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Dear Friends,
Welcome to the 11th issue of the ICYE Federation’s Newsletter,
focussing on “Young Volunteers working with Refugees,
Internally Displaced People (IDPs), and Migrants ”.
Since the beginning of civilization, human beings have been
searching for a home, better life, land and peace. Push and pull
factors keep people on the move – due to migration fluxes
within and between continents, today there are 191 million
migrants world wide. Acknowledging that International Migration
could be one of the most important issues of the 21st century,
on 14-15 September 2006 the UN General Assembly will deal
with the findings of the High-level Dialogue on International
Migration and Development.
Not surprisingly, many ICYE and EVS young volunteers wish to
share their experience and work along side people of suffer
from the negative impact of voluntary and forced migration.
Volunteer Voices present testimonials of volunteers working,
inter alia, with IDPs in Georgia and Refugee Women and Youth
in Azerbaijan. In the main volunteers provide support and
assistance to youth and children in need, try to alleviate the
impact of social exclusion under which refugees, victims of
human traffic, and all those who have lost their homes, jobs,
community and often family, suffer. With their words: “no day
passes without learning something new, ..being surprised,
meeting someone new from whom I can learn… ”and ”(the
refugees) are not a threat, … ..just need temporary help… .the
great majority wishes to return to their own homes … . But if a
refugee does stay, ..s/he can often become a very valuable
asset to a receiving community.”
News from International Organisations features, among others,
the ratification by forty-six UNESCO member states of the
Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural
Heritage; and the “All Different - All Equal”European campaign
on Diversity, Human Rights and Participation. NGOs News
reports on the 12th Vienna International Model United Nations
(VIMUN); the findings of the “Europe For A Change”campaign;
and the Control Arms Campaign jointly run by Amnesty
International, IANSA and Oxfam.
ICYE news feature testimonials by two volunteers working
respectively with homosexuals in Bolivia, and People Living
with HIV/AIDS in Mozambique. Brief reports follow on a
Training Course on Volunteers and Host Organisations in
Spain, and the "Networking Asian and European Young
Volunteers" Conference held in Vietnam.
Wishing you an enjoyable reading, please note that the next
issue of “Worlds of Experience”, to be published at the end of
October 2006, will focus on ”Youth and Community Service”.
Please email your contributions, in form of articles/pictures, to
icye@icye.org before 30 September 2006.
Best regards!
ICYE International Office
"Worlds of Experience" can be viewed and downloaded as a
PDF
file.
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