British schoolchildren learn empathy for refugees

In a quiet suburban school in northwest London, young children are asked to imagine that they need to leave their homes because Britain is at war.

As they close their eyes and sit in silence, their teacher Teri-Louise O’Brien explains that there are 60 million displaced people in the world right now. “Time to reflect: how would you feel if you had no home? Take a pen, and write your feelings on the paper.”

O’Brien then switches off the lights before playing a short video of Syrian refugees living in camps in Lebanon and Jordan. 10-year-old Naavya, since learning about the refugee crisis, said she no longer finds her classmate, a Syrian refugee, “annoying”.

“I do learn that it can be really hard for him,” Naavya told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “I didn’t even know [the Syrian war] was happening when he first came. I kind of feel sad for him because he had to leave [his country].”

Britain is home to 126,000 refugees, according to the British Red Cross, and received nearly 40,000 asylum applications last year of which 45 percent were approved. The largest numbers of asylum seekers were from Eritrea, Pakistan then Syria.

The teacher uses lesson plans, supplied by the United Nations Children’s Agency (UNICEF), to encourage children to ask questions. The students’ parents are also encouraged to discuss the issues at home. “We want them to understand that everybody is human, and everybody is the same and that they need to look after each other,” she said.

[Reuters]

Iraq a worsening humanitarian crisis

The humanitarian crisis in Iraq is one of the largest, most complex and volatile in the world. Over 10 million Iraqis – nearly a third of the population – require some form of humanitarian assistance.

During the next six months, as many as 2.5 million people may become newly displaced along the Anbar and Mosul corridors and in Mosul city. More than 85,000 people fled Fallujah in May and June, joining the 3.3 million Iraqis currently displaced across the country.

Temperatures are reaching over 120 degrees Fahrenheit/50 degrees Celsius. Conditions in the camps are extremely difficult. Few, if any of the children, who have been living under the control of ISIL, have been immunized.

Humanitarian partners, working closely with governmental counterparts, have developed a range of scenarios from limited destruction and limited displacement for a limited period to massive destruction and massive displacement for a long period. In a worst case, nearly US$1.8 billion may be required.

So much is being invested in the military campaign to defeat the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and it is increasingly urgent to rebalance the investments being made in Iraq to ensure that more help is provided to the Iraqi civilians who have been caught in the conflict and who have lost everything.

 [OCHA]

Canadian pledges $358 million to Iraq

Prior to co-hosting of a major meeting in Washington to discuss Iraq’s current and long-term needs, the Canadian government pledged its humanitarian support to Iraq.

The Canadian Minister of International Development Marie-Claude Bibeau, said in a statement, “Canada has pledged to provide $158 million over three years to support humanitarian and stabilization efforts for the people of Iraq, and up to $200 million as additional financing to the Government of Iraq.”

Canada is co-hosting the Pledging Conference in Support of Iraq with Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the United States in Washington, DC, the objective to raise much-needed humanitarian and stabilization assistance.

Six richest nations host just 9 percent of refugees

The six richest countries – which make up more than half the global economy – host less than nine percent of the world’s refugees, aid group Oxfam has said.

The United States, China, Japan, Germany, France and the United Kingdom hosted 2.1 million refugees and asylum seekers last year – just 8.88 percent of the global total, the report from the Britain-based Oxfam said.

Poorer countries, in contrast, have accommodated most of those looking for safe havens, Oxfam said. “Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan, Lebanon, South Africa as well as the Occupied Palestinian Territory host over 50 percent of the world’s refugees and asylum seekers but account for under two percent of the world’s economy,” it said.

“While Germany has recently welcomed far more refugees than the other of the wealthiest nations, there still remains a major gap with poorer countries providing the vast majority of safe havens for refugees.”

Oxfam called on governments to host more refugees and to give more help to countries sheltering the majority of them – ahead of two major summits about refugees and so-called economic migrants in the US in September.

“It is shameful so many governments are turning their backs on the suffering of millions of vulnerable people who have fled their homes and are often risking their lives to reach safety,” Winnie Byanyima, the executive director of Oxfam, said. “Poorer countries are shouldering the duty of protecting refugees when it should be a shared responsibility, but many richer countries are doing next to nothing.”

[Aljazeera]

Venezuela Colombia humanitarian corridor

Thousands of hungry and needy Venezuelans crossed the border into Colombia for a second time this month to buy the bare necessities.

