For more than 20 years, Fordham’s IIHA has teamed with JRS to raise awareness about the plight of refugees through lectures, events, and on-the-ground training of students, teachers, and relief workers. Now, the new memorandum of understanding formalizes that relationship and outlines a scope of collaboration that will include project development, research initiatives, internship and professional opportunities for students, campus outreach for undergraduates and graduates, and a renewed emphasis on participants’ well-being while working in the world’s most troubled regions.

“We are sister and brother organizations—in this case, a Jesuit institution of higher education helping a Jesuit non-government organization—with the same pedagogy that informs both, same philosophy and values of helping those who are vulnerable and in need of advocacy,” said Brendan Cahill, executive director of IIHA.

Research Helps Identify Needs

The work began in earnest two years ago with fellowship funding provided to Nedezhna Castellano, Ph.D., by the Helen Hamlyn Trust. Castellano, who co-directed an IIHA course titled Education in Emergencies, generated a report identifying educational needs in three key regions of conflict: Chad, where there are more than 80,000 refugees; Lebanon, which continues to absorb refugees from the Syrian conflict; and Myanmar, formerly Burma, where ongoing political turmoil has claimed 500 lives since this past February’s military coup.

Cahill said that while he has long been in charge of connecting University talent to JRS needs, the report helped the institute home in on which Fordham schools could provide students for research, internships, and jobs. They include the Graduate School of Education, the Graduate School of Social Service, and the Graduate School of Arts and Science.

A Focus on Teachers

He noted that when unrest occurs, teachers of young people are often diverted from their calling.

“The first person who is pinched in a conflict is the teacher, often to be a translator or guide to outsiders,” said Cahill, noting that teachers often get pulled into work for NGOs. “But then you’re creating a deficit, a deduction of talent. If they’re no longer teaching, who is going to teach?”

Fordham has already created courses with IIHA for JRS personnel that help create best practices for training the next generation of teachers needed to fill that gap, he said. In addition, as caring for the caregivers has been identified as an important component of this work, Cahill has been working with the Department of Psychology on how to assist in the psychosocial care of the teachers. Cahill said that he’s also been having conversations with Debra McPhee, Ph.D., dean of GSS, who is interested in placing students in internships and jobs. He added that any research generated will likely be published by The Refugee Press, a new journal published by IIHA.

“I’ve always been a point of contact with the Jesuit Refugee Services, the tip of the spear of a relatively small institute affiliated with this very large institution, so those relationships and introductions have to be managed, on our side, and that’s what this memorandum has formalized,” he said.

Online Learning Increases Participation

Cahill added that an upshot of the pandemic has been that the pivot to online learning means that more students can participate than ever before. He noted that costs of visas and transportation alone often limited IIHA’s reach.

“There are a lot of opportunities that will come out of this because most of it is online, and by creating academically rigorous programs online you bring those barriers down,” he said. “We can now provide opportunities that some people wouldn’t have had at any other time.”

Those who would like to support the IIHA in this work can make a gift here. 

Two days later, humanitarian aid workers, designers, and architects from around the world gathered at Fordham’s Lincoln Center campus to talk about what can be done to help them.

Design for Humanity Summit II: Design in the Time of Displacement, a day-long summit sponsored by Fordham’s Institute of International Humanitarian Affairs, is the second design summit of its kind, following an inaugural gathering last June. The conference explored how the intersection between design and humanitarian action can compel a more dignified, inclusive, and sustainable humanitarian response.

In a keynote address, Amy Goodman, host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, told attendees that the media can be the greatest force for peace on earth. It has the capacity to spotlight people affected by wars and climate change-driven weather events, she said, citing the work of activists such as those who protested the installation of an oil pipeline at Standing Rock, North Dakota.

“The way the media talks about pro-democracy movements is, it’s for other countries, because we’ve achieved democracy in the United States,” she said.

“But you never really achieve democracy. You have to fight for it every single day, and that’s what these human rights groups do. That’s why it’s critical we have a media that provides a platform for people like all of you, who are the experts in your areas, rather than pundits we get on all of the networks, who know so little about so much.”

Elevate Their Voices

Democracy Now! has covered many stories related to refugees recently, she said, including one about a lawyer representing the Department of Justice who argued before Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco that the administration was not required to provide detained children with soap, toothbrushes, and blankets. Less known, she said, are stories such as that of Jeanette Vizguerra, a mother of four from Mexico who has lived in the U.S. for 20 years but has been recently living in a church in Denver to avoid deportation.

“To be able to hear their voices, that’s what will change the world. To go to where the silence is. Working with refugees around the world, it’s not often silent where you are, but for the corporate media, it is. Those voices do not hit the media radar screen. And it’s our job to elevate them,” she said.

“These are the voices that will save all our humanity.”

In addition to workshops, Friday’s summit, a partnership between the IIHA and the International Organization for Migration, also featured talks by Argentina Szabados, regional director, IOM in South-Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, and Richard Blewitt, head of delegation and permanent observer of the Delegation of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies to the United Nations.

Settlement Camps No Longer Temporary

Szabados said there is cause for both optimism and pessimism in the field. On the plus side, the tools for collecting and analyzing data collection have never been more easily obtained. On the other hand, she noted, no one believes anymore there is anything temporary about settlements for displaced individuals. One camp on the India/Bangladesh border, she noted, has been open for 70 years. Therefore, it is important to consider what it means for such places to be not just shelters, but “homes.”

“The dwelling places we provide ought not be ‘just good enough’ to keep people alive in a miserable twilight of half-existence. They must also give people an opportunity to develop, to be healthy, to learn,” she said.

Blewitt said one of the lessons that has become abundantly clear when it comes to providing shelter to vulnerable populations is that aid groups should be focused on the process that leads to shelter construction, not just the finished product.  People who have been displaced should be offered a chance to help rebuild their own community.

“When we’re looking at shelter, non-specialists often think we should build something by ourselves. And this is understandable, but it might hamper a future resilience agenda,” he said.

“We want to work very much with populations that are affected, and enable them to look at incremental expansion and improvement of their shelter options, and [let them know]that they are in the driving seat, not us.”

This has the effect of bringing down costs, he said, and also allows countries to take pride in being able to care for its citizens, even if what’s built is not perfect.

“Sometimes humanitarians kind of believe they’re fixing everything, but actually that’s not the reality, he said, noting that globally, the amount of money sent to countries via remittances dwarfs official development aid.

“People are finding ways.”

Video of the morning’s session can be viewed here.
Video of the afternoon’s session can be viewed here.

In a Feb. 25 ceremony at the World Council of Church’s Ecumenical Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, IIHA executive director Brendan Cahill signed a memorandum of agreement with IFRC Secretary-General Elhadj As Sy that makes permanent the two institutions’ relationship.

The partnership will allow Fordham and the IFRC to work together on distance learning, joint training programs, symposia, research, and publications.

Cahill said the new relationship, which follows a similar one the IIHA established last month with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), is ideal because both groups share a fundamental philosophy when it comes to helping people suffering from wars, famine, and natural disasters.

IIHA expects to see an increase in the number of students from the IFRC and the JRS; in turn, Fordham alumni from programs such as the International Diploma in Humanitarian Assistance will find employment with IFRC and JRS. With 190 chapters around the world, the IFRC is easily the largest single force in aid today, said Cahill.

“At the end of the day, you want humanitarian assistance really to be effective and done with dignity,” Cahill said, noting that both groups also have strong local presences in the countries they serve.

“The trend of where humanitarian aid is going is toward empowering local response. It shouldn’t be the international response to a local problem . . . but a local response to a local problem, with capacity-building from the outside, he said.