Triad Nepalese Community Center performers at the Mosaic Festival in Greensboro, N.C., on June 2. Check out the full photo set. Photo: CWS Greensboro
NEW YORK CITY – Chanda Timsina, a refugee from Bhutan, grew up in a refugee camp in Nepal. In 2009, she and her parents, brother and three sisters got the chance to resettle to the United States.
Church World Service welcomed Chanda and her family to Lancaster, Pa. Chanda, her brother and three sisters are now all high school graduates.
Chanda will be among refugees sharing their stories of persecution, suffering, survival and resilience at events across the United States and worldwide over the next several days in observance of World Refugee Day.
CWS and its U.S. network of refugee resettlement affiliate agencies are holding events throughout June – but mostly June 16-24 – to mark the day, with June 20 being the day officially designated by the United Nations.
Chanda will speak, and she and her sister Tika Timsina will dance, at a 2 p.m. event at CWS’s New York City offices in The Interchurch Center (TIC), 475 Riverside Drive at 120th Street, on Wednesday, June 20. CWS Executive Director and CEO John L. McCullough and CWS Immigration and Refugee Program Director Erol Kekic also will speak. A time of prayer for refugees will precede the event (noon, TIC Chapel). Contact: cfouke@churchworldservice.org, 212-870-2673.
Here is a sampling of other World Refugee Day events planned by CWS offices and affiliates across the United States:
Wednesday, June 20, Louisville, Ky. – Kentucky Refugee Ministries, 969B Cherokee Road, 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Celebration featuring “fun, food, music, children’s activities and booths,” hosted by CWS affiliate Kentucky Refugee Ministries. Contact Marianne Semones: 502-479-9180 x 25, or msemones@kyrm.org
Wednesday, June 20, New Haven, Ct. – Luce Hall, 34 Hillhouse Avenue, 3:30 to 9 p.m. Sponsored by CWS affiliate Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services. The event will feature special advance screenings of “A Place in the World” (www.aplaceintheworldfilm.com) at 5:30 and 7:30 p.m.; live world music and dance performed by Aly Tatchol Camera of the New Haven School of African Drum and Dance; visual art by refugee artists and sculptor Susan Clinard, whose works are inspired by refugees’ stories, and international food donated by area restaurants and New Haven’s refugee community. A special program for children (3:30 to 5 p.m.) will include refugee children singers, dancers, and artists from Fair Haven School; a photo exhibit by refugee children, including portraits of the photographers by Andrew Hogan, and traditional folktales from Iraq and East Africa told by professional storyteller Sara DeBeer. Contact: info@irisct.orgor 203-562-2095.
Saturday, June 23, Syracuse, N.Y. – CWS’s affiliate InterFaith Works is among cosponsors of this annual observance. It will begin at 10 a.m. in the 500 block of North Salina Street (in front of the CYO) with a parade to City Hall, where, at 11 a.m., the program will include a speaker and raising of the United Nations flag. The noon to 4 p.m. festival in Hanover Square, downtown Syracuse, will feature multicultural music, dance and food. Contact: cholmes@ccoc.us. Facebook: World Refugee Day in Syracuse.
Sunday, June 24, Chicago, Ill., noon to 3 p.m., Lutheran Church of the Ascension, 460 Sunset Ridge Road, Northfield – CWS’s affiliate RefugeeOne and the Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will hold a drive to help newly arrived refugees establish their first American home by collecting new household supplies like soaps and towels and “gently used” furnishing. The Day of Service features entertainment, food, presentations and community fun. More information at http://www.refugeeone.org/do1thing_about.
Want a flavor of what World Refugee Day celebrations are like? Click here to see photos from the June 2, 2012, Mosaic Festival in Greensboro, N.C. 4,700 people attended the event, whose aim is “to create an environment of hospitality and appreciation of all people in our local Greensboro community,” said Sarah Ivory, director of the Greensboro, N.C., Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program office.
Since its founding in 1946, Church World Service, along with its local offices and affiliates and its participating denominations and their congregations, has helped more than 500,000 refugees begin new lives in the United States, more than 5,000 of them in the past year.