20 June 2007
U.S. Program Focuses on Education for Children of Iraqi Refugees
State's Sauerbrey cites refugees' hunger for education
Washington – A new State Department-funded effort will focus on helping at least 100,000 Iraqi children of refugees from the violence in Iraq get back into school by fall, and a new summer readiness program will help those who need to prepare for regular school.
"The hunger for education among refugees is a force of nature," said Ellen Sauerbrey, the State Department's top refugee official and a former teacher.
"In my visits to refugee schools I have been deeply moved by the evident thirst for knowledge and motivation," Sauerbrey said at a breakfast event hosted by the Women's Foreign Policy Group on June 20, World Refugee Day. Sauerbrey is assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration.
Sauerbrey traveled to Syria, Jordan and Egypt in March to assess and accelerate the U.S. response to the deepening plight of perhaps more than a million Iraqi civilians fleeing sectarian violence in Iraq. The new program will focus on Iraqi refugee children in those three nations.
"I was particularly sad to see so many thousands, [of] Iraqi children out of school," she said. Some of their parents wanted to keep a low profile for fear of deportation; others simply couldn’t afford tuition. These children are Iraq’s future, she said.
"I want these children to be able to pick up textbooks and prepare for a future in their homeland," she said.
Moreover, Sauerbrey said, providing education for boys and girls, and keeping girls in school longer than is traditional in many societies, "provides a way out of despair and an avenue of hope.
"So it is wonderful to see the bright eyes of the children in the classrooms of the refugee schools," she said.
Sauerbrey said there are as many as 10 million refugees throughout the world. Those who have been richly blessed have a duty to respond to their needs, she said.
"This is rooted in the Muslim traditions of protecting the stranger, and in the injunctions of the Hebrew prophets to care for the widows and orphans," she said. "This applies on an individual level and on a national level. As Secretary [of State Condoleezza] Rice has said, 'as a wealthy nation, we have an obligation to help those in need.'"
Despite the substantial U.S. refugee aid budget, refugee funding often is depleted by the sheer size and scope of the conflicts and disasters, Sauerbrey said.
"When forced to choose between ensuring adequate food, health care and clean water or providing vocational training and even basic literacy classes to refugees, for example, it is obvious that keeping people alive has to come first," Sauerbrey said. But it hurts when more can’t be done than just keep people alive, she added.
Sauerbrey also announced the creation of the International Fund for Refugee Women and Children. (See related article.)
The fund will receive donations from private citizens and businesses and will be administered by refugee officials at the State Department. It will focus on educating young people, protecting women and children refugees from gender-focused violence, and giving women work-related skills.
"This is an opportunity for private individuals to contribute, through a fund we administer, to proven organizations that we work with already to provide help and hope to refugee women and children," she said. The fund will provide a mechanism for anyone -- from young students who are inspired to hold a car wash to raise money for refugees, to foundations and corporate donors -- to reach out to meet refugees’ needs, Sauerbrey said.
More information about the International Fund for Refugee Women and Children is available on the State Department Web site. Sauerbrey also participated in a policy podcast on refugees June 19; a transcript is available on the State Department Web site.
For further information about U.S. refugee policy, see Humanitarian Assistance and Refugees.
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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