We are advocating for refugees' repatriation: UNHCR Chief

The chief of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Stephen Jacquemet has told that his agency was constantly advocating for repatriation of Bhutanese citizens from the UN-administered camps in Nepal.

"Some of you are critical to UNHCR that it promotes just resettlement," he said while addressing a function organized in Jhapa to mark World Refugee Day 2010 Friday morning. He refuted such allegations saying UNHCR was constantly advocating for dignified repatriation of Bhutanese refugees.

He also elaborated that resettlement package is at least a solution - itoffers refugees different life styles, real future and dignified living. According to him, refugees would be able to raise stronger voices for repatriation from the resettling countries.

The UNHCR chief also assured various supports to materialize the repatriation process in case it begins in future.

Camp Secretary T.B.Gurung demanded registration of all pending cases which are ineligible to receive aids from donors. He said they were celebrating refugee day when hundreds of his fellow-countrymen are without breads when their official registration remained pending.

Around 2000 Bhutanese participated in a peace rally in Beldangi-I camp this morning. Representatives of various aid agencies joined the march that comprised various groups on traditional dresses, musical instruments and placards.

"Several Bhutanese citizens on national dress marched enthusiastically to carry this year's refugee day slogan - they have taken our home, but not our future," commented Prakash Angdambe, a local artist, who arrived at the programme to express his solidarity.

Prakash Angdambe, a local artist, who reached the spot to express solidarity was astonished to see the formal starting of program with Bhutan's national anthem. "The scene was touching for every person," a refugee run news portal quoted him. Refugees, who are never recognized as citizens by Bhutan, wore Bhutan's national dress to sing their national anthem."

Every year people celebrate June 20 as World Refugee Day to remember millions of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs).

The Wintry Crippled

This poem escaletes the empty formalities shown by todays human beings in the society.The poem asks the readers whether humans have degraded to that extent.

The floor with flaccid cotton

That had no buttons.

The roof of bluish curtain

That never looked certain.

The old crippled, as old as winter

Came out of the shady haunt

Dressed in rags

And gave me a wintry smile.

I looked at him with utmost humanity

But he looked at me with extreme cruelty

But why?

Who’s accountable in making him so?

Might be! He was fade up

With humanity full of snobbishness

Or the empty formalities?

He just drifted off me                                                                       

With ragged and raged

Dragging and ragging

As if, not concerned with my human look.

Then I realized, the humans

Have degraded to such an extent

That even the doomsday doesn’t have the answer

Then what’s the answer????

Ethnic Nepali refugees from Bhutan face generation gap

"Look how happy we used to be," says Harka Jung Subba, pointing to a family photograph hanging on the wall of his hut. It shows him, his wife and their six sons and daughters when the family still lived in Bhutan, more than 20 years ago.

In 1990 they were forced to flee because of persecution of ethnic Nepalis. Harka thought they would be away only long enough for things to settle down again. But Harka and more than 100,000 other Bhutanese refugees have been living in refugee camps in Nepal ever since.

His son, Ram Kumar, seen in the family photo as a boy, moved to the US last year with his wife and his own two children as part of a UN resettlement programme. Fearful that his father would not give his consent to let him go (the UNHCR requires all members of a household to attend the verification interview), Ram, now 33, left with his mother's blessing, while Harka was in India lobbying politicians and rights activists to pressure Bhutan's government for repatriation.

"My son, who grew up in my arms, left without saying goodbye. I am sure I will never see him again," Harka says. His other sons are now also pushing him to let them leave the camp.

For the younger generations, who have lived in the camps all their lives, reliant on handouts as they are forbidden by law to work, the resettlement programme is their only way out. But the older refugees have no desire to move away from their community to a foreign country with an alien culture and a language they will never learn.

Harka, 68, admits he is fighting a losing battle against his grown-up sons. So far resettlement has been the only solution offered. In 2006, following 15 rounds of failed bilateral negotiations between the Bhutanese and Nepali governments, Washington offered an alternative: moving to America. Within a year more than 25,000 refugees had applied for resettlement in the US, Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands. A further 15,000 are expected to be resettled by the end of this year, while 50,000 more have registered.

Harka was one of the first 100 refugees to arrive in Damak, one of the six settlements in Jhapa district in south-eastern Nepal. He says they had a good life in the tiny Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, where he was a government official and owned a large farm. But in 1989, threatened by the prosperous Hindu Nepali-speaking minority, the government imposed a policy of Bhutanisation. Under the policy "one nation, one people", only Buddhism, Bhutan's main religion, could be practiced, while a Bhutanese dress code, culture and language was enforced. Many of the ethnic Nepalese had their land confiscated and were stripped of their citizenship.

