University of Pittsburgh



[pic] FORGE [pic]

Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth and Empowerment

General Body Meeting

Thursday, September 3, 2009, 8:30 pm

I. Welcome to FORGE!

a. Icebreaker and Email sign-up

i. Traditionally, we begin our FORGE meetings with icebreakers that often end up being hilarious for everyone rather than annoying and awkward like they usually are in class. We all get the chance to learn names and get to know each other. Anyone who wasn’t on the email list signed up.

ii. We also always hand out agendas like this for our meetings. They are an effective tool for focused, organized meetings.

II. Upcoming Events – Next is always Upcoming Events. We alert everyone to humanitarian events going on on campus and in the city. We also invite our members to share events that they know about but aren’t on the agenda. Some examples:

a. Donations being accepted for School Kits for Refugee Children

These kids are given primarily to refugee and displaced children in Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, South and Central America to add some normalcy to their disrupted lives. Contents of the kits include:

- Spiral or perforated notebooks (about 8.5' x 10.5", 70-80 sheets

- Unsharpened #2 pencils

- Plastic ruler (indicating both 30cm and 12")

- Colored pencils (in packaging)

- Large pencil eraser

Please drop off donations of the above items (cash is also welcomed) by Saturday, 9/26 at Ten Thousand Villages, located at 5824 Forbes Avenue, Squirrel Hill. Contact Sharon (FORGE VP) at sharonyamsy@ if you want to donate but don't have time to go there.

b. Valentino Achak Deng – FORGE Guest Speaker!

-Come listen to a Sudanese Lost Boy, who inspired the book What is the What

- Thursday, October 15th at 8:00pm, WPU Kurtzman Room

III. What is FORGE?

-this is obviously the main topic for the first meeting for all new members. Normally, we would have an informal presentation from the Education Committee, followed by Committee Updates, which entail them sharing what is they are working on, what they need help with, questions they have, plans, etc. and then get feedback from the whole group.

a. Who are we advocating for and what are we fighting against? (following info from and both of which are great resources if you want to find out more about refugees)

i. Who is a refugee?  A refugee is someone who has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war, or violence. A refugee has a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. Most likely, they cannot return home or is afraid to do so. War and ethnic, tribal and religious violence are leading causes of refugees fleeing their countries. There are more than 14 million refugees worldwide. Who is an IDP? An internally displaced person (IDP) is a person who has been forced to flee his or her home for the same reason as a refugee, but remains in his or her own country and has not crossed an international border. Unlike refugees, IDPs are not protected by international law or eligible to receive many types of aid. As the nature of war has changed in the last few decades, with more and more internal conflicts replacing wars among countries, the number of IDPs has increased significantly.

ii. What is the 1951 Refugee Convention? The 1951 Geneva Convention is the main international instrument of refugee law. The Convention clearly spells out who a refugee is and the kind of legal protection, other assistance and social rights he or she should receive from the countries who have signed the document. The Convention also defines a refugee’s obligations to host governments and certain categories or people, such as war criminals, who do not qualify for refugee status. The Convention was limited to protecting mainly European refugees in the aftermath of World War II, but another document, the 1967 Protocol, expanded the scope of the Convention as the problem of displacement spread around the world.

iii. What is “refugee warehousing”?  The denial of human rights found in the 1951 Convention to live lives as normal as possible while in exile, especially the right to earn a livelihood and freedom of movement.  Warehoused refugees are typically, but not always, confined to camps or segregated settlements where they are virtually dependent on humanitarian assistance.  Often refugees in a warehoused state are stuck in camps for more than 10 years. But even refugees who are free to move are still warehoused, in effect, if they are not allowed their rights to work, practice professions, run businesses, and own property. It is estimated that at least 9 million of the 14 million refugees in the world are warehoused. For more information, read "Warehousing Refugees: A Denial of Rights, a Waste of Humanity” at .

1. Warehousing is the major tragedy suffered by refugees around the world a huge reason to raise awareness. Last year a special committee of dedicated FORGE members realized the 2008 Conference on Refugee Warehousing in October. It was incredible! Scholars and activists came from all over the country and from various countries outside the States. It was 3 days long and consisted of various prestigious speakers and workshops. Check out the speakers at the end of this agenda!

b. FORGE Board Members – FORGE is full of opportunities for leadership experience! We vote for board members in the spring for the upcoming school year so that they have the chance to shadow current leaders and feel comfortable with the responsibilities of the position. Current leaders are:

i. President – Liz Reali

ii. Vice Presidents – Arielle Juberg and Sharon Yam

iii. Business Managers – Thomas Bryant III and Eileen Tong

iv. Refugee Resettlement Initiative Co-Coordinators – Rachel Safirstein and Rachael Hellman

IV. The 2 Fantastic Parts of FORGE

a. Advocacy (Committees)

– FORGE is organized as a committee network. Committees are headed by a committee chair-person who coordinates a meeting time each week or however often is effective and is good for all of the committee members. This meeting specifically for the committee is not the same as the General Body Meeting for all FORGE members that take place every Thurs. evening at 8:30pm. All old and new members are welcome to run for committee chair positions! These will take place this Thursday’s meeting. Please look out for the email with the location.

