 Well, welcome. I'm Erin Barclay, Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of International Organization Affairs. We're now just one week away from two big events at the United Nations General Assembly this year, the United Nations Summit for Refugees and Migrants on September 19, and President Obama's Leader Summit on Refugees on September 20. Today's discussion is meant to ground these global events in the real world. We're joined today by friends across the world who are working hard to welcome and include refugees in their communities. I'd like to extend a warm welcome to those joining us at US Embassy in Athens, as well as those attending viewing parties at US embassies and American spaces in Macedonia, Albania, Italy, Serbia, Bosnia, and Cyprus. A special thank you to Consulate Belfast for hosting today's special guest, Eskender Nagash. We welcome all of you and are looking forward to hearing your views and discussing your questions over the next 90 minutes. 2016 is the year global refugee issues exploded onto the public scene. Many of us work on and manage these issues every day, but to the average citizen, refugee challenges around the world became front page news this year. Today, there are 20 million refugees across the globe. Four and a half million refugees alone have fled Syria since the beginning of that conflict. In addition, there are 45 million internally displaced people today, those who have fled their homes but remain inside their national borders. The president's summit on September 20 will bring together world leaders who are committed to greater global responsibility sharing around this issue and highlight concrete commitments countries have made to shore up the very strained international refugee support system. For too long, the responsibility for so many has fallen on too few countries. We hope the president's summit will change that for the future. The commitments made on September 20 will, number one, bring additional funding into the UN refugee and humanitarian response system. Number two, expand the number of resettlement slots globally so refugees can move around the world safely. And number three, for those countries generously hosting refugees, we look to their leadership in providing greater opportunities for refugee children to attend school and adults to seek out legal livelihoods in their host communities. This is very hard. Countries across the globe are experiencing backlash against refugees and migrants. The political discourse around these issues is contentious. Policy changes to improve refugees' ability to contribute to their host communities are hard and take time. But on September 20, leaders at the summit will come together around one message. We can and must do better. We know the average length of time a refugee finds him or herself displaced is anywhere from 17 to 20 years. We also know, though, that if the right enabling environment exists, refugees can plug in and contribute economically, culturally, and socially to their host communities. Our challenge as governments, civil society, the private sector, and individual citizens is to reach a little further this year than we have in the past. Because we can and must do better. As an organization for migrant women of diverse origins, some of whom have been in Greece for decades, Melissa, a migrant women's network based in Athens, Greece, serves as a model for how refugees can be welcomed. I'm truly grateful to have with us today Dr. Nandina Christopoulou, co-founder of Melissa. Melissa started out by providing breakfast to refugee children in Athens. What started small soon became a full-scale operation, providing over 200 meals each morning, as well as thousands of care packs to small children. As any effective NGO would as the nature of the situation changed, Melissa's response changed with it. The group now provides a pathway of integration to refugee and migrant populations through Greek and English classes, as well as psychosocial support and a whole range of activities related to life in a new place. On several occasions, Secretary of State John Kerry has commended Melissa's efforts, including during his visit to Greece last December. I look forward to seeing the results of Melissa's partnership with the U.S. Embassy to create videos that showcase migrant women's experiences. I would like to remind our viewers that we can start asking questions now in the chat space next to the video player on Share America or Twitter using the hashtag aid refugees. First Nandina, I'd like to turn it over to you for a few introductory remarks. Thank you. Melissa is an organization that brings together migrant and refugee women who currently live in Greece. The name, Melissa, is the Greek word for honey bee. It's a metaphor for bees in a beehive. It's about, you know, it's probably the strongest metaphor we could think of standing for women who come here from all over the world, bringing with them their skills and ambitions, their dreams, their hopes for the future. And with all that, they contribute to the weaving of the social fabric of the host society. So our mission is to empower migrant voices and our vision is that of a society which is like an open beehive of communication and exchange. So Melissa was founded in 2014 by migrant, you know, with the active engagement of migrant women leaders who have lived in Greece for a long time. And within this period, and today counts members from over 45 countries. So when we managed to open our center last summer, just a year ago, our opening coincided with the huge refugee flows of last summer, literally at our doorstep. And the response of all the migrant women involved in our network was immediate, spontaneous. It was unanimous. And it was really quite, it was including everyone. So we had women who were organizing overnight meals for the refugee children at the park. We had women who were from all over from Georgia, from Russia, from Nigeria, from Zimbabwe. Thanks, Nadina. It's really great to learn of all these innovative actions that you've been undertaking to meet your local community needs. As we know, every country's