Standing with refugees

For 20 years, Australia for UNHCR has been asking Australians to imagine what it is like to be a refugee.

To be forced from your home and run for your life; to be separated from everything and everyone you hold dear; to not know what tomorrow or any day after has in store for you.

Over the past two decades, we have supported UNHCR in every major emergency, including Afghanistan, Horn of Africa, Syria, South Sudan, Central America, Yemen and Bangladesh.

We have delivered more sustainable support to refugees and their host communities, such as the first ever secondary school and computer centre in Nakivale refugee settlement in Uganda.

Today, we are witnessing an unprecedented era of global displacement. Ultimately political solutions must be found. In the meantime, we will continue supporting refugees and asking Australians to not only imagine a world where everyone has a safe place to call home but to act NOW to achieve this.

PROTECTION

For those who are stateless or forced to flee without identity papers, UNHCR provides documentation and legal support and negotiates with governments to give families access to livelihoods, healthcare and education.

Nazmun, 19, decided to enrol in a course to become a facilitator after taking some classes at a UNHCR-supported temporary learning centre. She is now one of the more than 1,300 people who have been recruited, trained and deployed with UNHCR and its partners to lead classes in the refugee camps.

“Here, we don’t have that fear. We can stay here safely.”
- Nazmun

Nazmun teaches a class in the Kutupalong camp, Cox’s Bazar. ©UNHCR/V.Tremeau

Nazmun was midway through high school when she and her family fled from Myanmar to neighbouring Bangladesh, arriving homeless and soaked by the monsoon rains. ©UNHCR/V.Tremeau

DIGNITY

Since our inception, Australia for UNHCR has supported initiatives that foster refugee empowerment, dignity and self-reliance. Many of these programs focus on the needs and rights of women and girls, involving them in decision-making and ensuring them access to education, livelihood opportunities, legal protection and reproductive healthcare.

In recent years, we have provided thousands of refugees across the Middle East with direct cash assistance which has allowed families to determine and prioritise their needs. For Syrian refugee Fatmeh, cash assistance has helped her pay for radiotherapy treatment for her two-year-old son, Loay, who was diagnosed with bladder cancer.

“The cash assistance is literally what's keeping my son alive.”
- Fatmeh

Syrian woman Fatmeh is a mother of eight children. She has been living as a refugee in Jordan for the last five years. ©UNHCR / B.Almeras

Loay, 2, was diagnosed with bladder cancer. UNHCR's cash assistance has helped provide treatment for his illness. ©UNHCR / B.Almeras

CARE

Australian donors have been swift to respond to critical food and water shortages arising from conflict, displacement and extreme weather events. We have supported emergency feeding programs for refugees, funded major water projects in refugee camps and funded malaria prevention and child vaccination programs, making a significant contribution in the area of maternal health and neonatal care.

Together, we have made childbirth safer for women in Myanmar, Chad and Somalia by supplying clean delivery kits, funding antenatal services and building new maternity wards and clinics in the DRC.

A UNHCR Food Security and Nutrition Officer feeds a South Sudanese refugee child with plumpy'nut, a nut-like paste packed with nutrients, at the nutrition program Ethiopia's Gambella region. ©Australia for UNHCR

A UNHCR Food Security and Nutrition Officer feeds a South Sudanese refugee child with plumpy'nut, a nut-like paste packed with nutrients, at the nutrition program Ethiopia's Gambella region. Australia for UNHCR

A volunteer nurse administers an injection to a patient at the Inke village healthcare center in Gbadolite, Democratic Republic of Congo. ©Australia for UNHCR

A volunteer nurse administers an injection to a patient at the Inke village healthcare center in Gbadolite, Democratic Republic of Congo. Australia for UNHCR

SAFETY

Australians have helped UNHCR respond to some of the greatest humanitarian emergencies of our time, providing safe passage and life-saving relief for people at the height of crisis.

From coming to the aid of refugees making treacherous journeys over land and sea to assisting those affected by natural disasters, the gifts of our donors have relieved suffering, saved countless lives and provided tonnes of emergency shelter and survival items.

After fleeing Myanmar when their neighbourhood was attacked in 2017, Rahima and her husband Abul arrived in Kutupalong — the world’s largest refugee settlement in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

Despite finding safety in the camps, they were faced with challenging conditions including a lack of infrastructure, inadequate sanitation and the threat of monsoon season. Rahima and her husband lived in fear that heavy monsoon rains and flooding would wash away their home. Their anxieties have eased after they were relocated to a new bamboo-framed shelter on stilts with their three-year-old son Ayaz and his baby brother Arafat.

“I’m not worried about the rains now. We are at peace.”
- Rahima

Rahima says she is no longer worried about the rain after her family was relocated to a new bamboo-framed shelter on stilts. ©UNHCR/V. Tremeau

Australians have helped UNHCR respond to some of the greatest humanitarian emergencies of our time, including the mass exodus of Rohingya from Myanmar. Together we have provided safe passage and lifesaving relief for people at the height of crisis. ©UNHCR/V. Tremeau

Rahima fled Myanmar when her neighbourhood was attacked in August 2017. Their story is similar to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees who have fled the violent military crackdown and crossed the border into Bangladesh over the past three years. ©UNHCR/V. Tremeau

HOPE

Australia for UNHCR has provided new opportunities for young refugees through the provision of education and vocational training. In the Nakivale and Kyaka II refugee settlements in Uganda, we built a secondary school, a computer technology centre and a vocational training centre (VTC), opening doors to further education and employment. Of the 216 young people who are the first graduates of the VTC, almost three-quarters were refugees, the remainder are Ugandan youth like Mercy.

“I acquired social connections through the internship and exposure visits program that helped me keep in touch with potential employers and friends in my new profession," Mercy says.

“The skills and knowledge I acquired from Kyaka VTC helped me change to a more marketable profession within the shortest time possible.”
- Mercy

Students attend a class session in the Vocational Training Centre (VTC) near Juru area of Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Southwest Uganda. ©Australia for UNHCR

THANK YOU

Thank you to the hundreds of thousands of Australians who have contributed to our work. You have provided life-saving help for people fleeing persecution, disaster and conflict and invested in education, health and livelihoods.

In the 20 years since Australia for UNHCR was established, you have achieved so much, and in 2021, we need your support now more than ever. We find ourselves in a world disrupted by pandemic, conflict and climate disaster, where forced displacement is vastly more widespread and increasingly long-term.

We are determined to make a difference in the face of this challenge.

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