Remembrance Day

We call it “Remembrance Day” so we can remember past wars, the freedom they brought us and those who fought for that freedom.
Unfortunately, for too many people in the world today, November 11 is not a day to remember; it’s another day lived in fear, desperation and fleeing for safety. There are still wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; conflict in Congo and Somalia, Sudan and Sri Lanka.
And every conflict produces refugees — people who are no longer safe in their own lands.
In Pakistan, because of recent attacks by Taliban insurgents and the  subsequent military operation, three million people have fled their homes in the mountainous north, including Waziristan and the Swat Valley, for relative peace in the central plains. They are internally displaced peoples (IDPs), or “refugees in their own country,” says Shama Mall, deputy director for Church World Service—Pakistan/Afghanistan.
They’ve walked for many kilometres, leaving behind belongings and even family members, says Mall, who has heard many sad stories. One man left behind a special-needs child who would have slowed down the family’s movement to safety. “He was hoping he could return in a few days.” Others left family members behind to tend livestock. “Then they couldn’t go back for two or three months. It happened to a lot of people.”
Mall, whose agency partners with The Primate’s World Relief and Development Fund, visited Canada in late October to share stories and attend meetings with the Presbyterian World Service and Development (PWS&D) committee. Her firsthand knowledge of the situation in Pakistan brings shocking clarity to how desperate life is for millions of people there.
Mountain people have to adjust to the much hotter temperatures of the plains, she points out. In 40-plus Celsius weather, the tents supplied by aid agencies and the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) “are becoming like ovens,” which is especially difficult for the women, who traditionally stay indoors. They live in “very difficult circumstances. The government wasn’t prepared for all these displaced people,” including some 60,000 pregnant women.
Many other displaced people are hosted by relatives, whose hospitality is spread thin. It’s not uncommon for a family to have 25 people living in one room. Then the families also have to feed those extra mouths, even though they’re poor themselves.
CWS-P/A is focusing on those families, providing food as well as shelter. But there are other, long-term needs: health, education, farm recovery when it is safe to go back home. Although a million and a half people have now gone back, their businesses and farms are destroyed, their schools torn down. “Many of these people have lost their livelihood. The needs are huge.”
And now there’s a new wave of displaced people coming down from Waziristan. Others “refuse to go back because it’s not secure.”
PWRDF’s role in crises such as this is both immediate and long-term. Partnering with Canadian Foodgrains Bank and Action by Churches Together (ACT), PWRDF contributes food and cash.
But what of refugees who simply cannot go back home? PWRDF supports programs — health, income-generating — run by partners in refugee camps in places like India and Kenya, where people displaced from other countries have lived for years and even decades.
PWRDF also does advocacy work on behalf of refugees. For example, a recent letter went to Immigration minister Jason Kenney about the Palestinian refugees in Iraq, asking our government to take action to resettle some.
Although there has been no positive response to that letter, says Carolyn Vanderlip, 50th Anniversary Program Facilitator, Anglican churches are helping out by privately sponsoring families living in the Iraqi camps.
“We also support our refugee network, which includes the refugee coordinators in the dioceses whose ministries include sponsoring refugees and advocacy on refugee issues,” Vanderlip says. While PWRDF does not sponsor refugees directly, many of the dioceses in Canada hold agreements with the federal government that allow them to privately sponsor families. PWRDF has a goal of facilitating the sponsorship of 50 families in honour of its 50th anniversary this year.
Helping people who have been uprooted from their homes, whether they are internally displaced such as in Pakistan or have fled to Kenya from Somalia or Thailand from Burma, is something that takes us back to our Christian roots, says Vanderlip. “It’s important to remember that Jesus himself was a refugee,” she points out. The Bible talks about sheltering the homeless and welcoming the stranger and parishes live this out in a real way when they sponsor refugees to begin new lives in Canada.