“Pakistan’s Mother Teresa” passes on to his reward

Prominent Pakistani philanthropist Abdul Sattar Edhi has died at age 88 in a Karachi hospital.

Edhi was born in 1928 in a village called Bantva inside what is now India’s Gujarat state. In 1986 he  received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for public service. The Edhi Foundation operates ambulance services, orphanages, women’s shelters, dispensaries and morgues in several Pakistani cities.

Revered by many as a national hero, Edhi created a charitable empire out of nothing. He masterminded Pakistan’s largest welfare organization almost single-handedly, entirely with private company and donations.

He was known as Angel of Mercy and was considered Pakistan’s “most respected” and legendary figure. In 2013, The Huffington Post said that he might be “the world’s greatest living humanitarian.”

It was said that Edhi’s war was against prejudice, cruelty. No politics, no fatwas, no greed. Just humanity for the sake of humanity.

[Al Jazeera / Wikipedia]

Privately sponsoring a Syrian refugee family in Canada – Part 1

Aliye El Huseyin, a Syrian refugee, arrived by plane in Toronto on Feb. 29, with her husband, Omer Suleyman, and their three children, after a 14-hour flight from Ankara and an equally long drive from Mardin, the city in southeast Turkey where they had lived since fleeing the catastrophe of Aleppo.

They were carrying everything they owned in five 20-kilogram bags: 1,500 Syrian lira (under $10, all the money they had); three Syrian coffee pots, three kilos of Syrian coffee; four kilos of Syrian tea; a Tupperware container of her favorite seasonings; a bar of Aleppo’s famous olive-oil soap; her Koran; 20-odd hijab headscarves, … a cracked cellphone containing the e-mail addresses and phone numbers of everyone she knew; and, tucked carefully away, the keys and deed to her apartment in Aleppo.

Now living in the greater Toronto area of Scarborough, Aliye, and Omer have cooked 25 dishes for their guests, to break the day’s fast on the first night of Ramadan. Aliye is a gifted cook, and Omer made his living for a while as a chef in Turkey.

They’ve invited the core of their sponsor group, the private citizens who stepped up last fall as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to bring in 25,000 Syrian refugees, helping to make Canada the second-most-generous country in the world last year in terms of all resettled refugees.

Whatever else an outsider might call the band of Torontonians who sponsored Aliye and Omer Suleyman as refugees – privileged bleeding hearts and citizens who don’t know how else to address an unsolvable world are two options that come to mind – the sincerity of their commitment is undeniable.  Read more

Privately sponsoring a Syrian refugee family in Canada – Part 2

The Rosedale United Church had taught the [private sponsor] group how best to resettle refugees. There are three ways this can happen, one of which is as Privately Sponsored Refugees (PSRs: Canada is the only country whose immigration laws mandate its citizens’ right to do this). Of the promised 25,000 Syrian refugees who arrived by the end of February, a third were purely private sponsorships. (Many thousands more are currently coming through the system.)

Raising private money for the Syrians turned out to be as easy as melting butter in a pan. The sponsoring group had $40,000 in hand in a scant six weeks. Other groups moved just as quickly. A posse led by a broadcaster bagged $130,000 with a single group e-mail she sent to 50 people.

This sponsor group split into a slew of subcommittees: liaison, logistics, housing, finance, education, resources, employment. While Mary McConville scoured potential apartments in four neighborhoods, Lawrence and his team searched for schools. Meanwhile, Jane Gotlib solicited furniture and clothes from volunteers. So much stuff was proffered, she created a registry to track what the Suleymans still needed. The sponsors stocked the refrigerator, too, from a Middle Eastern supermarket.

The six core members met every two weeks, with two-page written agendas and e-mailed follow-ups. Medical checkups and immunizations? Arranged and chauffeured. ESL lessons? Booked. After three years of war stress and no dental care, the Suleymans, like many Syrians, were experiencing a crisis of their own: The group instantly raised another $6,500 for all their dental work, but a dentist pal of the group’s refused to take payment.

The government pays refugees like the Suleymans a $1,486 monthly stipend, for six months (government-sponsored refugees get it for a year), and $1,350 a month in ongoing child tax credits. The Suleymans have saved somewhere between $12,000 and $18,000 as a cushion at the end of their first year in Canada, just as the group steps away, financially.

