World Refugee Day

Friday, June 20th marked World Refugee Day. Refugees are close to the heart of those of us at Crossroads, since many refugees reside in Hong Kong, and quite a few work alongside us as volunteers. We decided to hold an awareness event to commemorate the day as well as educate those in our community about the struggles and challenges faced daily by refugees. The UNHCR (UN Refugee Agency) in Hong Kong was only too happy to partner with us.

So where to start?

An award-winning children’s choir was beginning a six week world tour in Hong Kong. Warren, the director, is a good friend of our organisation’s and was only too happy to slate his choir in to perform at our event.

Next, and most special to me, we have a resident singer/songwriter on our team here named Helen Mottee. She and her music are just plain amazing. She has spent significant time working in different parts of the world with refugees, orphans, AIDS victims, and all kinds of other disadvantaged, and voiceless, people. Her songs reflect the experiences she has had, and she uses her songs to speak for these people. They’re really beautiful, amazing songs. Helen recently finished an album entitled “Letters from the Fifth Estate.” It features quite an international array of other performers as well, and is just beautiful. So, all of this to say, we slated her to sing at our event as well, which wasn’t too hard since she works here and loves us.

So, we had all these things in place, and needed to throw in a few short speeches. One of our directors, Sal, spoke on the refugee situation in the world, particularly speaking about the internally displaced people (IDPs) in Sichuan. The head of UNHCR for China and Malaysia also gave a brief speech, and we showed Angelina Jolie’s video message (she is the Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, for those who don’t know), which is maybe a whole of 20 seconds. We also showed a six minute film entitled “Mapendo” about a woman named Rose Mapendo, who suffered at the hands of the invading Rwandan army in the 90s, and the brief film is her story of struggle and victory.

So, I’ve been working like a crazy person for months to pull this event off. It required all kinds of manpower. We had to erect a tent 40 meters by 15 meters (which is HUGE) and took our guys an entire day to construct. We then put up four UNHCR issue refugee tents they loaned us.

We here at Crossroads are really big on themes, and taking them to the max. We wanted the event to feel like a refugee camp. So, we situated the smaller UNHCR tents so they felt more camp-like. We have a very multi-national, multi-cultural team here, so we asked them to dress and speak in their native cultures. We also had two ladies, clad in scarves and long dresses, forcing guests to sign a registry before entering the camp. Once in the camp, the rest of our ethnic team was carting around all kinds of goodies to eat that they had made. We had Africans, Indians, Malaysians, Mongolians, and many other nationalities represented. We also had tradespeople selling handicrafts out of the rest of the tents.

And before people even came in to park for the event, we had team members dressed as soldiers (don’t worry, we alerted local police so no one got arrested!) checking “IDs” (invitations) before allowing anyone in to park or come through the gate. This really caught people off guard. One guy was fumbling to pull out his passport, unsure of what was happening. It was great! (No one was upset by this, which was a relief! They just took it as good fun once they realized what was going on.)

After guests made it through the gate, signed in to the camp, and chowed on some ethnic treats, they were ushered by “aid workers” into the big tent. We had our speakers, the choir performed, and we ended with Helen’s performance.

At the end, I can’t tell you how many people came up to us, telling us how the event had opened their eyes and hearts to hear the voices of countless refugees who need their voices heard. I couldn’t get over what an impact it made to these people. It was an amazing event (300 attended!), and I am so, so grateful to have been a part of it. Sure, it’s great resume-wise to say “I did this!” but even greater is knowing that people’s minds were changed, their compassion was stirred, and hopefully the images, feelings, and words will stick with them for a long time.

REFUGEE: a person who flees for refuge or safety, esp. to a foreign country, as in time of political upheaval, war, etc.

INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSON (IDP): people forced to flee their homes but who, unlike refugees, remain within their country's borders

ASYLUM SEEKER: Until a request for refuge has been accepted, the person is referred to as an asylum seeker. Only after the recognition of the asylum seeker's protection needs, he or she is officially referred to as a refugee and enjoys refugee status, which carries certain rights and obligations according to the legislation of the receiving country.