Imagine the populations of New York City, Boston, Washington, DC, and Philadelphia combined. Now imagine that those cities are entirely filled with children who have been forced from their homes by war, persecution or natural disaster. This combined population would roughly represent the world’s population of children who are refugees.
According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, 22 million people were counted as refugees in 2016; shockingly, when counting asylum seekers and internationally displaced persons, the figure rises to 65 million. While the UN marked 2016 as having the highest levels of displacement on record, the numbers of refugees and aslyees who are resettled comes in at the significantly smaller figure of 189,000.
CAMBA recognizes the trauma that many of our clients have experienced in their native countries, along with the new, often unexpected needs they will face in the United States, and we work to meet those needs. In 2016, CAMBA supported 1,000 refugees in their transitions through our agency’s wrap-around services, such as job readiness and training programs, legal aid, food from our emergency food pantry and much more. Over the past 40 years, CAMBA is proud to have resettled 10,000 refugees and connected 25,000 refugees and political asylees to jobs.
Forty years ago, CAMBA was founded as a response to the critical need for support of Brooklyn’s refugee community and with the global population of displaced persons at its highest number yet, our work is far from over. Today, on World Refugee Day, you can help in a variety of ways:
- Support CAMBA: Help us continue providing refugees with employment placement, English classes, legal services and the other essential transitional assistance.
- Sign the UNHCR’s petition and show that you stand #WithRefugees.
- Share this post on social media and let your friends and followers know that you are #WithRefugees. Tag @CAMBAinc in your post and we’ll retweet!
Many organizations and individuals are already doing their part to make the resettlement process easier. We were thrilled to recently hear that IKEA will be donating 30 beds, with mattresses, pillows, and linens included, to our Refugee Resettlement Program. And CAMBA’s Junior Board showed their determination to make a difference in the lives of refugees by creating a fundraiser on CrowdRise. Supporters like these both enrich the work that we do and ensure that, together, we can provide refugees with the means to have safe and stable lives.
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CAMBA connects New Yorkers to opportunities through its dedicated staff, who are trained to provide solutions to the biggest challenges of life in New York. Visit CAMBA’s 40th Anniversary website and join us in our 2020 Vision Campaign to provide services to young people throughout the city.
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