They’ll need it. “Without our contribution,” one of their sponsors said, “they’ll both need full-time minimum-wage jobs to have the same level of income they have now with our contribution.”

[The Globe and Mail]

Most people want to accept refugees, survey finds

A new survey of 27 countries found that significant majorities of people would welcome refugees into the country and even consider taking them into their home. The study, commissioned by Amnesty International, says four in five people would “welcome refugees in their country, community or home.”

In 20 of the 27 countries, more than 75 percent of respondents said they would let refugees in their country. Only 17 percent said they would refuse refugees entry to their country.

These statistics, the rights group argues, shows how governments turning their backs on refugees are “badly out of touch with reality.”

Given all the drama sparked by refugees in the West, the figures are quite staggering, particularly in places like Germany, where an influx of migrants has rocked the country’s domestic politics.

Globally, two out of three respondents agree that national governments should do more to help refugees fleeing war or persecution, according to Amnesty International.

[Washington Post]

Turkey to host landmark World Humanitarian Summit on May 23-24

Turkey will play host to the ground-breaking World Humanitarian Summit, the first such summit of its kind, on May 23-24, in Istanbul. The summit, spearheaded by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, is aimed at discussing humanitarian issues in detail.

The high-profile summit will attract up to 5,000 participants, including statesmen, businessman, NGOs, international agencies, and representatives of communities affected by refuge crises. The summit will suggest to countries sustainable policies and measures to address shortcomings and difficulties in the humanitarian system.

Turkey itself is currently home to the world’s largest refugee population, and it has spent $10 billion on the refugee crises on its soil since 2011.

In the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) ranking of aid allocated, Turkey came in second with $2.42 billion following the U.S.. However, in terms of aid as a percentage of its gross national product (GDP), Turkey ranks first.

[Anadolu Agency]

Australia’s foreign aid budget hits rock bottom

Cuts to Australia’s foreign aid budget as introduced last year are being maintained in the 2016 Budget. The latest reduction follows the biggest cut on record, with $1 billion slashed from the aid program 12 months ago.

Indonesia once again bears some of the brunt of the cuts, losing another 5% of funds, around $15 million, on top of a 40% cut last year. Two key nations involved in the government’s offshore refugee processing program, Papua New Guinea and Cambodia, emerged unscathed in the latest savings.

The government’s failure to restore the Australian aid budget is short-sighted and likely to damage Australia’s international reputation, aid agency CARE Australia has warned.

CARE Australia CEO Dr Julia Newton-Howes welcomed a modest increase to funding for humanitarian emergencies, but said the nation turned its back on the world’s poor.

“The Government’s refusal to reverse the final scheduled cut to the aid budget means Australia will become the least generous we’ve ever been with the lowest ratio of aid to the size of our economy ever,” she said. “Overall, the cuts will still be damaging to Australia’s international reputation and to our long-term interests, especially at a time when many other developed nations are increasing aid budgets.”

[Business Insider]

Granted a new life by the Pope

On a warm evening in Rome, as waiters flapped tablecloths for outdoor diners at a trattoria down the cobbled alley, Ramy Al Shakarji leaned back on a bench and laughed as he described how the head of the Roman Catholic Church, plucked him, a Muslim, from a squalid refugee camp in Greece and flew him to a new life.

“When we were given the chance to come to Rome, my wife and I took about three minutes to decide ‘yes,’” he recalls. Making the offer to move to Italy was Daniela Pompei, an official with Catholic charity Sant’Egidio, which was asked by the Vatican at the last minute to find families and then host them back in Rome at its refugee shelter in the bustling Trastevere neighborhood.

Al Shakarji, 51, stopped laughing as he described the moment Francis greeted him before the flight. “I felt security and peace–a man like this is a father to the world,” he said.

The trip to Rome was the end of a long journey that started in Dair Alzour, a Syrian town under siege by Islamic State, where Al Shakarji recalls a rebellious neighbor’s decapitated head hanging from a balcony for three days. In March of last year, Al Shakarji decided to risk fleeing down mined roads and past snipers to reach Turkey, taking his wife and three children with him.

Another of the Syrians brought to Rome with Francis is Nour Essa. Her grandfather was a Palestinian who fled the new state of Israel in 1948 and settled in Syria. “The difference is there were two sides in 1948, whereas in Syria you can’t understand how many sides there are,” said Essa, 30.

