how they felt about those goals or what they wanted.

So in 2015, they worked to create new goals for the next 15 years called Sustainable Development Goals.  Seventeen goals were set to be accomplished based on input from those who would be impacted.  What amazed me is that over 80 percent of the respondents did not respond online, but with pen and paper.  What an incredible effort.

But the input has ended.  Now they are using surveys to find out if the goals are working and changing lives.

Here is a list of places we can go to find out more:

Humans of MY World 
World We Want 2030 
UN Virtual Reality (she said that donations go up 30 to 70 percent when people can experience through virtual reality what it is like to be a refugee.)
Festival of Ideas 

Then the panel was asked two questions and invited to answer.

Question #1 "How do you respond to those who are against what you do?"

KHAN - When someone tells me that they won't give me their money because we help people of other faiths, I say to them, "Keep your money.  You need it more than we do."  Mary and Jesus could have just as easily been Syrian, so ask yourself, "What would Jesus do?"

BINGHAM - It is good to ask ourselves, "What if their story were my story?"

DAY - We need to remember to take care of ourselves.  It's easy in this work to forget about our own needs trying to help the refugees.  But self care is what makes us resilient to the criticism.

STEVENSON - If you are buying the narrative that the 24/7 news cycle is telling you, go out and volunteer.  There you'll find the true narrative.

SABOOR - Engagement is the key. We need to meet face to face with those in need so that we can share information with them.

Question #2 "What are you doing on the ground?"

DAY - Last year Americans donated $7 billion.  Repatriation is the ideal, next is local integration and then if necessary resettlement.  The U.S. has resettled more refugees than all other countries combined.

KHAN - We are trying to keep Syrians in the country.  We go into the most dangerous areas and try to help those in crisis, if we don't, they are going to walk away and then will need lots more help.

BINGHAM - LDS Charities are involved with different programs.  We look to provide clean water, immunizations, food, community projects, emergency response, neonatal care, vision care, and wheelchairs.

SABOOR - Currently we are helping those who are refugees due to violence.  But we will eventually see refugees due to climate.  We need to be prepared for the onslaught of climate refugees as well as violence refugees.

STEVENSON - The Episcopal Church has a program called Young Adult Service Corps.  These young people go throughout the world and look for ways to serve.  They then report back to the church what they have observed and learned.  We also work with legislators teaching them how they can use their tenets of faith to drive policy.

STERN - We all want the same things for our children, no matter where they live.  We want to serve them a hot meal, tuck them in at night under a warm blanket, and hope that when they fall asleep they dream big dreams.

The meeting ended with some final thoughts from Jeff Brez who is with the Department of Public Information for the UN.  He said that our two goals for the refugees should be to provide them dignity and safety.  He left us with the charge to find the thing that we can do, and do it.

I want to end with a few thoughts of my own about today's panel discussion.

It can be overwhelming to look at all the pictures of the suffering refugees realizing that there are millions and millions of people who are displaced.  It's easy to ask ourselves, "What can I do?  I'm just one person."

But we have something greater than the problem before us, we have hope.
Like the Bible says, "They that be with us are more than they that be with them." Kings 6:16

We might not be able to donate millions of dollars, or thousands of hours, but we can offer friendship.  We can speak kindly to them and about them.

Being a refugee does not define who a person is, but how we respond to them will definitely define us.