From Australia through ancient Rome to the Americas, people around the globe will take part in the most ambitious and spectacular World Refugee Day (WRD) celebrations ever over the coming week.
With "Protection" as this year's global theme, UNHCR and its partners, including governments, donors, non-governmental organizations, Angelina Jolie and other Goodwill Ambassadors and refugees themselves, will stage a wide range of activities, including light shows, photography exhibitions, film festivals, lectures, panel discussions, food bazaars, fashion shows, concerts and sports competitions.
There will also be quizzes, drawing and essay-writing competitions, tree planting, seminars, workshops, speeches, public awareness campaigns and poetry recitals, while UNHCR will recreate refugee camp life in around 20 capitals around the world.
Aside from these showcase events aimed at raising money and awareness in major cities and donor nations, more modest but equally enthusiastic events are planned at refugee camps and settlements for internally displaced people in the run up to World Refugee Day and on the day itself, June 20.
High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres will start his celebrations on Tuesday in London's iconic Trafalgar Square, which will be turned into a refugee camp for a day to highlight the plight of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by conflict in Sudan's Darfur region. The world's largest packet delivery company, UPS, has generously transported for free the four tents that will nestle under Nelson's Column as well as those to be displayed in other cities.
Guterres will formally open "Experience Darfur" before releasing UNHCR's eagerly awaited annual statistics on the number of refugees, internally displaced people and other people of concern to the agency. The Trafalgar Square exhibit will include interactive games, recreated villages and refugee camps, and exhibits of relief items, including blankets, kitchen sets, plastic sheeting, soap, buckets and clean, safe and environmentally friendly stoves.
The High Commissioner will spend World Refugee Day itself attending a ceremony at the University of Nairobi after visiting Somali refugees in north-east Kenya on Wednesday and internally displaced Kenyans the following day.
Back in Europe, a colloquium of female refugees, politicians, civil activists and business leaders will gather on WRD at the Musée Galliera in Paris to discuss the state of refugee women in Syria, Burundi and France. Also on Friday, the results of an essay competition for journalism students will be announced on June 20 by the co-organizers, UNHCR and Le Monde, with the winner getting to spend a week in the field with the refugee agency.
Elsewhere in Europe, Rome's fabled Colosseum will be illuminated on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights with the UNHCR logo and the legend: "Protecting refugees is a duty. Being protected is a right." In keeping with annual tradition, the soaring Jet d'Eau (water jet) in Swiss city, Geneva, will be bathed in blue light to mark WRD.
In Spain, UNHCR will highlight the importance of education with the launch of the Spanish-language version of its interactive web-based game, "Against All Odds," on Friday at Madrid's Caixa Forum Museum. On Tuesday, meanwhile, a WRD-linked photography exhibition on Darfur and Chad will open in the city of Valencia. Work by UNHCR's Helen Caux will feature alongside images by photographers from the prestigious Magnum and VII agencies.
Another evocative photographic exhibition, "Do You See What I See," is scheduled to open at Geneva's Palais des Nations, the UN's European headquarters, as well as in Yemen and Namibia. Refugee children in Yemen's Kharaz camp and Osire camp in Namibia have documented their lives, hopes and dreams through text and image.
In the Middle East, an exciting WRD programme is lined up for Syria, kicking off at the Opera House in Damascus on Monday with a charity concert by acclaimed Iraqi oud (lute) player, Naseer Shamma, to raise money for UNHCR's Iraqi refugee programme, which faces a funding crisis.
In the Americas, meanwhile, the winners of the second World Refugee Day essay contest for high school students will be announced on June 20 in Mexico City's Chapultepec Castle. Students taking part in the contest, co-organized by UNHCR, must write on the integration of urban refugees.
UNHCR's Deputy High Commissioner L. Craig Johnstone will lead World Refugee Day celebrations in the United States, attending a public ceremony and a film screening at the National Geographic Museum in Washington D.C. Johnstone will also present a Humanitarian of the Year Award to Sudan-born Chicago Bulls basketball star Luol Deng. The former refugee has in the past year become a key supporter of UNHCR's ninemillion.org campaign, which promotes education and sport for refugee children.
Other celebrity supporters of UNHCR in the United States will be helping to promote the theme of protection. A special message from UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie will be released on video-sharing website YouTube around the world next Wednesday, while Deng will invite YouTubers and Facebook users to join an online campaign to "Give Refugees a Hand."
The messages by Jolie and Deng are examples of how UNHCR is using social utilities and new media to reach out to the online community and to get people involved.
Meanwhile best-selling author Khaled Hosseini, a goodwill envoy to UNHCR in the United States, will take part in a discussion on his homeland of Afghanistan with a distinguished panel of experts and opinion leaders in San Francisco. The work of photographer Zalmaï, another former Afghan refugee who will soon publish a book on Iraqi refugees with UNHCR support, will be featured in a special New York exhibition.
Join UNHCR and celebrate World Refugee Day around the globe.