The committees are:

i. Advocacy Events and Fundraising

- It’s pretty self-explanatory what this one is for. This committee organizes advocacy events to raise awareness on campus about refugees, these members will be helping to advertise for and organize the final details for our first big event for the semester: Valentino Deng. Other events done in the past: Guitar Hero Competition, Coffee House Refugee Benefit Concert (with Joy Ike and several other local bands), Apple Cider and Hot Chocolate Sale, Baridi (“cold” in Swahili) Night with panel discussions from local workers with refugees and activists, documentaries, and performances from local African dance groups.

ii. Outreach

– This committee plans events for the refugee communities in Pittsburgh. These are a ton of fun. In the fall we collaborate with Keep It Real (ESL tutors for the Somali refugee population in Lawrenceville) to put on a Halloween Party for the refugees in Lawrenceville and in the spring we had a “Winter Celebration” party for the Burundians, Bhutanese, and Burmese refugees in Prospect Park (where FORGE mainly tutored last year) and a Community Picnic at the end of the semester. In past this committee has also collected school supplies, household supplies, and clothes for refugees in Pittsburgh.

iii. Education - FORGE is committed to educating its own members, too! None of us are experts so we work together to keep updated with recent events regarding refugees. Education Committee picks such events, specific groups of refugees or topics (they don’t have to be recent, but can be the history of a refugee camp or a country’s refugees, or the refugee organizations in the U.S., whatever the committee chooses) to do simple presentations on at the general body meetings on Thursdays. Sometimes articles are handed out to members or interactive games are played (such as geography games when there is a map on the board, but no country names, and teams compete to locate countries), etc. It all depends on the creativity of the group and new ideas are always welcome!

iv. Recruitment – This is a new committee that we decided to create this year. It will be as thorough as members would like. They will be responsible for advertising for FORGE periodically throughout the year, at times decided by the committee members. It is important that we raise awareness on campus about our organization so that students who haven’t heard about us will have the opportunity to. Flyering all over campus has turned out to be really effective, but there are also resources like making announcements in classes, contacting other related groups on campus, advertisements on WPTS and on the tv screens in the Union, and more.

b. Refugee Resettlement Initiative - We provide direct service to the recently arrived Burundian, Burmese, Bhutanese, and Uzbek refugee populations in Pittsburgh through this program.  At least two students get matched up with one family according to preference, language skills, and experience (although no experience is necessary) and meet with their families for at least 3 hours per week tutoring them in English and providing a source of support and companionship as they acculturate.  The days for tutoring are flexible and will be determined when all tutors schedules are collected from the RRI Tutor Info Form (see below.)

***You don't have to participate in the advocacy events in order become an Initiative Volunteer and you don't have to be a volunteer to be a FORGE member and organize/participate in other things.

i. Interested tutors must complete the RRI Tutor Information Form and email it to forgeatpitt@ as soon as possible, preferably before this Thursday’s meeting so that we can make sure tutoring is possible with your schedule and then give you the clearance forms necessary to tutor. (See other attached document for details.)

ii. At the next meeting, beginning at approx. 9:15pm the RRI coordinators and Liz will be holding a tutor training session which will include strategies for how to teach English as a Second Language, information about the refugee students and the difficulties they face as learners of English, what to bring to tutoring, and how to be a good tutor in general.

NEXT FORGE MEETING: THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 10th 8:30

Check your email for the room! Committee elections next week!

Questions, ideas, comments, funny stories…? Email Liz, Sharon, or Arielle at forgeatpitt@

SPEAKERS FROM 2008 REFUGEE WAREHOUSING CONFERENCE

Dr. Barbara Harrell-Bond is known worldwide as a leading advocate for refugee rights.  She founded the Refugee Studies Centre at Oxford University and the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Program at the American University in Cairo.  She has written numerous texts and articles on various refugee situations, including warehousing and is active with the Refugee Law Project.  Dr. Bond will present a history of the anti-warehousing movement and will discuss the perpetuation of refugee warehousing by various institutions.

Merrill Smith is the Director of International Planning and Analysis for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI).  In addition, Mr. Smith has been the editor of the World Refugee Survey since 2003.  He is one of the premier leaders in the United States for the campaign to end warehousing. Merrill Smith will discuss how the U.S. government and American non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are addressing the issue.

Judy Wakahiu is the Executive Director of Refugee Consortium of Kenya - a refugee legal aid and advocacy organization. She holds a Masters of Art degree in International Relations and Diplomacy and a Bachelors in Sociology.  She has  over 10 years of  experience in human rights, refugee protection and conflict resolution. She has previously worked as a peace and development worker with Catholic Justice and Peace Commission on human rights, peace building, and democracy and governance projects in Kenya’s violent prone areas. She has also worked with a national women rights organization on mentoring women to take up political leadership and reducing gender based violence during elections. Judy is an expert for the Government of Kenya in humanitarian and social issues in the great lakes region. She is an experienced refugee rights advocate with good negotiation skills.

 Abraham A. Awolich is a representative and speaker on behalf of Kakuma Camp, an international advocate for anti-warehousing campaigns, and the Co-Director and Co-Founder of New Sudan Education Initiative (NESEI) to help rebuild Sudan.  He will present personal testimony on the psychological effects of refugee warehousing and the warehousing situation in Kenya's Kakuma Camp. 

Khadra Mohammed, a native of Somalia, is the Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Refugee Center.  Ms. Mohammed has over twenty years experience working with refugees and runs an anti-warehousing campaign for Kakuma Camp.  She will contribute a local perspective to the warehousing case study of Kakuma Camp as well knowledge and experience of US grassroots advocacy campaigns.

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