For the first time ever, there are more than 110 million people in the world who are forcibly displaced — fleeing persecution, conflict and violence, among other atrocities. Over 36.4 million of these people have had to flee not only their homes, but also their countries.
On World Refugee Day, you will come across many labels and statistics like the ones above, but behind these numbers stands a much bigger, truer fact.
They are our neighbors
Refugees and IDPs (internally displaced people) have experienced unspeakable hardships, often being forced to swaddle their broken hearts and lives with resilience and determination that is mindboggling. Their needs and dreams often mirror our own — to provide for their families, to see their children grow up, to move past survival to thriving.
Here are three such neighbors who, because of your love, are no longer facing their struggles alone.
Alina in Ukraine
One day after Russia invaded Ukraine, Alina Kravchenko’s husband signed up for the military. A week later, he was sent to the front lines. Alina and their two daughters stayed behind, watching hopelessly when Russian troops overtook their village.
After two months of constant shelling, she knew she had to leave. She packed everything she could fit in her car and left the rest behind, moving around for months. Finally, she settled in a one-room dormitory, a former art school converted into a Lutheran World Relief-supported safe house.
When they arrived, Alina and her girls showed symptoms of PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). Alina couldn’t sleep or stop tremoring, and both girls had stopped speaking. But your compassion greeted them and took them in. It provided mental health services —psychotherapy for Alina and art therapy for the girls. She developed a tight network of support with other military wives.
“We are all united now, I think, by the same disaster,” she says. “We share our pain on this ground and empathize with each other. Lutheran World Relief has psychologists too, they help us to relieve ourselves and support us psycho-emotionally.”
A year later, Alina and her daughters have carved out a life in this new community.
“We are all living here with our neighbors as one big family, helping each other,” she says. She hopes to find a job so she can buy her own place, but it's been a challenge since day cares and schools are still closed and the girls are too young to be on their own.
More than anything, Alina hopes for peace. And for her husband to come home. The future for her and her children is uncertain, but at least for Alina, she is no longer alone in this uncertainty.
Nyalual in South Sudan
Like many women in her community of Ayod, South Sudan, Nyalual Mathieng became a widow during the civil war, which claimed nearly 400,000 lives and displaced another 4.5 million.
In a culture where widows are often shunned, Nyalual worried about surviving as a single mother and sole provider, even as she mourned. Then flood waters came, and she had found herself fleeing with her children for safety in a canoe.
After a week in the canoe and days on foot, they reached Ayod. They survived by foraging and selling firewood. When her youngest child became very ill, a health clinic officer recognized malnutrition and referred her to a nutritionist. The nutritionist told her about a Lutheran World Relief program for displaced people and widows.
Nayalual’s daughters Majok and Nyagak play with their goats while their mother prepares a nutritious meal for them and their siblings
Your compassion provided necessities like jerrycans and utensils as well as seeds for her garden, sprouting both sustenance and hope. She no longer buys vegetables or sorghum at the market and even sells her surplus for income. She’s trained in the nutritional importance of a varied diet and practices farming at a demo plot. It’s connected her with other widows, who help each other with child care and support in uncertain times.
“I am planning for a better life for my children,” Nyalual says. Her children are now in school, and she hopes to expand her farm to ensure her children can follow any dream they have.
For the first time, she’s able to make them come true.
Hary in Peru
After being hit by a bus in 2013, Hary Silva faced an impossible decision. Forego proper health care due to skyrocketing inflation in her home country Venezuela or leave the only place she’d ever known. After five years of fruitless recovery, she finally decided she had to leave.
“I think that for all of the Venezuelans who emigrated, it's traumatic to leave all our lives behind,” she says. “That whole journey (to Peru) I just wanted to come back.”
Arriving in Peru with nothing but still determined to build a life, she discovered Lutheran World Relief partner Encuentros, which gives refugee-entrepreneurs seed capital and training in digital marketing and skills to develop small businesses.
Because of your support, Hary has successfully launched a women’s clothing and accessories business called Saudihar Creaciones out of her home. She sells a variety of women’s garments including macrame clothing and sandals, bathing suits, hats, scarves, earrings, headbands and more.
Hary also uses VenInformado, a digital platform that provides access to resources such as job trainings and free guidance. Topics range from legal requirements for refugees and residency status and managing mental health to resources for survivors of violence and guidance for starting a small business. It provided much-needed answers when Hary found herself with none.
With a thriving business, Hary is grateful for those who helped get her here.
“Thanks to the support they have provided, that they have provided me with personally. I was able to make my dream come true.”
