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PWRDF: A 65-Year Commitment to Refugees

Founded in 1959 by General Synod, one year after Anglicans across Canada responded to a mining disaster in Springhill, N.S., PWRDF has always had a mandate to support those who were forced to flee their homes. In 1960, it launched its first annual appeal and raised approximately $160,000. Of that, $100,000 was designated to respond to refugee needs globally when the United Nations marked that same year as World Refugee Year.

Since then, PWRDF has supported refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) throughout the world, as well as accompanying the refugee sponsorship work carried out by 15 Anglican dioceses in Canada and the advocacy work of the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), of which PWRDF is a member.

Working with locally based and international partners, PWRDF has supported a wide range of projects over the years. A few examples include:

  • Advocacy with and support for Salvadoran refugees in Honduras and Guatemalan refugees in Mexico during Central America’s civil wars of the 1980s, and accompaniment of their subsequent returns to their countries of origin.
  • Self-help and livelihood initiatives with Sri Lankan refugees who for decades have lived in camps in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, carried out together with their own development organization, the Organization for Eelam Refugee Rehabilitation (OfERR).
  • Reproductive health and food security programs in the massive Kakuma refugee camp in northern Kenya in collaboration with the National Council of Churches of Kenya (NCC).
  • Well Baby and Well Child Clinics in Cairo and Alexandria for refugees from Syria, Sudan and South Sudan and elsewhere, through Refuge Egypt, a ministry of All Saints Cathedral, Cairo.

In recent years PWRDF has worked through the ACT Alliance and the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB) to support refugees displaced from Syria to neighbouring countries and with IDPs in Syria. These ecumenical alliances have also worked together in South Sudan and the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Most recently, PWRDF has collaborated with Church World Service Africa and CFGB to support food security work with refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in Nyarugusu refugee camp in Tanzania, and has been part of ACT Alliance work with Ukrainian and regional relief and development agencies in response to the displacement caused by the Russian war on Ukraine.

As it did in 1960, PWRDF is designating the funds raised through our third annual Wild Ride, to support refugees and IDPs. The Wild Ride will be launched on World Refugee Day (June 20) and continue through to the Thanksgiving weekend, October 14. The Wild Ride is PWRDF’s peer to peer fundraising campaign where you can walk, ride, sing, knit or read to support PWRDF’s work with refugees and internally displaced people. “Put your stamp on it” by turning your passion into fundraising for a great cause. For further information, please contact Kim Umbach [email protected] or 416-924-9199 ext. 367.