We took a trip to Jordan with a group of students with a variety of backgrounds in the nonprofit sector. Several students had present work in refugee service organizations, including Heartland Alliance , World Relief, and Catholic Charities. The definition of a refugee includes those peoples that fear for themselves in being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, and membership of a particular social group or political opinion. A person in this situation is considered a refugee because they are unwilling or able to return to their home country. Learning about the challenges on the U.S. side of refugee relations as compared to refugee populations and service organizations in-country allowed us to preview a perspective on the challenges, successes, and gaps in the situation of refugees who navigate a complex system. According to our classmates, 2,500 refugees are settled each year in Illinois. In the United States, 80,000 refugees are allowed to enter the United States a year. Many of these refugees are Palestinian or Iraqi. Some of these issues that face service managers in refugee organizations include lack of funding for the organizations who serve refugees, lack of funding for refugees entering the U.S., and lack of a unified, informative system to prepare and resettle refugees in the United States. Another issue involved the minuscule amount of background information received by the refugee service worker in the U.S.
Refugee service workers understand that there are numerous barriers presented to a refugee from any given area of the world, and they experience these challenges as well. A refugee becomes integrated at any time into 3 societies. They have their home country, a 2nd country (often temporarily), and then finally, they experience the shock of becoming permanently resettled in a 3rd country. Many of these refugees come from a variety of social, economic, and educational backgrounds, making the barriers to employment even more challenging. While many refugees from areas such as Iraq often have high educational backgrounds, they often cannot be placed into high paying careers due to their refugee status. Medical doctors from Iraq, for instance, must complete a long, expensive certification process to be accepted by the medical community in the U.S. Refugees experiencing culture shock find themselves going trough a range of emotions: elation, fear, anxiety, disappointment, and sometimes angry and grief.
In order to understand the challenges faced by refugees, it is first important to understand how the refugee navigates the system of receiving their status and how they end up to be in a 2nd or 3rd country. The United States High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was created on January 1, 1951 in order to help assist refugees who were displaced during World War II. With the realization of a burgeoning refugee population from countries in and outside of Europe, the agency set as its mission to aid refugees worldwide. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), another UN agency, was a mandate created in December 1949 to offer aid relief to Palestinian refugees who were displaced during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Both agencies continue to work for the protection and assistance of refugees in Jordan. They also face numerous funding challenges and availability of resources to aid refugees. These organizations assist the refugee through numerous interviews, security background checks, medical check-ups, and paperwork completion.
During our trip we had the opportunity to visit the UNHCR, UNWRA, and also the International Organization for Migration, or IOM. Our visits brought to light the obstacles the agencies have in dealing with economic and natural resource stresses and how it relates to the refugee situation. In Jordan, a country in the middle “of the Middle East” as Dr. Tavanti stated, is in a strategic yet difficult geographical location. They have accepted Palestinian refugees on an ideological and cultural stance to help their Arab brothers and sisters for nearly 60 years. They have also invited Iraqi refugees into the country as of 2003, but have not granted them refugee status, but instead refer to Iraqis as “guests”. This important reference is a symbol of the stresses that have put all refugees in a very delicate position in Jordan. The country has a population of nearly 6 million people, will have by 2001 nearly ½ million refugees of Iraqi and other descent. In addition, the UNHCR has registered almost 1 million Palestinian refugees. The fact that a large population of the country consists of refugees, Jordan has been searching for ways to support such a population even though there is a severe water and natural resource shortage, and that most of their income comes from international aid.
The system that a refugee faces when registering for resettlement is complicated, bureaucratic, and often overwhelming. Our experience visiting the IOM, an organization that works in partnership with UNHCR, was unique and eye opening. The organization believes that refugees should experience a humane migration, that their dignity and well-being should be a priority, and that social and economic development should be encouraged. This organization, like may others have been facing the challenges of staff shortage to deal with the increasing number of refugee interviews for Iraqi citizens, they receive irregular UNHCR referrals due to different fiscal years, and they receive unpredictable delays of the granting of Visas for refugees who sometimes wait for months or years for them. The difficulty in obtaining comprehensive information and preparatory trainings for the refugees seriously affects the service they receive at U.S. refugee organizations. As I noted before, monetary restraints and pressures to find a job within a short period make it difficult to settle refugees quickly. Often times, they are not fully prepared by the UN agencies or organizations because of a difficult process. The IOM tries to prepare refugees for the realities in the settling country, but it is often difficult to fully prepare individuals for resettlement.
Finally, it is these factors that one must take into account when understanding what it means to be a refugee and also what it means to be a service manager in the field. Advocacy and lobbying are an important part of what can change the system for refugees. These organizations and agencies rely heavily on international governmental funding. Uneven and unpredictable funding during certain time periods restrains organizations for the full preparation that goes into resettlement whether it is psychological, physical, economic or social. Workers in this field are often pushed to their limits of aid and face these aspects of culture shock and trauma. Further improvement of the system of evaluating refugee needs, securing steady funding for programs, improving intercultural and psychological preparedness trainings, and providing adequate training to refugee service managers can further improve the system. In the case of Jordan, and the Middle East, the United States and European Nations must address these challenges and find solutions as they are an integral part to refugee resettlement.
Naomi Czerwinskyj IPS Jordan Trip Summer 2010
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