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Voices in the News - Iraqi Refugees, Abuses of Families in Detention, "Amazing" IRC, More...


December 17, 2007
By The IRC
Iraqi Refugees in Jordan Iraqi refugee family in Jordan Photo: Melissa Winkler/The IRC
-  Nation magazine columnist and author Katha Pollitt listed the IRC as one of 13 “amazing” groups that Nation readers should donate to this holiday season in her Dec. 31 column. “This venerable NGO assists [Iraqi refugees] in Jordan … where many are living in desperate conditions, and will soon expand to Syria and northern Iraq,” Pollitt wrote. -  USA Today reported Sunday on a fundraising party held for the IRC in Los Angeles on Dec. 8. The party, held at the home of Grant Heslov, a writing partner of actor George Clooney, and his wife, Lisa, attracted an A-list of celebrities for “some backyard shopping to raise money for the International Rescue Committee’s efforts to save the refugees of Darfur.” -  The Associated Press interviewed Michelle Brané, director of the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children’s detention and asylum program, about the case of an 8-year old immigrant child who was separated from her pregnant mother at the T. Don Hutto Family Residential Facility in Central Texas. Brané and the Women's Commission have documented abuses of immigrant families at Hutto and other facilities. The story appeared in The Houston Chronicle and the Dallas Morning News. - The Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday featured an IRC-run program in Salt Lake City that brings volunteers together with recently resettled refugees. “Even though there are communication barriers, [refugees and volunteers] learn a lot from each other,” Meghan Brumby, an IRC resource developer said.    - In a Nov. 27 report on a European Parliament hearing in Brussels on the Iraqi refugee crisis, the Kuwaiti news agency KUNA quoted Shannon Meehan, the Brussels-based IRC director of advocacy and policy. Meehan said that conditions for the approximately half a million Iraqi refugees in Jordan were worsening and that the “lack of legal status for these refugees builds an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty.”  - The Daily Observer, The Independent and The News of Monrovia, Liberia, reported on a ceremony last Monday marking the hand over of a women’s center built by the IRC to the Women’s Action Group. The ceremony coincided with IRC events marking the “16 Days of Activism against Gender Violence” campaign.   -  The News of Monrovia, Liberia, reported Thursday on the winners of a high school essay contest conducted by the African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect. The contest is part of a project to educate students about the abuses of child labor and was sponsored by the IRC and the U.S. Department of Labor’s CYCLE program—Countering Youth and Child Labor through Education.   -  BBC World Update interviewed Sarah Chynoweth, reproductive program manager for the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children, on Nov.15 for a segment on women in Iraq. Chynoweth said that Iraqi women are singled out for attack in an effort to demoralize and intimidate all women.    -  The Sudan Tribune reported last week that a conference on building civil society in Sudan was held in Abyei in southern Sudan and was organized by the IRC, Mercy Corps and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs. -  The Financial Times cited the IRC in a story last Monday about corporations that allow employees to take sabbaticals by working overseas with international organizations. -  The Valley Vanguard, a student newspaper at Saginaw Valley State University in Michigan, reported this week that from Dec.15 to 22, ten Michigan students will work in the Atlanta resettlement office as part of the University’s “Alternative Breaks” program.
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