Essa had escaped some of the initial turmoil of Syria’s civil war. She was living in Montpellier, France, while studying for a master’s in microbiology, before returning to her job in 2013 at Syria’s Atomic Energy Commission. She then married and had a child, but the war was creeping into her Damascus suburb. The couple fled, starting a terrifying, 10-day journey across ISIS-held territory in an ambulance and then in a cattle truck.

Stopping in Aleppo, her husband was ordered to fight by ISIS fighters–“real monsters,” said Essa. But a smuggler guided them through minefields toward Turkey, where after waiting out rough seas and numerous tangles with Turkish police, they made it to Lesbos on March 18, packed into a dinghy at night with 50 other refugees.

“I was shocked when we were asked if we wanted to go,” Essa said. What she is sure about is that no Muslim leader has made the gesture the pope did. “Muslim governments should be ashamed,” she said. “Instead of helping refugees, they close borders and stop visas for Syrians. If you want to work in Saudi Arabia, you cannot get a visa now.”

[LA Times]

Humanitarian aid agencies pulling back from Europe’s “Refugee Prisons”

“We will not allow our assistance to be instrumentalized for a mass expulsion operation,” declared Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) official Marie Elisabeth Ingres this week, joining the chorus of major humanitarian institutions pulling their operations from Greek island refugee “hotpots” that have been transformed into nightmarish prisons. “We refuse to be part of a system that has no regard for the humanitarian or protection needs of asylum seekers and migrants.”

As ever-increasing numbers of war and poverty survivors reach Greek islands, the land masses have become ground zero for a newly escalated European Union crackdown, which decrees: “All new irregular migrants crossing from Turkey into Greek islands as from 20 March 2016 will be returned to Turkey.” Before being subject to mass expulsion, refugees are being forcibly held in “hotspots” that were created under a separate EU agreement last year.

Since the deal went into effect, 934 people had arrived in Lesvos alone and are “being held at a closed registration and temporary accommodation site in Moria on the east of the island.” Numerous humanitarian organizations testify that the sanitation and public health conditions at this location are dismal. While they have been providing critical humanitarian support for the people at Moria—from medical care to hygiene assistance to daily essentials—they say they can no longer do so in good conscience. This includes MSF, Oxfam, Save the Children, and the Norwegian Refugee Council, among others.

Oxfam announced in a statement it is suspending all aid operations to “protest to the suspension of migrants’ rights by the EU and Turkey.” Save the Children also announced that it has suspended all activities “related to supporting basic services at all detention centers on the Greek islands due to extreme concerns that newly-arrived vulnerable children and their families are in danger of unlawful and unjustified custody for sustained periods of time.”

Giovanni Riccardi Candiani, country representative for Oxfam in Greece, rebuked the detention of people “who committed no crime and who have risked their lives in search of security and a better future.”

[AlterNet]

Airlander a game changer for humanitarian airlifts

A new titan in eco-friendly transportation is taking over the European skies. The HAV (Hybrid Air Vehicle) Airlander 10 is the biggest airship in the world designed specifically for humanitarian uses.

With a cargo capacity of 10 tons and the ability to fly for weeks without landing, the ship can soar to any location carrying supplies and resources to communities in need.

Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden and key investor in the Airlander, told the New Yorker,“You want to put a hospital into Africa? You put the whole hospital in the inside of this – whoosh. Start the generator. … With these vehicles, you could drop off a 20-ton slab of water that is clean, drinkable, to an African village. It’s astonishing what you can do that you just can’t do with anything else.”

As well as being the largest philanthropic vehicle of its kind, the Airlander only uses a quarter of the fuel regular airplanes do because of its reservoir of helium that creates buoyancy.

Even though it’s as long as a football field and the height of two double-decker buses, the ship can land vertically on any terrain – including water – making it especially capable for search and rescue missions.

“I’m not expecting to get my money back anytime soon, I just want to be part of it,” Bruce said regarding his $380,000 investment. ”Being a rock person, I could put it up my nose, or buy a million Rolls Royces and drive them into swimming pools, or I could do something useful. There are very few times in your life when you’re going to be part of something big.”

The ship’s maiden test flights are scheduled for later this month over the hangar’s airfield in Bedfordshire, England so it can accrue the air time necessary to be validated by the Civil Aviation Authority and the European Aviation Safety Agency.

[Good News Network]