Partnership for Refugees

The National Palace of Culture (NDK), in Sofia will be lit in the colour blue on the evening of 20 June to mark World Refugee Day. The initiative is part of UNHCR's, the UN Refugee Agency, marking of the international day to honour people who have been forced to flee.

Multinational companies including Amazon, Marriott and Hilton pledged yesterday to hire more than 13,000 refugees, including Ukrainian women who have fled the war with Russia, over the next three years in Europe.

Refugees are being sought to fill job vacancies in the tourism and agriculture sectors, the head of the employment service of a leading NGO has said.

Speaking at a job fair in Thessaloniki organized to connect refugees and employers, sociologist Mary Asvesta of Solidarity Now said refugees often take on hard and difficult jobs.

In Myanmar, a revival of the decades-long repression of the Rohingya has displaced hundreds of thousands. Add to that extreme poverty and climate-related pressures — in Africa's Sahel region and elsewhere — and it is little wonder why the number of displaced people has been rising fast.

The city of Athens and the non-profit organization, The HOME Project, signed a memorandum of understanding on Friday to provide high-quality services for unaccompanied refugee children residing in Athens.

The European Commission announced a new emergency support package for Greece Thursday to help it deal with the refugee crisis that has seen tens of thousands of migrants and refugees stuck in the country, Ekathimerini writes.

The United Nations on Feb. 6 called on donor countries to supply $3.5 billion in the next two years to help improve  education and living standards for the almost three million Syrian refugees hosted by Turkey. Ankara has repeatedly complained of being left alone to deal with the influx of Syrian refugees since the conflict began in March 2011.

The University of the People (UoPeople), a non-profit, accredited, online academic institution, is opening its doors to at least 500 Syrian refugees mainly living in Turkey, offering a free higher education.

Donors have pledged $250 million to educate over one million Syrian children this year but an additional $500 million is urgently needed to fund the program in Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, the U.N. envoy for global education said on Jan. 12.

There are currently more Syrian refugees in Istanbul than in all the rest of Europe and nearly 60 percent of refugees are living in cities today, the head of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said on Oct. 26.

IRC head David Miliband told The Associated Press in an interview that "the iconic image" of a refugee being someone in a camp has changed.