AidBlogs

Amnesty International, Equatorial Guinea Justice, and Human Rights Watch have issued a joint statement on the upcoming Equatoguinean elections. The election environment appears so textbook-dictatorship it’s almost not interesting. I’m sure there is heterogeneity amongst these authoritarian electoral strategies, but to someone who doesn’t know much about this it seems pretty cliche to me. One interesting thing to note: there is a fear that foreign journalists might get denied visas. But Americans don’t need visas! So American journalists should be able to enter the country without trouble. It’s not very expensive to get there either. Go!

The May 26 elections will include voting for local council members and a new parliament, including for the first time 55 senators (Obiang appoints an additional 15 senators).

It doesn’t matter what happens on May 26. There is simply no way the elections can be considered free based on the current state of the media (virtually no way to hear or see any message that criticizes the government in the country except via the internet); the ruling party’s ability to use state resources for the campaign; the fear that you and your family won’t get government jobs if you publicly support either of the two parties that are not part of the ruling coalition etc. etc. etc.

Some highlights from the report:

The country has no independent and impartial body to oversee the electoral process or consider election-related complaints. The National Election Commission is controlled by the ruling party and is headed by the interior minister, a prominent member of the governing party.

[...]

[Election] observers will be permitted to travel to witness the vote only “in accordance with the program established for that purpose by the government” (arts. 11, 12, and 18).

Their [election observers'] ability to speak to the “official news media” about their “activities” during voting is subject to approval by the Information Ministry (art. 21).

On June 6th we are going to Girl Rising. The film is being show at  Interquest Stadium 14 (Screen TBD) 11250 Rampart Hill View, Colorado Springs.

Get your tickets here. Hurry, they are going fast!

Malaria is preventable and curable. But the poor don't have the resources. Thousands of children under five years old die each year.
Insecticide treated nets (ITN) are not available in some areas. And when they are available, their costs may put them out of reach of the poor.
Finally, the availability and cost of treatment repeats the same story.

http://www.irinnews.org/Report/98069/Malaria-overstretching-healthcare-in-DRC

KAMPALA, 20 May 2013 (IRIN) - Gaps in the healthcare system in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are hampering the fight against malaria, a leading killer of children, say experts.
Malaria accounts for about a third of outpatient consultations in DRC clinics, Leonard Kouadio, a UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) health specialist, told IRIN. He added, “It is the leading cause of death among children under five years and is responsible for a significant proportion of deaths among older children and adults.”

Kouadio continued: “Recent retrospective mortality surveys have revealed that in all regions of the country, the fever is associated with 40 percent of [deaths of] children under five.”
Malaria is also a leading cause of school absenteeism in DRC, and it may have other adverse effects. “In cases of severe malaria, children who survive face serious health problems such as epilepsy, impaired vision or speech,” he said.

According to UN World Health Organization (WHO) estimates, out of about 660,000 malaria deaths globally in 2010, at least 40 percent occurred in DRC and Nigeria.
In DRC, malaria accounts for about half of all hospital consultations and admissions in children younger than five, according to the government’s National Programme for the Fight against Malaria (NMCP). On average, Congolese children under five years old suffer six to 10 episodes of malaria per year, according to UNICEF’s Kouadio.

Other leading causes of death among under-five Congolese children include acute respiratory infections, diarrhoeal diseases and malnutrition, according to UNICEF’s 2013-2017 DRC Country Programme Document.

Almost!

They almost reached the summit. Switzerland did win the Silver Medal of the 2013 Ice Hockey World Chamionship. After having played and won 9 games, they had to face Sweden in the final. A great job. We Swiss are very proud of you. Congratulations.

These are the guys who got hold of us. The Swedish. 2013 Ice Hockey World Champion. Congratulations.

Sweden and Switzerland are small countries. But now, all the Swiss and all the Swedes are very happy and very proud people. Very happy and very proud.

Bill Gates has once again revealed that he does not understand the determinants of low vaccine coverage in northern Nigeria. Though he uses words like federal government and state government, ultimately he is defining a technical problem, not a political problem. (See my previous post on this here.) Here he explains to Ezra Klein why Somalia has higher vaccination coverage than northern Nigeria:

Well, in Somalia they’ve given up using the government. The money goes through the NGOs. Whereas in Nigeria they’ve designed a system where the federal government buys the vaccines, the state government provides the electricity, and the one level down below that provides the salaries. It’s just a bad design. You know, the north of India has very poor vaccination rates, so we picked a state up there with 80 million people and we drove it from 30 percent to 80 percent. But they had a really good chief health minister and the federal government was providing lots of money and lots of good technocrats, so the skills were there, as long as you employed them in the right kind of system.