To learn more please visit:
UNHCR Home page
World Refugee Day - UNHCR
UNHCR Shelter Campaign
UNHCR's YouTube Channel
With "Protection" as this year's global theme, UNHCR and its partners, including governments, donors, non-governmental organizations, Angelina Jolie and other Goodwill Ambassadors and refugees themselves, will stage a wide range of activities, including light shows, photography exhibitions, film festivals, lectures, panel discussions, food bazaars, fashion shows, concerts and sports competitions.
There will also be quizzes, drawing and essay-writing competitions, tree planting, seminars, workshops, speeches, public awareness campaigns and poetry recitals, while UNHCR will recreate refugee camp life in around 20 capitals around the world.
Aside from these showcase events aimed at raising money and awareness in major cities and donor nations, more modest but equally enthusiastic events are planned at refugee camps and settlements for internally displaced people in the run up to World Refugee Day and on the day itself, June 20.
High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres will start his celebrations on Tuesday in London's iconic Trafalgar Square, which will be turned into a refugee camp for a day to highlight the plight of hundreds of thousands of people displaced by conflict in Sudan's Darfur region. The world's largest packet delivery company, UPS, has generously transported for free the four tents that will nestle under Nelson's Column as well as those to be displayed in other cities.
Guterres will formally open "Experience Darfur" before releasing UNHCR's eagerly awaited annual statistics on the number of refugees, internally displaced people and other people of concern to the agency. The Trafalgar Square exhibit will include interactive games, recreated villages and refugee camps, and exhibits of relief items, including blankets, kitchen sets, plastic sheeting, soap, buckets and clean, safe and environmentally friendly stoves.
The High Commissioner will spend World Refugee Day itself attending a ceremony at the University of Nairobi after visiting Somali refugees in north-east Kenya on Wednesday and internally displaced Kenyans the following day.
Back in Europe, a colloquium of female refugees, politicians, civil activists and business leaders will gather on WRD at the Musée Galliera in Paris to discuss the state of refugee women in Syria, Burundi and France. Also on Friday, the results of an essay competition for journalism students will be announced on June 20 by the co-organizers, UNHCR and Le Monde, with the winner getting to spend a week in the field with the refugee agency.
Elsewhere in Europe, Rome's fabled Colosseum will be illuminated on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday nights with the UNHCR logo and the legend: "Protecting refugees is a duty. Being protected is a right." In keeping with annual tradition, the soaring Jet d'Eau (water jet) in Swiss city, Geneva, will be bathed in blue light to mark WRD.
In Spain, UNHCR will highlight the importance of education with the launch of the Spanish-language version of its interactive web-based game, "Against All Odds," on Friday at Madrid's Caixa Forum Museum. On Tuesday, meanwhile, a WRD-linked photography exhibition on Darfur and Chad will open in the city of Valencia. Work by UNHCR's Helen Caux will feature alongside images by photographers from the prestigious Magnum and VII agencies.
Another evocative photographic exhibition, "Do You See What I See," is scheduled to open at Geneva's Palais des Nations, the UN's European headquarters, as well as in Yemen and Namibia. Refugee children in Yemen's Kharaz camp and Osire camp in Namibia have documented their lives, hopes and dreams through text and image.
In the Middle East, an exciting WRD programme is lined up for Syria, kicking off at the Opera House in Damascus on Monday with a charity concert by acclaimed Iraqi oud (lute) player, Naseer Shamma, to raise money for UNHCR's Iraqi refugee programme, which faces a funding crisis.
In the Americas, meanwhile, the winners of the second World Refugee Day essay contest for high school students will be announced on June 20 in Mexico City's Chapultepec Castle. Students taking part in the contest, co-organized by UNHCR, must write on the integration of urban refugees.
UNHCR's Deputy High Commissioner L. Craig Johnstone will lead World Refugee Day celebrations in the United States, attending a public ceremony and a film screening at the National Geographic Museum in Washington D.C. Johnstone will also present a Humanitarian of the Year Award to Sudan-born Chicago Bulls basketball star Luol Deng. The former refugee has in the past year become a key supporter of UNHCR's ninemillion.org campaign, which promotes education and sport for refugee children.
Other celebrity supporters of UNHCR in the United States will be helping to promote the theme of protection. A special message from UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie will be released on video-sharing website YouTube around the world next Wednesday, while Deng will invite YouTubers and Facebook users to join an online campaign to "Give Refugees a Hand."
The messages by Jolie and Deng are examples of how UNHCR is using social utilities and new media to reach out to the online community and to get people involved.
Meanwhile best-selling author Khaled Hosseini, a goodwill envoy to UNHCR in the United States, will take part in a discussion on his homeland of Afghanistan with a distinguished panel of experts and opinion leaders in San Francisco. The work of photographer Zalmaï, another former Afghan refugee who will soon publish a book on Iraqi refugees with UNHCR support, will be featured in a special New York exhibition.
Join UNHCR and celebrate World Refugee Day around the globe.
To learn more please visit:
UNHCR Home page
World Refugee Day - UNHCR
UNHCR Shelter Campaign
UNHCR's YouTube Channel
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