At the International Institute of Buffalo, every day is World Refugee Day. Our mission is to welcome refugees, recognize their struggles, and work with them on their resettlement as they start a new chapter in their lives.
Technically, June 20 is the day that the United Nations designated as World Refugee Day. It’s a time to pause and reflect on the 36.4 million refugees worldwide and the almost 400,000 children born as refugees each year. Consider asylum seekers, internally displaced people, or others who need international protection, and that number climbs to a mind-boggling 110,000 million people.
Refugees are people who escape harrowing circumstances perpetrated upon them merely for who they are. They are threatened for their race, religion, gender, sexuality, politics, or ethnic group.
After they arrive at a refugee camp, they are vetted and, after months or years (and sometimes decades), assigned to a country that will resettle them.
It is not a journey that anyone can envy. If you want to help us help refugees, click here to see the many ways.
Click here to learn how we make Western New York a better place for, and because of, immigrants and refugees.
