Federal funds give refugees a start, but communities offer local safety net, By Andrew Haffner, March 28, 2017, Grand Forks Herald: “When she’s not behind the counter at Al Amin Grocery in Grand Forks, Ilhaam Hassan is helping fellow members of the local Somali refugee community find their way in a new land. Hassan, a native of Somalia, came to the U.S. in 1999 when she was just a child. Now in her early 30s, Hassan’s fluency in English has opened a role for her as an interpreter with the local office of Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, the agency tasked with resettling refugees, many of whom are Somalis, in the state’s most populous cities: Fargo, Bismarck and Grand Forks. With her own passage a distant memory, Hassan now works with those refugees from Somalia who now find themselves in northeast North Dakota. Even with help from the federal government and local civic groups, she says the transition is difficult for new arrivals…”
Tag: Refugees
Natural Disaster Displacement
Millions displaced by natural disasters last year, Associated Press, June 6, 2011, Lincoln Journal Star: “About 42 million people were forced to flee their homes because of natural disasters around the world in 2010, more than double the number during the previous year, experts said Monday. One reason for the increase in the figure could be climate change, and the international community should be doing more to contain it, the experts said. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre said the increase from 17 million displaced people in 2009 was mainly due to the impact of ‘mega-disasters’ such as the massive floods in China and Pakistan and the earthquakes in Chile and Haiti…”
Child Poverty among Palestinian Refugees – Lebanon
Majority of Palestinian youth living in poverty, January 13, 2011, The Daily Star: “Around 70 percent of Palestinian refugee children and adolescents in Lebanon live in poverty, according to a report released Wednesday. A further 9 percent of young people aged between 6 and 19 live in ‘extreme poverty’ on less than $2 a day, unable to meet basic daily food requirements, the Socio-Economic Survey of Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon said. Conducted by researchers from the American University of Beirut in coordination with United Nations Relief and Work Agency, the report is thought to be the first comprehensive evaluation of the living conditions of the country’s registered Palestinian refugees…”