{{The U.S. Ambassador to Rwanda Donald Koran on Wednesday visited two important projects at Gihembe refugee camp in Byumba and led a World Read Aloud Day event with students living at the camp.}}
Ambassador Koran spoke with members of a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services team working with the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to identify Congolese refugees qualifying for resettlement to the United States as well as with refugees who are completing interviews.
He also visited with implementers and recipients of the World Food Program Cash Transfer pilot program.
This program, in its testing stages at Gihembe, distributes an amount of cash via mobile transfer to heads of household within the camp for use purchasing food goods in the surrounding community.
The transfers help refugees purchase fresh foods, benefitting both them nutritionally and the local community economically.
After the two visits, Ambassador Koran read to some of the refugee camp’s children as part of World Read Aloud Day, a day celebrating the joys of reading and the importance of working with children on literacy skills from an early age.
Ambassador Koran led a townhall discussion with residents of the camp, fielding questions on the resettlement and cash transfer programs along with myriad subjects on camp residents’ minds.
“I would like to congratulate you on your perseverance and hard work to make it to this point,” Koran told the audience at the townhall meeting. “I know that you still long for peace in your homeland.”
The visit was part of the U.S. government’s continued commitment and attention to refugees issues faced the governments of Rwanda and the United States are facing.
The US accepted more than 11,000 refugees from Africa in 2013 and expects to accept more this year. Almost 1,000 Congolese refugees have moved from Rwanda to the U.S. since the conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo began.
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