Honouring the Gifts of Curiosity

Young members of our Religious Education Program at First Unitarian Congregation of Nanaimo informed the congregation of the refugee crisis using statistics from the UNHCR. This was read to us at the end of the service.

Here are their questions and answers:

• How many people around the world are forced to leave their homes each day because of conflict and persecution? 28,300.
• What countries do most refugees in the world come from? Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan and Somalia.
• How many refugees and migrants have died or gone missing while trying the cross the Mediterranean Sea? More than 8,000.
• How many people in the world are living away from home because of war, persecution and conflict? Over 70 million and half are children.
• What country had the largest number of resettled refugees last year and had the second highest rate of refugees who gained citizenship? Canada.
• How many refugees did Canada take in 2018? Canada took in 28,100 of the 92,400 refugees who were resettled in 25 countries during 2018.
• How many refugees became Canadian citizens in 2018? Over 18,000.
• How many people applied to come to Canada as an asylum seeker in 2018? Canada placed 9th in the world for asylum seekers with 55,400 claims filed in 2018.
• In 2016 in Canada, how many refugees and asylum seekers were homeless? 2,000 refugees sleeping in shelter, not counting those facilities designated specifically for refugees - double from two years earlier. 14% of people who identified as homeless in 2018 were newcomers to Canada.

Thank you to the young people in that program and to Sybil the program director.

Here is a link to Global News report  which was also used for information.