Harka says he protested against the arrest of some key Bhutanese democratic leaders. Afterwards he was threatened by government officials, including members of the army. He fled. The army seized his house. Harka and his family lived in Tsirang district, in south Bhutan, a fertile area, in the foothills of the Himalayas, lush and green. Farmers grow rice, maize and millet, while major cash crops include oranges, mandarins and cardamom.

Now Harka's home is a two-room hut. With mud floor, bamboo walls and roof, it can barely fit two beds so the family take it in turns to sleep on the floor. The camp has no electricity and the sanitation system is poor. There isn't enough water and Harka says they have no access to newspapers or television. In the dry summer temperatures can reach 45C, with accidental fires, while in the monsoon low-lying Damak is vulnerable to flash floods. In the winter the walls do little to keep out the cold and fog.

Harka and fellow refugees, such as Maniraj Lama, 60, long to return to their old lives. "We have waited this long and we still can wait to go home," Maniraj says. But Sandeep Bhattarai, 23, doesn't remember Bhutan. His father refuses to give him permission to leave. "I still have the ability to start something new," he says. "I don't want to grow up as an old refugee and suffer like my parents. I have to think of myself and my younger sisters."

Sandeep works as a volunteer in a school in the camp for a small allowance. He says most of his friends are now school graduates or have finished college and are pursuing further studies. Sandeep explains that the rules about not working are not strictly adhered to; however, high unemployment means there are very few jobs and even if they get a job, they get paid less than a Nepali would.

Jiten Subba, a Bhutanese journalist in exile in Nepal, says the resettlement helped to reduce the violence, crimes and insecurity among the frustrated youth as many started to concentrate on improving their skills. But for every success story that filters back from resettled refugees, there are stories of hardship and isolation.

Another Bhutanese journalist, Thakur Prasad Mishra, 24, grew up in the refugee camps in Nepal and moved to New York as part of the resettlement programme in July last year. He explains that most of the older refugees who have resettled suffer from depression. "The elderly mostly stay inside their apartments as they have no idea how to use the public transport. They even require someone to guide them to visit a nearby hospital."

Mishra does believe that life is still better in a new country than in the refugee camp, but he warns that elderly people with no children are better off staying behind.

The UNHCR says it continues to advocate for voluntary repatriation to Bhutan. But for now that road seems to be a dead end.

Harka sums up the feelings of many of the older refugees when he says emphatically: "I would rather hang myself and die here in the camp than follow my children to a new country." This is not a throwaway line. Suicide rates are high in the camp as many refugees suffer from depression. Maniraj Lama's wife hanged herself one day while he went out for a walk. It has made him more determined than ever to get back to Bhutan.

In the meantime, Harka worries that more young people will leave, abandoning their elders. "The rift between the old and young generation is worsening," he says. "There is bad blood between the old parents and their children."The photograph on his wall reminds him of what he has to lose as well as what he has already lost.

Knitting together new lives

People always remember the first dollar they made, but for Nar Rai, the memory is particularly poignant.

Rai, a married mother of three, arrived in Houston in 2008 after spending several years in a refugee camp in Nepal.

Originally from Bhutan, a country in South Asia bordered by India and China, Rai fled with her family to escape an oppressive government. In the 1990s, Bhutan moved to create a unified society and restricted religious freedoms. Everyone was required to wear the traditional clothing of northern Bhutan and the Nepali language was removed from schools.

Rai and others in southern Bhutan, considered ethnic minorities, fled to refugee camps in Nepal and India. Within two years, more than 120,000 Bhutanese Nepali had fled the country. Though many of the refugees from the predominately Buddhist country are Hindu, Rai is Christian.

The knitting and weaving skills Rai learned as a young girl in Bhutan are part of her integration into her new life in America.

She is a member of Community Cloth, a program supporting women who want to create and sell indigenous arts and crafts. Most of the women served by Community Cloth right now are from Bhutan and Burma. The group would like to expand and serve refugees from Iraq and Africa as well.

All profits from sales of the goods the women produce go back to the artisans.

The Community Cloth is a multiorganization project among Catholic Charities, Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston, YMCA International Services and the Alliance for Multicultural Community Services.

Quynh-Anh McMahan, co-founder of the Community Cloth, said every woman who joins the program receives $150 seed money to purchase supplies.

They receive monthly training — not in their craft since they're the experts — but in basic concepts and skills of how to be an entrepreneur in America.

