“I continue to struggle to see why this conflict is not creating more humanitarian action,” said Basma Alawee, Deputy Executive Director of Community Sponsorship Hub, at the 2024 Aurora Dialogues Online event titled “Finding Refuge: Inspiring Everyday Humanitarian Action,” organized by the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative in partnership with RefugePoint on June 20, 2024, World Refugee Day.
The list of panelists also included Jamila Afghani, 2022 Aurora Prize Laureate and President of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Afghanistan, and Sophie Beau, Aurora Expert Panel Member and Co-Founder of SOS MEDITERRANEE. The event was moderated by Sasha Chanoff, Aurora Expert Panel Member and Founder and Executive Director of RefugePoint.
The discussion opened with remarks by Armine Afeyan, Executive Director of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, who reminisced on her family’s history and its impact on her commitment to the humanitarian movement. “Today is World Refugee Day. It’s a day that holds significant personal importance. I’ve realized sometime in the last few years that I’m the first in my family in over 100 years to move voluntarily – between the Armenian Genocide 100 years ago, followed by Soviet rule coming in when my grandfather was in Bulgaria, followed by the Lebanese civil war that drove my father’s generation, his family, to Canada,” said Ms. Afeyan. “I’ve realized that I have the immense privilege of being able to move freely.”
Jamila Afghani, 2022 Aurora Prize Laureate and President of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) Afghanistan, also knows firsthand what it means to be a refugee, having been forced to leave her home country several times, most recently in 2021. Despite her displacement, she continues helping Afghan women at a distance through the Noor Educational and Capacity Development Organization she founded. “With what is happening in Afghanistan, we are trying, through our organization, to reduce, a little bit, the chaotic situation there. We are providing community-based home schools where we provide psychosocial wellness and educational activities for Afghan girls to remain active, continue their studies, and remain healthier with all this depression and all this suffocating environment in which they are living,” explained Ms. Afghani.
When talking about her fight helping migrants, Sophie Beau, Aurora Expert Panel Member and Co-Founder of SOS MEDITERRANEE, highlighted the additional challenges faced specifically by women on their harrowing journey towards safety. “15% of the people we rescued were women, who are real heroes, because on these very, very dangerous roads they are taking, it’s always more dangerous for women than for men. They are at risk for sexual harassment and slavery on top of all other difficulties that all these people are facing,” noted Ms. Beau. She also highlighted the heartbreaking reality of refugees being detained in formal and informal migration centers in Libya while the world seems to have forgotten about them: “People are facing such horrific conditions in Libya, which is what they call – it’s not my words, it’s their words – ‘The Libyan Hell.’”
“For me, it’s just really sad that, while we are seeing the increase in numbers of people with forced displacement, we are also seeing more hate, and more closing borders, and closing policies that really eliminate people from moving,” said Basma Alawee, Deputy Executive Director of Community Sponsorship Hub. “And I think that, for me, is really a struggle and a challenge, because when we, as communities and humanitarians, see more crises, we need more action and more community members opening their homes.”
Summing up the discussion, moderator Sasha Chanoff, Aurora Expert Panel Member and Founder and Executive Director of RefugePoint, pointed out that the refugee crisis, sadly, was unlikely to subside in the nearest future, so more support should be provided to the individuals and organizations that address it. “When people flee their home and country, they often don’t return home for 20 years or even longer. This calls into question the need to support people now, because the World Food Program and other large aid agencies are losing funding. That means more and more people are going to risk their lives to try to find some place safe. Aurora Prize is creating opportunities for people to do that,” said Mr. Chanoff.