Matt 4:16-"The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned." (from Is 9:2)

For the last few months, we have lived in the fog and sog of a cloud here at Kijabe.  Rain, and more rain.  Deep sucking mud.  Grey skies.  Dim.  Cold.  Pounding on the roof at night, dripping into the door, washing down the hillsides.  The thing about living in gloom is that after a while it seems normal to trudge through a muted background.

Much of the last couple years has been foggy for me, too.  Too much parting.  Too much just trying to make it through another call, another rounds, another admission, another resuscitation.  Another death. This past week it was the frail baby in heart failure who no longer moved or responded.  After a tearful discussion with his parents about the reality of his impending death, I disconnected him from his monitors and dressed him and wrapped him in a blanket for his mom to hold. ( I offered to snap a photo for her memories, and a kind RVA teacher printed it for her to take home the next day.)
And when she was finished saying goodbye, she and her sister and husband handed him back to me and retreated to mourn.  His heart was still beating in spite of his lack of breathing; the nursery was bustling with work and other babies and parents.  I could not bring myself to just lay him alone in his cot, so I sat there in a sacrament of not-doing, just waiting and holding him.  Until the last flickers of life ebbed, slowly, imperceptibly, from his body.  A dark hour.

Then one day this week, the sun returned.  I looked down and saw shadow.   And it occurred to me that those rainy months did not have much shadow, because shadow is created by light and matter.  When all is dark and gloomy, you can't really tell the boundaries, there is either no shadow or all shadow.  But when light comes, the shadow is apparent.

Even the shadow of death is a shadow because of the bright reality of life.  
So here at Kijabe, where death is too-often present, I am wrestling with that shadow and looking beyond it.  The valley of the shadow of death is a part of the journey, but it is only in shadow because there is a ridge, a peak, of glory that we are ascending towards.  Glory that is dawning over gloom, until all the shadow is swallowed up in victory.

My mission in Liberia is coming to an end next month. I can look back on some personal enrichment and I am grateful that, after all those many years of working, I still can have such experiences. I have met a lot of people, interesting ones, important ones and great ones. "Big shots". And yet very humble people. I would like to mention two who have marked me.

At the beginning of the Ivorian Refugee Crisis early 2011, when everything was messy and the humanitarian action had to set up, we had a weekly meeting called the HAC (Humanitarian Action Coordination) meeting. As the situation became more stabilised the meeting was held monthly. I presented the activities and results of the food sector.

The meeting was led by Mr. Moustapha Soumaré, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations to Liberia. He was also the Humanitarian Coordinator. He is a national of Mali. Rarely, in my life, have I come across a person like him. A real gentleman, very kind, very good, a man who knows his job. And a very humble person. I simply admired him. And I always thought that I was very far from reaching his level as a human being.

What I just wrote, I could make copy/paste for another person.

To assist the population, we need donations. We get them from everywhere. Last year, ECOWAS, the community of West African States, donated rice for the refugees to the Government of Liberia who charged us with the distribution. Last December, the official handing over ceremony from ECOWAS to the Goverment of Liberia was held.

The President of the ECOWAS Comission, Mr. Kadré Désiré Ouedraogo, came personally for this ceremony. He is a national from Burkina Faso and used to be the Prime Minister of that country. During his stay in Liberia he went on a field mission to visit the refugees. I had the pleasure and honor to be part of that mission. As with Mr. Soumaré, I felt very much at ease with him. A real gentleman too.

So, even if you are a "big shot", you still can be a humble person.

I am not a "big shot". But I try to be humble.

Blue Dragon has popped up in the news around the world over the last week.

Gulf News has featured an in-depth article on human trafficking:

Blue Dragon Founder sees red over human trafficking

And here's a short interview on Australia's ABC Radio from Thursday:

Passport 

We have some more exciting media news coming up on Thursday next week - can't wait to announce it!

