Church World Service is people reaching out to neighbors in need near and far--not with a hand out, but a hand up. So, if you’re looking to help build a better world—a world where there’s enough for all—you’ve come to the right place! Raising awareness, advocating change. Moving toward a future where there truly is enough for all. Responding to disasters. Assisting refugees. Putting caring into action.
Created by churchworldservice on Aug 21, 2011
Last updated: 03/07/12 at 03:30 PM
Church World Service 65th Anniversary Timeline has no followers yet. Be the first one to follow.
Church World Service announces its appointment by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) to conduct a new international study focused on integration of the world’s growing numbers of urban refugees. The yearlong study aims to identify successful, replicable models in “host communities” that are helping refugees integrate more quickly and successfully into urban settings and new cultures. The study reflects CWS’s commitment to measurably enhancing resettlement’s “durability” so that it provides opportunity for integration and self-sufficiency that benefit refugees and their host communities.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Church World Services 65th Anniversary
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Church World Service opens a refugee resettlement office in State College, Pa., bringing to 35 the number of CWS’s resettlement offices and affiliates in 21 states. Since 1946, CWS has resettled 500,000 refugees to the United States from around the world along with hundreds of thousands of Cuban and Haitian entrants. As a partner with the U.S. government in the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program, the CWS network continues to receive about 8,000 more refugees and entrants each year.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
The new Church World Service Citizenship Education and Naturalization Program seeks to help permanent residents understand the benefits of citizenship, prepare for citizenship exams and complete the naturalization process. The program expects to serve 1,000 clients in its first year.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
United Nations’ 2010 Global Trends report counts 43.7 million forcibly displaced people in the world, including 15.4* million refugees and people in refugee-like situations throughout the world in need of protection and assistance. Other groups of forcibly displaced people include 27.5 million internally displaced persons who are forced to flee their homes due to armed conflict, internal strife and systematic violations of human rights, but who do not cross an international border, and nearly 850,000 asylum seekers.
*10.55 million under the UNHCR’s care and 4.82 million registered with the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
U.S. refugee admissions reach 74,654 in 2009 and 73,311 in 2010. Top countries of origin in 2010 include Iraq, Burma, Bhutan, Somalia, Cuba, Iran, Democratic Republic of Congo and Eritrea, plus Palestinians
Pictured: Church sponsors welcome Eh Hso family, refugees from Burma, to Phoenix, Arizona. Donna Buckles photo.
http://www.churchworldservice.orgv
U.S. government detains nearly 400,000 people in immigration custody and deports a record 392,862. More than 100,000 U.S. citizen children have lost at least one parent to deportation.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
In FY 2010, Church World Service resettles 7,055 refugees of 40 nationalities, bringing its grand total since 1946 to 500,000.
Pictured: Recent Bhutanese arrivals.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
By the end of March 2010, the last few of the last wave of the hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese refugees resettled to the United States since 1975 arrive. This last group of mostly ethnic Vietnamese arrive under the Humanitarian Resettlement Initiative, a temporary reopening of the Orderly Departure Program. Henceforth, all immigration from Vietnam apart from the occasional individual (“P-1”) refugee referral will be through regular immigration channels.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
CWS responded to the devastating January 12, 2010, earthquake, while continuing its commitment to long-term development within Haiti.
Within 24 hours after the quake, CWS and its partners began providing basic supplies, pre-positioned in the Dominican Republic. The initial response by CWS included providing emergency assistance, such as Hygiene Kits, blankets, tarps, School Kits and Baby Care Kits -- valued at more than $600,000 -- to more than 200,000 persons.
Longer-term commitments include support for 13 food cooperatives in Haiti's Northwest and Artibonite regions. The co-ops pool resources, raise and harvest crops, and provide agricultural credit to members. Other programs include support for programs to assist vulnerable Haitian children in Port-au-Prince, including restavek children (domestic servants), former gang members and teenage mothers, as well as a program for 1,200 persons with disabilities and their families in metropolitan Port-au-Prince.
Photo by Adrian Durañona.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Church World Service publishes “Putting Safety and Dignity First: A guide to protective action in programming.” The CWS protection mainstreaming manual and training pack are resources for CWS staff and partners as they seek to promote the safety, dignity and fundamental rights of individuals in all programs. The manual describes what protection is, who needs it, and the role that nongovernmental organizations and other actors play in providing it.
Read more from the manual.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Officially recognized refugees living in Indonesia number only about 798, but neither they nor the Indonesian government are inclined toward local integration. Most are from Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Somalia and Burma and have little hope of returning home, and third-country resettlement depends on the access provided by resettlement countries.
Since 2008, Church World Service has been working to ensure refugees’ access to protection and basic services while in Indonesia. Through its two refugee services centers in Jakarta and Cipayung, CWS distributes the monthly subsistence allowance provided by the UNHCR for especially vulnerable refugees and some asylum seekers, and has on-site medical staff. CWS organizes cultural and educational programs including training and capacity-building for refugees and their host communities, and helps local service providers better understand refugees’ needs.