Heavily armed with umbrellas, to combat torrential rain, thousands of Venezuelans went shopping in Colombia for food, medicines and even toilet rolls, which can`t be found in their own supermarkets.

Smuggling of subsidized foods and gasoline into Colombia, led to armed gangs, and a sealed Border has created this bottleneck.

Venezuela`s President Nicolas Maduro blames international enemies combining with home grown subversives, sabotaging the economy.  The Opposition insists it`s decades of sole dependence on the declining petroleum industry, rampant corruption in official circles and chronic mismanagement.

Many are now calling for the border to be completely, officially and permanently re-opened so the bridge between the two countries can serve as a vital lifeline in a time of severe recession.

[Vatican Radio]

A more outward looking Britain than ever before?

In his final days as British prime minister, David Cameron hailed Britain’s 12 billion pound ($16 billion) foreign aid budget as one of his greatest achievements. Britain last year enshrined in law its commitment to spend 0.7 percent of its national income on aid every year, making it the first major industrialized nation to do so.

On Thursday, Priti Patel was appointed as the Secretary of State for International Development by the new Prime Minister, Theresa May.

Ms Patel said: “Successfully leaving the European Union will require a more outward looking Britain than ever before, deepening our international partnerships to secure our place in the world by supporting economic prosperity, stability and security overseas. That’s why my department will be working across government, with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the new Department for International Trade, the Home Office and others.

“We will continue to tackle the great challenges of our time: poverty, disease and the causes of mass migration, while helping to create millions of jobs in countries across the developing world – our trading partners of the future.”

Ms Patel’s comments about aid and trade could give some clues to the direction she might take the department in. In 2013 she said: “A long-term strategic assessment is required … in order to enable the UK to focus on enhancing trade with the developing world and seek out new investment opportunities in the global race. It is possible to bring more prosperity to the developing world and enable greater wealth transfers to be made from the UK by fostering greater trade and private sector investment opportunities.”

[The Independent]

EU announces $161 million in humanitarian aid for seven African countries

The European Commission has announced over €145 million ($161 million) in humanitarian assistance for Africa’s Sahel region in 2016 to address the basic needs of the populations, tackle malnutrition and provide food to the most vulnerable people.

The Sahel is one of poorest regions in the world, with 2 million children severely malnourished and more than 6 million people in need of emergency food assistance.

Funding will be provided to people in need in seven countries: Niger, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Chad and Cameroon. The EU is working hand in hand with humanitarian organizations to help the most vulnerable”, said Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Christos Stylianides.

The Sahel region continues to face a food and nutrition crisis. The prospects for 2016 are worrying, as surveys conducted in 2015 indicate a continuous increase in the number of children affected by severe malnutrition in many countries in the region. The European Commission has supported the creation of the Global Alliance for Resilience (AGIR) in West Africa which has set a ‘zero hunger’ goal by 2032.

Mormon Church provides $40 million per year in welfare and humanitarian efforts

[LDS spokesman] Elder Dallin H. Oaks said that each year The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spends about $40 million on welfare, humanitarian and other LDS Church-sponsored projects around the world and has done so for more than 30 years.

That would account for approximately $1.2 billion on welfare and humanitarian efforts over the past 30 years. Elder Oaks also said that in the last year alone, Mormon volunteers have devoted 25 million hours of labor.

“In the year 2015 we had 177 emergency response projects in 56 countries,” Elder Oaks said. “In addition, we had hundreds of projects that impacted more than 1 million people in seven other categories of assistance, such as clean water, immunization and vision care.”

“Last year, LDS Charities responded to 132 disasters of one kind or another in 60 nations of the world, including a major typhoon in the Philippines, a destructive cyclone in the Kingdom of Tonga, the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and extensive refugee assistance for Syria and Iraq.”

“In addition to such emergency relief we found calmer circumstances along the way, allowing us to provide wheelchairs in 48 countries, maternal and newborn care in 42 countries, vision care in 34 countries, clean water and sanitation projects in 26 countries, gardening projects in 17 countries and medical immunizations in nine countries.”

Elder Oaks emphasized to the audience at Oxford that these humanitarian efforts are separate from the LDS Church’s worldwide missionary efforts. “Our humanitarian aid is given without regard to religious affiliation, because we want our missionary teaching to be received and considered without influence from force or food or other favors,” he said.

[Deseret News]