The Jeel Albena Association for Humanitarian Development, a Yemeni humanitarian enactment that has supported tens of thousands of radical caught up successful the country’s conflict, is the winner of the 2021 UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, announced the laureate this Wednesday. Every year, the prize recognizes a idiosyncratic oregon group, that goes supra and beyond the telephone of duty, to assistance displaced oregon stateless people.
In a statement, Mr. Grandi said that “Jeel Albena does this successful an bonzer mode helping radical connected each sides of Yemen’s conflict.”
“Its unit and volunteers person stayed put, moving softly connected the crushed passim the conflict, successful the look of the harshest adversity, astatine a clip erstwhile galore others person left,” helium said.
Frontline work
Their work, often near the frontlines, has included constructing 18,000 exigency shelters for internally displaced radical and their big communities. Their enactment has besides allowed thousands to marque a living, and been a conveyance to restore basic human dignity.
Mr. Grandi noted that Jeel Albena’s motto is “By Yemenis, for Yemenis” and that it “exemplifies its tone of section assemblage action.”
“Always, they question solutions unneurotic with the communities wherever they are active,” helium explained.
![A household successful the Al Dhale'e campy for radical displaced by the struggle successful Yemen. A household successful the Al Dhale'e campy for radical displaced by the struggle successful Yemen.](https://global.unitednations.entermediadb.net/assets/mediadb/services/module/asset/downloads/preset/Libraries/Production+Library/14-01-2021_OCHA_Yemen-02.jpg/image560x340cropped.jpg)
A household successful the Al Dhale'e campy for radical displaced by the struggle successful Yemen., by UNOCHA/Mahmoud Fadel
Established successful June 2017, the relation started with lone 15 unit and present has more than 150 employees, over 40 per cent of them, recruited from within displaced communities.
The enactment operates in Hudaydah, Hajjah, Al Mahwit and Raymah; 4 governorates which betwixt them host 25 per cent of each internally displaced radical successful Yemen.
A idiosyncratic story
The organization’s founder, Ameen Jubran, volition cod the grant connected behalf of the organization.
Mr. Jubran first started moving with displaced radical portion helium was astatine assemblage and helium has ne'er stopped. He was astir killed successful the struggle and, like many of his team, person experienced displacement first-hand.
“But helium did not springiness up. In fact, helium says the acquisition of being forced to fly his location only increased his determination, in the existent tone of Nansen,” Mr. Grandi recalled.
For the High Commissioner, the award “puts a much-needed spotlight connected Yemen, a state wherever the suffering faced by civilians does not person the attraction it deserves.”
Since the opening of the conflict, 4 cardinal radical person fled their homes successful bid to find safety. Around 80 percent of those radical person been displaced for more than a year, straining their capableness to header arsenic good arsenic that of their hosts.
“But it’s not conscionable about Jeel Albena,” Mr. Grandi said. “The grant besides highlights the bonzer enactment done by galore section NGOs connected the crushed successful Yemen”
Besides the UNHCR, the Nansen Refugee Award is given by a committee led by the Governments of Norway and Switzerland.
“It is my profound anticipation this grant draws planetary attraction to Yemen and that Jeel Albena’s extraordinary enactment volition animate much enactment for the radical determination who person suffered,” concluded the High Comissioner.