Handmade items including woven bags, knitted scarves, embroidered linens, baskets and rugs are sold at local farmers markets, houses of worship and university campuses. Community Cloth organizes occasional open-house events with goods for sale; to be notified about events check out its Facebook page at www.tinyurl.com/communitycloth.

McMahan said they hope soon to sell online at Etsy.com, an open market for handmade goods.

So far, the women have netted more than $15,000 in sales.

“It was my first job in America,” said Rai, who in addition to learning how to speak and write English recently passed a state exam to become a certified nursing assistant. “The Community Cloth showed me a dollar.”

There are currently 25 women in the Community Cloth, all of them mothers, including 26-year-old Devi Subba. Some of the women make their handcrafts from home; some work together in small groups in their apartment complexes.

Subba, also a Christian, fled Bhutan in 1992, arriving at a refugee camp in Nepal with her parents, two sisters and one brother. There they lived together in a small bamboo hut.

She called on her childhood skills of weaving and knitting to supplement her family's income, earning less than a dollar a day.

In 2008, Subba arrived in Houston, seven months pregnant.

She said she cried and worried about finding work and making money to pay the bills — a common concern among refugees, McMahan said.

“It's difficult for anyone with a Ph.D. or master's degree to even get a job these days,” McMahan said. “Imagine being a refugee looking for mainstream employment when you don't speak the language, don't have any formal education, and your background is farming or homemaking.”

But they do have strengths — skills that make them artisans.

“Many of the women have fantastic handicraft skills,” McMahan said. “Weaving, knitting, embroidery … they are very used to working with their hands.”

Having settled into an apartment complex and resum ed her craft, Subba is now making more than a dollar a day.

Elliot Gershenson, president and CEO of Interfaith Ministries for Greater Houston, said Community Cloth women aim to be self-sufficient in about six months.

And there's a biblical lesson here for all of us.

“All of the faith traditions I've studied are about finding ways to help those less fortunate and to welcome strangers,” Gershenson said. “To keep parts of your fields untilled so the poor can glean on their own without being embarrassed is a biblical concept for both Jews and Christians.”

The Community Cloth formally launched in December, McMahan said, and is still in its pilot phase.

But, just like refugees when they arrive in America, McMahan has big dreams.

“This was built from the ground up,” McMahan said. “We have the capacity to expand. Refugees will always be at the planning table.”

Online TV Programme will be aired by hamibhutani.com.

An online tv programme will be aired by hamibhutani.com from the 1st week of March 2010.The programme will includes several highlights like,news,views,Interviews,articles and songs related with Bhutanese theme.Watch below its earlier live interview with Bhutanese resettled in Charlottetown Canada.Programme host Parsuram Giri is Interviewing Chandra Maya Baral formerly from Sanischarae camp.

Jasoda Chhetri expressed her satisfaction upon resettling in Canada.She smiles and say,"I am lucky to be resettled here in Charlottetown and people are very supportive for me!Watch the interview,,

Refugee's attack leads to outreach effort

The shooting and stabbing of a Bhutanese refugee April 7 is driving outreach efforts to provide language-specific safety and crime prevention brochures to small immigrant groups who live in the Alief and Sharpstown areas.
Members of the Houston Asian Community Crime Advisory Board and the Greater Sharpstown Management District are locating funds to help pay for the project, said Kenneth Li, who chairs GSMD’s safety and security committee.
“We need to stop this thing. There are 100 of these families, some of them newcomers, and they don’t know how to ask for help,” Li said at the GSMD committee’s April 16 meeting.
The assault occurred about 5 a.m. April 7 as the 23-year-old was waiting for a bus on Ranchester Drive to go to work, said Chris Colaneri, a resettlement program manager with Alliance for Multicultural Community Services.
Colaneri said it was the young man’s third day at his new job with a hotel and his first attempt to take the bus to work.
The alliance began searching for the young man after family members reported he didn’t return home that day, Colaneri said.
They did not learn his fate for a couple of days, when a nurse at Memorial Hermann in the Texas Medical Center suspected her patient may be a refugee and began telephoning Houston’s resettlement agencies, he said.
The young man’s injuries still have prevented him from helping in the police investigation of the assault, said Sgt. Connie Rico with Harris County Precinct 5 Constable’s Department.
Colaneri said the effort by the management district and the Asian community is welcome.
“The apartment owners have been very helpful working with us. Getting information to the residents, if it is simple and in their language, it’s very helpful,” Colaneri said.
His organization, an agency of the United Way, has helped more than 500 Bhutanese refugees relocate to the U.S. in the past couple of years. Many of them were forced to leave their homeland 20 years ago and lived in camps in Nepal before qualifying for resettlement in this country.