Refugees
As a child growing up in Parchment, Michigan, I remember our community adopting a refugee family from Latvia. We were fascinated to think that they had to learn our language and way of living and we were eager to understand their stories and customs. After we left Parchment, my path never seemed to join that of refugees again nor did the word come into conversations until I came to Geneva, Switzerland.
When Mrs. Sadako Ogata became the High Commissioner (1991-2000) of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), I was privileged to serve on a council of local leaders who she invited to become involved with the UNHCR in order to promote a realistic understanding of both the plight and contributions of refugees within the Swiss and international communities. Mrs. Ogata personally moved us to understand the multiple issues at play. When you are forced out of your home with only the clothes on your back and join the hundreds of thousands seeking refuge in the UNHCR camps, you are grateful that such an organization exists with the extensive logistics behind it. And yet, your deepest hope is to return to your own home.
The most moving picture that I can share to represent the plight of the refugee is an event planned for the 50th anniversary of the UNHCR in Geneva. Thousands of floating candles were placed in the Rhone River that flows out of Lake Geneva. It wasn’t possible to represent the 40 million refugees in the world, but the image was moving. As the candles floated, some would capsize and disappear, others would break off in little clusters and then split up once again, while yet others would find themselves alone with their light flickering. It is a picture that stays with me as I think of what trials refugees experience and the courage they prove.
As we look at the meaning of Age Esteem, I believe that refugees offer us an important lesson. No matter where we go, what trials we meet, the obstacles in our path or the need to leave the past behind and move on we will have to count on our own inner resources to meet each new day with hope and the understanding that what is most important is within us. Refugees such as Einstein and Madelaine Albright who have had only their know-how and will power as baggage teach us a powerful lesson. We too can contribute our skills and knowledge to make this a better world with however little we may have.
Geneva is home to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) established in 1951 to give legal, social, economic, and political aid to refugees. The UNHCR is the successor of the International Refugee Organization whose first efforts focused on Europeans displaced by World War II. It has since assisted refugees in multiple countries globally. It is financed by voluntary government contributions. The office won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1954 and 1981.