Adventures in fact-checking exfam lefties
Swati Narayan on Duncan Green’s blog celebrates a new law passed in India reserving 25% of private school places for underprivileged kids. As part of the deal, the government reimburses private schools, but only at the level of government per pupil funding rather than necessarily the fees charged by private schools. Swati writes: The Act is categorical that the state will reimburse private schools only based on what it spends per pupil in government schools, which is typically much less. For-profit private schools are therefore keen to pass on the burden and increase their already inflated fees for the remainder of the class. Are those fees really inflated? It is possible that high-end elite schools are getting a raw deal here, but most private schools are not high-end elite schools. Here are some numbers from Karthik Muralidharan, who is possibly the global expert on the economics of education in India. In his survey of rural primary schools in Andra Pradesh, spending per pupil at government schools is typically five times more than at private schools.

Average spending per pupil at government schools: 7680 rupees ($140) per year

Average fees at private schools: 1330 rupees ($24) per year

Right then. I don't have a strong opinion about this new law, but let's maybe have less demonisation of private schools in poor countries where the public education system is pretty dysfunctional yeah?

This is a guest post from Ben French (a policy adviser formerly based in Juba)

Following two short recent visits to Myanmar where I was looking at the Public Financial Management (PFM) and Planning aspects of Myanmar’s reforms, I kept encountering the same question: How to balance coordination between donors with the need for a rapid and flexible response to reform?

The PFM reform programme in Myanmar has strong government leadership and appears to be off to a good start. In line with best international practice, development partners, under the leadership of the World Bank, have taken the initiative to coordinate amongst themselves. This has been followed by the establishment of a donor-government PFM working group. Almost all donors interested in the sector have aligned behind this which is very much to the credit of both the government and the World Bank. The working group has been the locus for coordination of PFM activities with the recent PEFA (Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability Review) and the PER (Public Expenditure Review) to show for it. This coordination sets an impressive and important precedent for government leadership and donor cooperation in PFM. Moreover, it shows that the international community has been learning from experience and is prioritising planning and coordination (as discussed in this report by ODI).

At the same time, Myanmar is changing rapidly and has only 24 months to deliver on its reform agenda before the election period takes hold in the run up to 2015. Within this period there is a need to embed the government’s reform process into its day-to-day functioning, in order to limit backsliding and to strengthen the hand of reformers. Given this, a more immediate, direct and flexible package of support is essential and critical in direct contrast to a more measured approach focused on laying the foundation for future work through planning and studies.

As an observer looking in, there is considerable tension between the ongoing planning and coordination for future larger scale programming, and the immediate support needed by the government in order to prepare the ground. I wonder how to strike a balance between coordination and planning and a rapid, flexible response? Is it a zero-sum game between the two? A balance is clearly called for as running in too quickly without a coordinated, joint government-donor plan leads to poorly sequenced, uncoordinated reforms that are poorly understood at the national level. However, if those reforms aren’t supported right now they could die on the vine before any of the future planning gets a chance to take root.

In the context of Myanmar, and other countries with both immediate and longer term PFM needs (usually conflict-affected, post-conflict, fragile states as well as countries in political transition) it seems that the government and donors can become stuck in a cycle of ‘planning to plan’ at the expense of delivering a quick, flexible programme of support. Granted, immediate support will not resolve all issues but they do ‘soften the ground’ for the long term and are complimentary to that long term planning.

Obviously, context and circumstance are essential for determining the balance between the two. However, the balance must be considered and there are a number of ideas worth considering.

First, delivering quickly and rapidly builds trust between partners which is important in and of itself but is also critical for the success of any cooperation long term. The concept of building trust through short term support that supports basic skills and processes within government demonstrably achieves the objective of building relationships between various stakeholders – and not just at the senior policy level but down in the trenches where support for long term programmes is most critical. In other words, keep it simple stupid. Provide focused training and support to the current reform process with the aim of making the government an intelligent customer which is able to determine what it needs and wants from the range of options it will be presented.

Second, recognise that even if short-term support is limited it can be clearly and easily linked to future programme development and planning. Rapid implementation should not be allowed to evolve into full implementation but it can, and should, provide useful experience and information to inform the long-term full implementation. In practice this will mean that flexible, upfront, support will need to focus on basic training, simple implementation and refinements to systems and process (see some other interesting work from ODI here, and here).

This balancing act is starting to take place in Myanmar with the EU and JICA placing technical advisors in the Ministry of Planning who will build government capacity and understanding on how to effectively coordinate and engage with other government agencies and development partners across a range of sectors (health, education, electricity, etc.). This short-term approach will be implemented prior to and whilst a longer term plan takes shape, both meeting the government’s need for reform support and allowing the development partners to demonstrate rapid success.

