The July 21 celebration at the Museum of the City of New York marked more than six decades of CWS work resettling refugees. Photo: Thomas Hampson/CWS
NEW YORK – “You have reached 65 years, but please don’t retire!”
With those words, Vincent Cochetel, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees regional representative for the United States and the Caribbean, joined those wishing Church World Service a fond birthday as the global humanitarian agency marked its 65th anniversary and its long service and dedication to refugee protection.
Cochetel’s wishes were not merely professional – the UNHCR official told those attending a Thursday, July 21, celebration of the agency at the Museum of the City of New York that among those resettled by CWS during its early years was a relative of his wife’s family fleeing persecution from the Soviet Union.
Such stories were common during the event, which also marked the 60th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the the 50th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
Ali Al Sudani, an Iraqi refugee and now director of refugee services for Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston, a refugee resettlement agency and CWS affiliate, and Hlawn Kip Tlem, an ethnic Chin refugee from Burma who now lives in Indianapolis, Ind., recalled their respective families’ experiences of “starting over” in a new country.
Both thanked CWS and its refugee affiliate offices for their commitment and dedication to assisting refugees, particularly in a difficult political time, when protection of immigrants, refugees and migrants often faces public hostility.
“I want to thank you for what you have provided,” said Hlawn Kip Tlem, one of nine recipients of the Lilly Endowment Community Scholarship in Marion County, Ind., which will fund four years of the honor student’s undergraduate studies in civil engineering when she enters the University of Evansville this fall.
“Without people like you,” said Al Sudani, who came to the United States in 2009, “it would have been impossible for someone like me to have a second chance and a new life.”
In his remarks, the Rev. John McCullough, CWS executive director and CEO, said the experiences of immigrants and refugees reflect an underlying philosophy of CWS — that partnership and working at solutions begins at the grassroots.
“This ethos of regularly engaging people to discern both vision and appropriate strategies is instructive, and critical towards relieving the vulnerability of so many people to poverty,” McCullough said. “Delineating between crisis and chronic conditions, either way, durable solutions that benefit entire communities must be the end goal.”
“Church World Service has always been about being good neighbors and improving the quality of life for the most vulnerable. It matters little the origin of one’s name or the place from where one comes. It is all about the spirit of welcome and acceptance, and the roar of the crowd acknowledging that, you are now one of us.”
Erol Kekic, the director of CWS’s Immigration and Refugee Program, noted that when Church World Service was formed in 1946, and when “food trains were organized to assist the victims of hunger caused by the Second World War, few imagined an agency functioning 65 years later with an annual operating budget of over 80 million dollars and staff of several hundred.”
CWS, Kekic said, “is the result of an organized effort by people of faith to do together what none could do alone – make an impact in the world and play the role they felt called to play – alleviating hunger experienced by their fellow humanity in Europe.”
He added: “Much has changed since that time. CWS is today a global voluntary agency well equipped to respond to natural and human induced disasters, offer refugee assistance and work to alleviate hunger domestically and abroad. Since 1946, CWS has helped resettle 500,000 refugees into the US and changed countless lives abroad.”
As one example of change and looking toward the future, McCullough announced that the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) has asked CWS to conduct a new international study focused on protection of the world’s growing numbers of urban refugees.
The yearlong study aims to identify successful, replicable models in “host communities” in the U.S. and other countries that are helping refugees integrate more quickly and successfully into urban settings and new cultures.