Read more: A refugee housewife turns business woman
http://www.churchworldservice.org
CWS responded immediately following the Cyclone Nargis, providing emergency items such as food, water and shelter in Burma (Myanmar). Working with an agency native to Myanmar (Burma), CWS assistance reached a total of 572 villages in the disaster-affected region and provided supplies sufficient to serve more than 980,000 beneficiaries, including 3,944 water baskets. The water baskets, which capture rainwater, alone deliver the potential for 986,000 people to have clean drinking water. Each of the portable, lightweight plastic water containers holds the equivalent of a day's clean drinking water for 250 people.
CWS says its local partners have also provided temporary shelter plastic tarpaulins for 41,374 households - about 1 in 4 shelters distributed in the days following the storm.
In the long term, CWS launched a major appeal to support agricultural, psycho-social and school rebuilding efforts in Myanmar (Burma). In partnership with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the work helped small-scale farming families and those who didn't own land to start producing crops again, putting people back to work and providing food in the region's rice belt.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Cyclone Nargis makes landfall in Myanmar (Burma), killing at least 138,000 and affecting millions. It is the worst storm on record in the region.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Church World Service adapts its refugee resettlement model to assist nearly 5,000 persons evacuated from the U.S. Gulf Coast following Hurricanes Katrina and, subsequently, Hurricane Rita.
Pictured: Tonya and her three children, one of the dislocated families CWS assisted in its 10-state program.
Church of the Good Samaritan photo.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Hurricane Katrina wreaks death, destruction, displacement.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Church World Service pioneers the Religious Services Program to provide tens of thousands of immigrants in eight federally operated detention centers with spiritual care in their own faith traditions.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
As America’s invasion of Iraq approached, Church World Service, while lobbying against the war through its advocacy program, also oversaw the formation of a million-dollar coalition campaign called "All Our Children."
The campaign was designed to meet the critical ongoing health needs of Iraqi children for medicines such as antibiotics, along with anesthesia, IV solution kits, and other important essentials. CWS was joined in the effort by the Mennonite Central Committee, Jubilee Partners, the National Council of Churches, Oxfam America, Sojourners and Stop Hunger Now.
Through the eight-group consortium, small but very meaningful improvements in the lives of children in Iraq were made during the two and a half years of the campaign, which began in May 2003 and was completed in March 2005.
"Our goal was reached and we're now celebrating that accomplishment, both in terms of meeting our goal of financial support needed, but also in addressing some of the most urgent initial health needs of children immediately following the U.S.-led actions there," CWS Executive Director John McCullough said at the end of the campaign, also noting that All Our Children sent the first post-war humanitarian convoy into Iraq, initially delivering blankets, wheelchairs and bedding, and following up with deliveries of fresh food.
As the war dragged on, supplies arrived to fill the unmet needs of people affected by the war. All Our Children provided blankets, canned meat, medicines, first aid and personal hygiene kits, and medical equipment for distribution to pediatric hospitals and programs.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Church World Service announces its international Durable Solutions for Displaced Persons program to increase access to post-primary education and vocational training, health care and education, information dissemination, food security, legal assistance, and capacity to advocate for their own rights.
Pictured: Door-to-door polio vaccination campaign, CWS Mansehra Health Program, Pakistan.
Read more: CWS Durable Solutions for Displaced People
http://www.churchworldservice.org
“9/11” terrorist attacks precipitate the U.S. to temporarily halt all arrivals from other countries, including refugees, then to institute new security measures. Those measures result in a steep drop in refugee admissions for 2002 and 2003 to below 29,000 annually against an average of nearly 76,000 over the previous five years. In addition, large and longstanding Vietnamese and Soviet programs end.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Within days of NATO’s air strikes against Serb positions in 1999, nearly 1 million civilians fled or were forced into exile from Kosovo, including these civilians at a border crossing with the neighboring Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
Photo: © UNHCR/R.LeMoyne.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Church World Service works through Latin American faith-based and other partners to assist Colombians victimized by violence, terror and human rights violations, through a combination of humanitarian assistance, assistance with resettlement to other countries including the United States and Chile, strengthening of local efforts through training and capacity-building, and advocacy on behalf of those affected by the conflict. Among the responses: support for ACT International's response to the devastating 1999 earthquake in the department of Quindio.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Between 1994-1996, most of the Cuban “Balsero crisis” rafters are resettled by CWS and its partners.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act strengthens efforts to combat undocumented immigration and creates higher standards of financial self-sufficiency for the admission of sponsored legal immigrants. It also makes asylum harder to get. In 1996, U.S. gets tougher on undocumented immigration, also raising the bar for legal immigration and asylum.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
U.S. revises the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act. Under “wet foot-dry foot,” Cubans who reach U.S. soil are allowed to stay, but those caught at sea are turned back to Cuba unless they can demonstrate a well-founded fear of persecution. Haitians – like all other nationalities seeking asylum – must demonstrate a fear of persecution no matter where they are intercepted.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Hundreds in Havana protest the Cuban government and President Castro says anyone can leave, sparking the “Balsero Crisis.” Tens of thousands of Cuban “rafters” flee to the U.S. Some 35,000 are intercepted and detained in Guantanamo.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Ngoc Dang Tran and family, resettled by Church World Service to Eugene, Oregon, in 1994.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Reflecting world events, the top 10 countries of origin for refugees resettled to the United States are, in order, the former USSR, Vietnam, Laos, Iraq, Cuba, Ethiopia, Somalia, Bosnia, HaĂŻti and Afghanistan.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
As Yugoslavia begins to break up, the U.S. begins admitting refugees from Yugoslavia’s successor states, primarily Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also Serbia and Montenegro (including Kosovo), Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia. By 2000, the total reaches 146,534, many of them resettled under CWS auspices.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
The war in Bosnia/Herzegovina from 1992 through 1995 forced an estimated 2 million people from their homes and devastated the society. The CWS Balkans program has been implementing emergency relief and longer-term rehabilitation projects in the region since 1993.