And finally, a warning. Any short term, flexible support should be designed in such a way that it co-opts as many stakeholders as possible Short-term support parachuted in, acting in isolation, and with no tie to long-term goals undermines the balancing act. At minimum this should mean that the short term support is part of the coordination process and reports to all the actors involved in coordination. Various World Bank and regional development bank trust funds do this reasonably well when there are funds available.
These general observations should, by no means, detract from the on-going successes in coordination in countries such as Myanmar especially as these pockets of coordination are islands of sanity in a larger and more complex donor environment. Instead, this coordination should be fostered, incorporating both quick short-term support as well as long-term planning and research. Both are critical to confidence building between stakeholders, success of current reforms and PFM in the future. Finding, and striking, the right balance between planning and flexible support through good coordination is essential to long term positive outcomes.

Today marks the launch of Blue Dragon's 2013 major appeal, which we're calling: Whatever it takes.

Anyone who has read the stories here or looked over the Blue Dragon Facebook page knows the sort of work we do. We find kids in danger, get them out, and then look after them for the long term. And our strategy is simple: Whatever it takes.

If we know of a child enslaved in a factory, we find the factory and demand the release of the child. If we know of a girl in a brothel across the border, we travel to where ever she is and help her escape. If we meet a boy living on the streets, we help him sort out his family problems and give him a place to live and grow. That's just what we do.

To make that all happen, we need to put fuel in the motor. It's the topic we all hate to raise: money. But giving kids a home, helping a child escape slavery, sending a student to school: it all takes money.

Blue Dragon is getting ready now to face the challenges of the 2013-2014 cycle. We already know that there'll be plenty of challenges to deal with.

If you like what we do, if you want these kids to get the help they need, please help any way you can. Even a few dollars will help. The goal is to raise $192,000, and we can do that if everyone contributes their bit.

Africa Confidential turns its focus this week to Ibrahim Bah, who was a key financial conduit between the RUF and Charles Taylor during the Liberian and Sierra Leonean wars [the articles are gated]. Despite being under a UN travel ban and asset freeze, Bah travels in and out of Sierra Leone frequently and conducts business unencumbered in Freetown.  In 2008 he had a gold and diamond trading company based out of an office very close to a police station in Freetown. He is also involved in a mercenary firm that has tried unsuccessfully to engage in recent conflicts in Cote d’Ivoire and Libya. Sierra Leonean officials turn a blind eye to all of this.

The highlight of the Bah articles, however, is the connection between Bah and an Italian businessman named Vittorio Narciso Ruello. Bah appears to have screwed over Ruello repeatedly, taking hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy diamonds but never delivering the diamonds.

In a statement to the police, Bah claimed he was not defrauding Ruello but suffering from the ups and downs of an uncertain business.

The best part, though, is that Ruello paid Bah to make him a Sierra Leonean honorary consul to Guinea Bissau (a la The Ambassador). This is even more outrageous than the Central African Republic attempt as you can’t even be a Sierra Leonean citizen unless you are of “Negro African descent” (for more on this see here and here). Anyways, Bah didn’t come through; it didn’t work. So Ruello went to the Sierra Leonean police to complain of being cheated!

I've done a lot of thinking in the past year about motherhood.  With a little one in my arms, or actually racing through our far-too-small apartment, I suppose that is natural.

But I've also been thinking about motherhood because Mapendo, Solange, Riziki, and Argentine all became first-time moms this past year.

With their high risk pregnancies, and all the challenges they have faced, I feel like I have been holding my breath all year.

Mapendo was the first to give birth.  When her son was born without any complications, we all celebrated. 

But then, in those following months, he got sick so many times.  And I think every parent can look at this picture of Mapendo in the hospital with her son, and know the feeling...the feeling of waiting, with your back against the wall, and hoping your little one will be ok. 




And then Solange's daughter arrived.  A fiesty little girl, full of life, just like her mama~

 

 And Then Riziki's son arrived 2 months premature.  And I spent countless hours wondering what 3 pounds feels (My daughter was born at 9 pounds!) 

And miraculously, after months in the hospital, Daniel,turned out just fine!  And with a very thankful mother!

