Education for refugees, support for host countries and personal accounts of those forced to flee their homes should be the focus of the second Global Refugee Forum this week, says UNHCR goodwill ambassador Cate Blanchett.
Politicians, diplomats, charities, businesses and refugees gather in Geneva from December 13 to 15 for what the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) calls the world’s largest international refugee summit. The event is held every four years.
Joining them will be Blanchett, who has traveled to Jordan, Niger and South Sudan this year as part of her humanitarian role.
“It’s important to focus on the education quadrant and really support the host communities,” Blanchett told Reuters.
“The other thing is that the (United Nations) Sustainable Development Goals will be considered a failure unless refugees are at the center of them, so I think it will be very important for people to hear the voices of refugees themselves about what they need and how they can be part of the solutions.”
Conflict, poverty and climate change have caused a record 114 million people to leave their homes around the world, the UNHCR said in October, as Western governments are under increasing pressure at home to get tougher on applicants for asylum, with some considering schemes to deport them.
“There are overlapping reasons why people move, and so we need … to find places where we have sophisticated adult conversations that are compassionate and humane,” Blanchett said.
The two-time Oscar-winning actress was named UNHCR’s goodwill ambassador in 2016, a role that includes supporting, fundraising and meeting refugees in different countries.
Source: CNN Brasil
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