WORLD RELIEF

NEWS RELEASE

7 East Baltimore Street, Baltimore, MD 21202 http://www.worldrelief.org

World Refugee Day Marked by the Plight of Children World Relief Focuses on the Vulnerability of Young Somali Bantus

BALTIMORE, June 19, 2003- Imagine being driven from your home by war, terror or persecution; walking for hundreds of miles and forced to live in a strange country where you’re ostracized and abused; sleeping on the ground without shelter in severe weather without food or water. Now, imagine your children having these experiences.

This is reality for many of the estimated 7.7 million refugee children and youth worldwide. It is the plight of these innocents that the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is highlighting on World Refugee Day, Friday, June 20.

This year, World Relief is especially concerned with the plight of Somali Bantu children. Approximately 60 percent of the 12,000 Bantus earmarked to resettle in the U.S. this year are under 17 years of age. After years of living as outcasts in Somalia, then as refugees in Kenya, they will continue to face challenges when they come to the U.S.

Bantu children are particularly vulnerable. Most have never lived with electricity, used a flush toilet, or been exposed to Western living. Less than 5 percent speak English, and most have never attended school and do not read or write in their own language. Many families are eager to have their children attend school, as most of the adults were denied that opportunity in Somalia and remain functionally illiterate in their own language.

Health is also a problem for Bantu children, as meager refugee camp rations of corn, oil and salt have left 19 percent stunted from low birth weights and severe malnutrition.

“We’ve been told that Bantus-especially children-will struggle to make their place in U.S. society,” says Dori Dinsmore, director of World Relief’s Chicago office.

“However, we know that in partnership with churches and volunteers from around the country, we can provide the housing, English classes, job training and other necessities the Bantus need to create a new beginning here in the U.S.”

World Relief is the one of the largest refugee care providers in the U.S. having resettled more than 180,000 refugees in 24 years. Other World Relief programs include disaster relief, AIDS ministries, urban ministries, community health, agricultural development and community banking.