And then the war escalated, and all these mamas had to flee with their little ones.  And I wondered what it feels like to sit with in a refugee camp with your baby in your arms.  
  And at the same time, I imagined how hard that cement floor in the refugee camp must have felt to Argentine, at 7 months pregnant (above, in the red hat).


But somehow, miraculously, we got Argentine out of the camp and into a good hospital.

 

And her daughter arrived, a stranger in a foreign land, yet incredibly healthy, and somehow, in the midst of it all, safe .



So I have spent much of this year, thinking about the joys and the traumas of motherhood.  The way that none of us can protect our little ones from all that exists in this world, and yet the ways that we try to.  Because when given the choice, we all will leave home and country, sleep on cold, hard floors, and carry all our possessions on our backs, if we believe for one second that it might buy our children even a little more safety.

But when I talk to the SHONA women, we don't usually talk about all of that.  We talk a lot about how Promese and Jonathan are learning to stand and walk.

 


 How Victori Rachel Ruth loves to eat!  How Daniel is feeling just fine.  About how my daughter, Claire, makes so much noise while we're trying to talk!  We talk about the challenges of childbirth and breastfeeding, and about how many clothes there are to wash now.


I wanted to write something about SHONA for Mother's Day.  Because so much of this past year for the SHONA women has indeed been about becoming mothers.  And, I might as well be honest, because Mother's Day would be a great marketing tie-in for SHONA.  But in case you haven't noticed, I'm a bit late on my marketing strategy.  All the flowers have been bought, and all the gifts given.

But then again maybe that is all beside the point.  All the mamas are still here, no matter what the date is.  And SHONA isn't so much about celebrating mothers for a day, but about empowering them for a lifetime.

 

www.shonacongo.com Buy something that matters today! Support the work of handicapped women in Congo. www.shonacongo.com

A Kenyan Facebook user recently shared these images of a craftsman in Eldoret (Kenya) who repairs rims:

Kenya fixit? Eh!

(via Silas Salavi)

A new beauty: The Airbus A350.

Tim Cocks, who seems to have gone to Baga this month, on Boko Haram and Borno state:

The Islamists now control at least 10 of the 27 local council areas in Borno state, Nigeria’s most remote northeastern region on the edge of the Sahara and a relic of one of Africa’s oldest medieval Islamic empires, security sources there say.

One says the real figure could be closer to 20, as local councillors fearing assassination have fled…

On the aftermath of Baga:

A military convoy rumbles into the remote fishing settlement of Baga, on the shores of Lake Chad, scene of fighting last month that killed dozens of people, many of them civilians.

As it weaves past the charred remains of ruined houses, locals shout abuse at soldiers in the Hausa language.

I am in Australia at the moment, meeting friends and supporters of Blue Dragon, attending some events, and speaking a little on radio.

Being here is really like being in another world. I feel so far from the streets of Vietnam, from the kids I worry about every day, from the challenges of rescuing kids in crisis. 

This morning in an interview I was asked what got me started in all this work, and I couldn't help but say: Stupidity! 

After all, who in their right mind would start an organisation in another country to rescue girls out of brothels, and to provide homes for abandoned kids who've grown up on the streets?

For sure I didn't know what I was getting into when I started Blue Dragon Children's Foundation. And I'm glad I didn't. If I had my time all over again, I'd do it exactly the same.

I am very happy to be a fool, and plan to remain one for a long time to come.

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I thought I'd post a few pictures of my mom. These are taken during my childhood and are the few I have with me here in Africa.

This one was taken, I believe, before our lives got crazy (aka we moved to Dallas, Texas, then later to Brazil).

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Here, we were your average Canadian family at a family picnic. My mom comes from a big German family of 14 surviving children, so I think our picnics pretty much took over the entire park :) When I was young, I thought all normal families consisted of 100-ish people... Anyway, this is us. My older sister, our sweet younger brother, mom, dad, and me (the tow-head at the back, left).
This photo is of my 11th birthday (I think). It was my first birthday in Recife, Brazil.


