The theme of this year's World Refugee Day is "Protecting Refugees: Refugee Rights are Human Rights."
Photograph by Hélène Caux, courtesy UNHCR

For the eighth consecutive year, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) will celebrate World Refugee Day, recognizing and celebrating the contributions of refugees around the world. The theme of this year's World Refugee Day is "Protecting Refugees: Refugee Rights are Human Rights."

This year's event will focus on four major refugee situations: Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur, and Myanmar. Our speakers will include Daoud Hari, author of the acclaimed book The Translator, a memoir of his life as a refugee from Darfur; NPR correspondent Deborah Amos, whose reports on Iraqi refugees in Jordan and Syria has played a key role in bringing greater attention to this emergency; and Chicago Bulls’ forward Luol Deng, who will receive the Humanitarian of the Year award for his work in bringing education to displaced children.

Also joining us will be Thimonthy Ju, a young refugee from Myanmar who recently arrived in the U.S. and whose journey was documented in the MTV show True Life: I’m Coming to America, and Farah Ahmedi, who has inspired many with her account of life as an Afghan refugee, The Other Side of the Sky.

The speakers’ event will be followed by a screening of the award-winning film War/Dance after which the filmmakers, Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine will take questions from the audience.