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Building a new life With you
Building a new life News of the help that together we’re bringing to refugees - 2006 Issue 2  
Emergency Response: come inside and meet our ERT
On the Road to Recovery in Pakistan
Joy and Hardship in Equal Measure
Your money in Action Around the World
We're Changing the Game for Refugee Children

Refugees around the world  Click to read article

GlobeUNHCR is busy helping refugees all over the world. Find out more about what we're doing in countries like Somaliland, India and Colombia.

Emergency Response Team Member Profile Click to read article

ERT LogoGeoff Wordley: Senior Emergency Preparedness and Response Officer

Article Index Article Index

Refugees around the world

While our Emergency Response Team is there to help people survive an immediate humanitarian crisis, the rest of our work focuses on assisting refugees build a new life. Here are just a few examples of how we are helping people to start again.

In this issue, we focus on UNHCR's successful activities in the following 3 countries: Somaliland, India, and Colombia.

Globe Somaliland

A young boy has his fingerprint taken at the Liboi reception centre

A young boy has his fingerprint taken at the Liboi reception centre. © UNHCR/M.Mutuli

Somali refugees returning after the civil war are bringing new skills and energy back to help rebuild their country. The UN Refugee Agency is helping impoverished returnees build a new life by investing in local programs to teach computer skills, literacy, tailoring and soap making. We are also backing an international US$200 million Comprehensive Plan of Action to help improve nutrition and provide clean water, better healthcare and education.

Globe India

Senator Amanda Vanstone, meets refugee women from Myanmar at UNHCR's Women's Protection Clinic in Delhi

Australia's Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Senator Amanda Vanstone, meets refugee women from Myanmar at UNHCR's Women's Protection Clinic in Delhi. © UNHCR/N Bose

Violence and trauma forced hundreds of women from north western Myanmar to flee to New Delhi – but the end of their gruelling, five-day, 1,000 km voyage only left them exposed to more danger on the city streets. Now the UN Refugee Agency has set up a Refugee Women’s Protection Clinic, where we can provide vulnerable women and girl refugees with legal advice and counselling, to help them recover and stay safe. Read the full story on the UNHCR International site.

Globe Colombia

Olga Lucia with girls from her local community

Olga Lucia with girls from her local community on the outskirts of the Colombian town of Bucaramanga. © UNHCR/G.Valdivieso

When Olga and her two children were driven from their home by local conflict they ended up, with many others, in a dangerous and unsanitary shanty town on the edge of Bucaramanga. When this too was flooded and people lost what little they had, the UN Refugee Agency stepped in with other organisations to help recreate the neighbourhood in a safer place. Now the families have the electricity, water and sanitation they need to begin again. Read the full story on the UNHCR International site.

 

Girls attending school in Kenya's Dadaab camp


On the road to recovery in Pakistan

A year after the earthquake in Pakistan, over 130,000 people have left the relief camps to begin their long journey back home. Many would agree that they owe their lives to the swift response of the UN Refugee Agency who, thanks to your support, rushed to their aid with practical help such us 840,000 blankets, 21,600 tents and 40,000 stoves.

“Of course much of what we achieved in Pakistan can’t be seen,” says Ariane Rummery from our Emergency Response Team. “In a camp you can’t ‘see’ the lack of disease which good technical advice and site planning provide for. But you can see a group of men learning basic plumbing and masonry skills. Seeing people again take charge of their lives and futures is for me the most rewarding part.”

For some, like Lubna, the recovery process is much slower. At the time of the quake she was cleaning up after breakfast when suddenly she found herself pinned under a massive beam. Both her legs had to be amputated, forcing her to see her children off to school from her bed.

Luckily, Lubna was seen by the UN Refugee Agency community services team, who classified her as an ‘extremely vulnerable individual’ in need of immediate medical attention. She was referred to Helping Hand, an organisation that designs prosthetic limbs. When Lubna was told they could give her an artificial leg, her eyes lit up. Life will always be extremely hard for her, but she will now be able to care for herself and her children. Thank you.

 
 

Top: "A life saver" is what this family in New Bhogarmang camp calls the new heater. © UNHCR/A.Rummery

  
With you, the UN Refugee Agency can pay for further education or training in refugee camps  
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