 It had been a very difficult year for us as a family adjusting to a drastically different country and culture. If someone had handed us return fares during the first year, I think my parents would have happily hopped on a plane to return to their normal world! That option didn't exist right then, and oddly enough even when the opportunity eventually did roll around, they decided God had called them there to stay and fulfill the calling on their hearts: care for abandoned and needy children. So even though there wasn't much "feel-good"factor in those early years, they stayed. I don't even know how to place a value on the impact parents have on their kids when they don't quit--when they refuse to run away from difficulty--when they stick through the tough times.
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Back to the party though, there was a good mix of my American and Brazilian friends at my birthday party. I recall that my mom really knocked herself out to make this birthday a huge smash. She even did my hair in an up-do (yep, that's the back of my head). It's pretty sweet how my little brother is looking at me and smiling and clapping his hands :)

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This last photo was taken several years later, after much adjustment and assimilation. After our lives and family grew to accommodate a number of children who had no family and who needed to be sheltered and loved. I remember the names of over half these kids. They were my first "additional" sisters and brothers. I like to tell Mozambicans that I have black brothers in Brazil. :)



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The little girl in the front had health issues and her spine was fused when she was very small (you can tell by her posture). She came to stay in our home for awhile and was she sharp as a whip! That was an interesting adjustment. I was about 17 at the time and she loved to snoop through my drawers and test my make-up and chew the Wriggley's gum sent to me especially from Canada. After I left home to study nursing in Canada, she and my little brother became good friends and thick as thieves. It was cool that they had each other, and that together they kept our parents on their toes. Several years after that, my brother (in striped pants on right, above) got sick and, sadly, lost his life. Later on, the little girl did too due to complications from her condition.
In a perfect world, children should not be abandoned and suffer the break-up of their families, and they should not die. But this world is not perfect. It is made a better, however, by the love and self-sacrifice of moms who are willing to love their own, and to love those of others as well.  
Thank you, mom, for the love you shared and for the example you were to not only me but to the many children who are and were part of our lives and family as well. My prayer is that this legacy will be passed on many times over. May the generation to come be a big one with hundreds in the family.

That is normal after-all :)
I love you, Mom. Happy mother's day!

I just finished Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s new book, Americanah. It was at points a very fun read, a novel through which a young woman describes how she sees America having grown up in Nigeria, and then how she sees Lagos after more than a decade in America. It is a book about race in America, and at points an extremely angry book about race in America. You can almost hear Adichie ranting in exacerbation through the pages after someone has told her that America is post-racial.

Some unrelated and lighter excerpts:

[Advice from a member of the African Students Association to a recent arrival:] “Please do not go to Kmart and buy twenty pairs of jeans because each costs five dollars. The jeans are not running away. They will be there tomorrow at an even more reduced price.”

[...]

Nollywood may be melodramatic, but life in Nigeria is very melodramatic.

[...]

Esther cam back with transparent packets of pills, on which instructions, but no names, were written in a crabbed handwriting…”Somebody should let the health minister know that ordinary Nigerians go to see a doctor and the doctor gives them unnamed medicines. This can kill you. How will anybody know what you have already taken, or what you shouldn’t take if you’re already taking something else?” “Ahn-ahn, but that one is a small problem: they do it so that you don’t buy the medicine from someone else.”

Upcoming event:

Labour Migration and Refugee Protection – a Contradiction?, Prague, 3-4 June 2013 [info]
- Register by 18 May 2013.

Publications:

Agreement Reached in National Class Action Lawsuit on Work Authorization for Asylum Seekers (ImmigrationProf Blog, April 2013) [text]

The Benefits of Granting Third Country Nationals Equal Rights to Work (ENARgy, April 2013) [text]
- From the European Network against Racism.

The Economic and Political Impact of Immigrants, Latinos and Asians State by State (Immigration Policy Center, Jan. 2012) [access]
- Note: Some state factsheets were updated May 2013.

How a Stateless Refugee Overcame Low Self-Esteem to Become a Successful Entrepreneur (Huffington Post, April 2013) [text]

"Immigration Reform Overlooks Asylum-seekers - Harsh Rules Enacted in 1996 Prevent Them from Working for Months or Years, Making Many Destitute," Los Angeles Times, 25 April 2013 [text]

The Plight of an Ethiopian Refugee Searching for Work in Nairobi (Refugee Work Rights, May 2013) [text]

Web sites:

Asylum Seeking and Work (ASAW) [access]
- "The main objective of ASAW is to raise the awareness of employment issues in the reception of asylum seekers in relation to the implementation of concerning EU directives."

Higher Advantage [access]
- A program of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS) that "provides newcomer workforce solutions to corporations across the U.S. while supporting career entry and advancement for resettled refugees and other new Americans."

Tagged Events & Opportunities, Publications and Web Sites/Tools.