Dadaab, the world's largest refugee camp, is home to more than 344,000 refugees. If it were a city, it would be Kenya’s third largest. On Wednesday, the Kenyan Interior Ministry announced plans to close the camp by November. The announcement has raised significant concerns from local and international refugee protection organizations.
Before she was the face of AT&T and the founder of Can’t Do Nothing, a non-profit dedicated to getting people engaged with the Syrian refugee crisis, Milana Vayntrub was a refugee herself. She explains why she can’t do nothing, and you shouldn’t either.
“A disaster of this scale really takes a toll, not only on the victims but on the responders. It’s not easy to be in the field and see this kind of sadness,” said Sabrina Lustgarten, director of HIAS Ecuador. “Our goal is to support those doing this very difficult emergency work, to prevent burnout and enable them to continue to respond effectively.”
"As we commemorate Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, we suddenly transition from Passover, the ancient holiday which commemorates the refugee experience, to honoring the memory of the six million Jews who perished because they were not able to flee," writes Mark Hetfield in The Jewish Week.
Keeping the story of Passover alive as we move into the day on which we are told “never to forget” our people’s more recent encounter with unconscionable evil means ensuring that what happened to the Jewish people does not happen to others. We can do this by becoming part of the American Jewish movement in support of refugees.
“We were glad to be trained together with the NGO members,” said one man, a refugee community leader from the Goz Amir camp. “We learned from them and they learned from us. Now we are aware of our rights." He was one of the more than 50 participants in a HIAS workshop on protecting older refugees from sexual and gender-based violence.
This passover, Jews across the country used HIAS materials to make refugees a part of their seder, starting conversations with family and friends about one of the biggest issues of our time.
"This proposal rests on a fundamental misconception about refugees and immigrants, one too often promoted by those who peddle in bigotry and fear. Refugees have become our religious leaders and successful entrepreneurs. They are artists, scientists, scholars, police officers, doctors and soldiers; they are our neighbors. But most important, they are children of God, entitled to equal opportunity, dignity and respect," write Hetfield and Moline.
In 1989, Veyts and her parents left the Soviet Union for America with the help of HIAS. Today, Veyts works for HIAS supporting refugees going through the same transitions she went through nearly 30 years ago. Repair the World recently spoke to Veyts to find out how her experience shapes her work.
