Whoever. Wherever. Whenever. Everyone has the right to seek safety
With the war in Ukraine and other conflicts, there are now more than 100 million forcibly displaced people globally. According to a quick Google search, if 100 million people stood in line, that line would be 28,400 miles long. 100 million people, if tucked in closely together, would fill the volume of 272 Olympic-sized pools. With the population of the United States hovering at 330 million, the number of forcibly displaced persons is equivalent to one-third of our population. Imagine that!
On World Refugee Day, I have one simple ask of you: Please read about refugees, their lives, the facts and figures, and their stories. Here are a few resources to get you started:
- For fiction readers (like me), the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) compiled this list of modern books about refugees you need to know about.
- The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre released its annual must-read Global Report on Internal Displacement.
- Read about World Refugee Day, its history, purpose and objectives.
- UNHCR just published its annual Global Trends Forced Displacement report.
- CDP-authored Issue Insights on Refugees, Complex Humanitarian Emergencies, Internally Displaced People, Remittances and the Protection Cluster provide a grounded overview of each topic.
As philanthropists, once we educate ourselves on the root causes of displacement, known solutions for supporting displaced persons, humanitarian principles and the overarching humanness of displaced persons, we can then work to end displacement of all kinds.
