On 26th July 2013, the High Court of Kenya delivered a judgment in a remarkable vindication of the rights of refugees. The Court struck down a government policy that, if implemented, would have fundamentally violated the freedoms and dignity of…
The recent crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR), with its roots in political power struggles, has threatened to destroy the underlying social fabric that was for so long a source of religious tolerance. In the process, nearly a million…
Despite sharing common humanitarian values and principles, and common interests in providing protection, faith-based and secular humanitarian actors have often operated in somewhat parallel universes. At the national level, it is not uncommon to see two sets of humanitarian actors…
Jesuit Refugee Service is an international Catholic organisation founded in 1980 to respond to the plight of the Vietnamese boat-people, with a mandate of accompaniment, service and advocacy for refugees and other forcibly displaced people.[1] In accompaniment work, we move…
Local faith communities are able to offer assistance to asylum seekers in ways that faith-based organisations (FBOs), constrained by eligibility criteria, are not, andthey play a critical role in the reception and resettlement of refugees and asylees in the US.…
Questions around migration, the treatment of forced migrants and cross-community relationships between host and forced migrant groups are deeply embedded within Islamic history. From an Islamic perspective, cross-community relationships are facilitated by a mutual recognition of the dignity and honour…
Early in 2014 I visited Mavisela, a Zimbabwean woman living in a small shack on the outskirts of a small town in South Africa.[1] She came to South Africa during the great migration from Zimbabwe in 2008, was granted an…
Faith-based organisations and local faith communities represent a major proportion of civil society capacity in many contexts vulnerable to humanitarian crisis. This makes strengthened engagement with such groups an appropriate element of strategies to enhance local and national capacity for…
The professionalisation of the humanitarian world since the Rwanda genocide in 1994 has tended to obscure the religious origins of much of humanitarian thinking and practice. The humanitarian work of UK-based international NGO CAFOD[1] is underpinned by Catholic Social Teaching…
The Catholic Church’s view of all individuals as endowed with an intrinsic human dignity is the basis for its commitment to live in solidarity with displaced populations and for the importance it places on accompaniment. Accompaniment is a way of…