Papua New Guinea’s (PNG’s) bishops are urging the government to do more to help resettle the country’s refugees and asylum seekers. Besides pushing for a definitive end to the detention of refugees on Manus Island, the bishops are also highlighting the plight of various groups in the country who have not gained refugee status. In Read more
Sikka is a teacher at Henderson Primary School but spreads herself across the community as a volunteer, mentoring high school girls and teaching yoga classes to refugee women on Fridays. In between, she’s organising workshops to empower refugee and migrant women as the founder of Our Stories on Plate, an initiative to address the realities of Read more
Father Mick Kelly, the Sydney-born priest and journalist who works with and helps about 400 Pakistani refugee families in Bangkok, Thailand. (Photo by James Massola) Mick Kelly remembers the phone call from his friend in Pakistan as if it was yesterday. “He asked me to help out this one guy who was fleeing Pakistan, and on Read more
The leader of a church which helped a family settle in Timaru after they fled their war-torn home is not surprised the town has been chosen as a new refugee settlement location. Continue reading
On December 10-11, the United Nations will convened at an intergovernmental conference in Marrakech, Morocco to sign the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), establishing global agreement on a common approach toward international migration. In 2016, the 193 members of the UN – including New Zealand – agreed unanimously that protecting those Read more
An Algerian man’s death at a UK detention centre won’t be the last, says Beatrice Grasso, the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) UK’s detention outreach manager. “This is not the first death in detention this year, and I fear it will not be the last time something like this happens. “It is a testament to the Read more
Thousands of refugees have died or gone missing along on their way to the US via Mexico. The Associated Press says the estimated 4,000 Latin American migrants reported missing or dead is likely low as bodies may be lost in the desert, or relatives may not report missing loved ones who were migrating illegally. Read Read more
Locking baby Jesus in a cage and corralling the wise men into an area marked “deportation” is not what you’d expect a nativity scene to look like. Yet this year’s nativity scene at St Susanna’s parish in Massachusetts shows exactly that scene. Set beneath a sign that asks the question “Peace on Earth?”, the scene Read more
LOGOS, the Marist Youth Development agency in Auckland, on November 20 farewelled Tayla Fa’aofo prior to her departure to work at the Marist Asia Foundation in Ranong, Thailand. Tayla will be helping people from Myanmar who have come to Thailand either as refugees escaping conflict and living in refugee camps or as migrants seeking work. The farewell Read more
The Dalai Lama says refugees should return to their homelands. The spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhist people says in his opinion Europeans should be the sole decider of politics in Europe. He made his comments in Malmo, Sweden. Malmo is a city with a significant immigrant population. The Dalai Lama went on to say Read more