During this time, assistance has been provided to 20,000 refugees and IDPs in villages and collections centers throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo and Serbia. Emergency assistance included bedding and blankets, food parcels, school kits and hygiene kits to thousands. Rehabilitation has included income generation activities, agricultural activities, peace-building and psycho-social support.
The CWS Europe program is one that has evolved into long-term development and humanitarian assistance, providing assistance to vulnerable children and communities coping with dilapidated water and sanitation systems in eastern Europe.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
From 1992-1994, CWS and its partners resettle 11,000 Haitians who fled following the September 1991 coup.
Pictured: Haitian family with cosponsors from Faith Tabernacle Church, resettled to Chicago in 1992 through Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries (now RefugeeOne).
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Coup d’etat overthrows Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and thousands of Haitians flee by sea toward the U.S. Coast Guard intercepts 22,000 and sends them to detention camps at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo, Cuba.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Viktor Khalantschouk (left) and Bogdan Biesnoshschak, refugees from the Soviet Union, cosponsored by First Christian Church, Versailles, Kentucky, in 1991. Biesnoshschak made the local newspaper for rescuing a neighbor woman from an apartment fire.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
1990-1991 Persian Gulf War generates hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees. CWS resettles many, including Iraqi men who had worked for the U.S. government. CWS provides several hundred thousand dollars to partner groups serving Iraqi children and adults.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Church World Service opens a small operation in Nairobi, Kenya, at the request of the U.S. government. Over time, CWS is given responsibility for preparing case files for all refugee candidates for U.S. resettlement in all of sub-Saharan Africa.
Pictured: Refugees in an East African camp.
Read more: CWS refugee case processing in Africa
http://www.churchworldservice.org
United Nations puts the total number of refugees in the world at 17,395,979.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
The wall’s fall symbolizes the end of the Cold War.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
The amendment eases the admission criteria for Jews and evangelical Christians from the former Soviet Union, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. The law subsequently is expanded to include religious minorities from Iran.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Beginning in 1989, Church World Service resettles many refugees who come under the Lautenberg Amendment.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Pictured: Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter with members of the Kovalchuk family, refugees from the Soviet Union sponsored by the Roswell (Georgia) Presbyterian Church through CWS and the Christian Council of Metropolitan Atlanta. Carter’s visit was part of the church’s 150th anniversary celebration.
Photo by Allen Koehler.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
25,000 “Lost Boys and Girls” flee slaughter in Sudan and embark on a five-year trek to Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya.
Pictured: A young Dinka boy arriving in Kenya in 1992. Determined to get an education, many of the "Lost Boys" carried books with them across hundreds of miles of desert.
Photo: UNHCR/B.Press.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
U.S. adopts the Immigration Reform and Control Act. It grants amnesty to undocumented immigrants who have been in the U.S. prior to 1982 and approves employer sanctions making it a crime to hire an undocumented immigrant.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
CWS meets with Latin American partners to create what becomes known as the Sao Paolo process: an effort to be even more intentional about including local voice in development projects and greater sharing of resources.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Anne Marie Niculae proudly displays the certificate for outstanding scholastic achievement that she earned from Portsmouth Public Schools. She and her parents, Alexandru and Zenovica, are refugees from Romania, resettled through CWS and the Virginia Council of Churches.
Photo by Sang Tran.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
In response to the influx of 10,000 refugees from Burma into Thailand, CWS co-founds the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, which offers shelter, food and non-food items to the new refugees – work that continues to this day.
Pictured: Mae La Camp.
Photo by Carol Roxburgh.
Read more: Thailand Burma Border Consortium
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Burma’s ruling regime forces 10,000 of its citizens into Thailand.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
The total number of refugees admitted to the U.S. for resettlement since 1946 reaches more than two million.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Church World Service has resettled 350,000 refugees since 1946. In 1980 alone, CWS resettles refugees to all 50 states, including 18,467 Indochinese, 8,192 Cubans, and the rest from Haiti, Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Pictured: Church sponsor welcomes Congolese refugees to the U.S.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Cold War makes it difficult for Central Americans to obtain asylum in the U.S. Sanctuary Movement begins, in which many CWS member churches shelter the undocumented in open defiance of the U.S. government.
http://www.churchworldservice.org
Update Sources