response is different because of course, every context is different. To be able to arrive at some context on what the American approach has been to refugee resettlement, I'd like to welcome my friend, Dr. Eskender Nagash. Eskender is the senior vice president for global engagement at the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. Prior to that, he was appointed by President Obama as the director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, the largest government-funded refugee resettlement organization in the world. This is a position that Eskender held until 2015. And of course, Eskender is truly global. He's joining us today from our consulate in Belfast. And Eskender, I'd like to turn it over to you for some opening remarks now. Good afternoon, and good afternoon in Washington. Thank you very much, Assistant Secretary Barclay for your kind introduction. I also want to thank the international information programs at the Department of State for inviting me to speak to you today. Refugee resettlement is just a small part of the global displacement. In 2016, UNHCR total population of concern was, as Secretary Barclay mentioned, is over 60 million refugees and IDPs. These are refugees-like situation pending asylum seekers and returnes. Approximately one half of 1% of all recognized refugees are resettled to the third country each year. The U.S. takes the largest proportion of all countries each year. The president in consultation with Congress, the State Department, and the key member of the U.S. resettlement program established the ceiling for refugee admission. Refugees are categorized according to three priority groups for the U.S. Priority one, individual cases. Priority two, key designated group, for example, or just minorities. Priority three is family reunification for designated nationality. The presidential determination, also known as PD, provides the projection and goal for a refugee arrival. This year, it's set at 85,000 refugees. We have in each region, Africa, 12,000, East Asia, 18,000, Europe's Central Asia, 2,000, Latin America, Caribbean, 5,500, and near-East South East Asia, about 35,500. Resettlement sites in the U.S. are chosen based on a variety of factors, including employment rates, cost of living, cash assistance level, and transportation. The U.S. Resettlement Network is estimated to be approximately 1,100 strong. It's really a village. It takes a village to resettle a refugee and it's more of a nation when it comes to the U.S. Refugees Resettlement Program, which makes our program so strong and so unique. It's comprised of, we have nine national voluntary agencies and we have about 350 affiliate resettlement agencies. We have several hundred ethnic-based, community-based organizations. We have in each states, we have the state refugee coordinators, the state health refugee coordinators, and then we have several affinity groups at the national level and at the local level. On top of that, we have mayors, governors, local city councils, public schools system, human service offices, member of the business community, healthcare provider, and of course, student volunteers. Defining integration for refugee is a challenge for the U.S. Resettlement Program. After all, we are a nation of refugees and immigrants. It varies from state to state, from person to person. We can outline factors that contribute to integration but the common definition remains very elusive. Some of this factor includes subsurface essentially, home ownership, business development, naturalization, high-skilled refugees with high expectation and limited access to resettification. The rewards of having your refugee resettlement program are many. Even the tiniest thing can bring joy for resettlement advocates and refugee resettlement agencies. Refugees access, opening business, buying homes, graduating from high school, college, medical school, getting urgent need of healthcare, family reunification after years or decades of separation and isolation and providing safe haven and freedom and from freedom from persecution and fear. Naturalization has also a voice and a board and at home. Our resettlement program is very vibrant. It brings everybody to the table. It is a very inclusive way of resettling your refugees and it has been very, very successful. As some of you know, we have resettled over 3 million refugees since 1980. And that's really when you compare that. That's probably a nation by itself when you add the numbers. Again, thank you for the opportunity and again, thank you for the invitation. I'm happy to answer any question you may have. Thank you very much. That's great, Eskender. Thank you very much. We really appreciate it. At this point, I think we would like to turn it over to our friends in Athens to start the question and answer and discussion. So Nadina, I'll come back to you and ask if you have any questions from your audience to start us off. My name is Marzia. I'm from Afghanistan, I'm 15 years old and I have a question. I'm here to ask the question that why the border is close for Afghan peoples. Another people can go on, but Afghan peoples cannot go everywhere. I'm referring to the fact that the Afghans are not included at the moment in that they cannot move any further than Greece. So they cannot participate in the relocation schemes. And are you talking about, just so I understand the question and then I will repeat it for Eskender as well. Are you referring to the EU Turkey relocation scheme in particular? I think what she's referring to is the fact that they cannot move any further on in Europe. So the other European countries. Marzia's brother already lives in Sweden and the families here waiting to reunite with him. So I can start with some of the question. I can't answer your specific question about moving further. Moving further, but I would just say a couple things as a sort of a general response and then I'll ask Eskender. Eskender, the question is about moving further and family reunification and why it is so hard to continue to move whether to bring your family or to move further through Europe under the Turkey plan. So let me just offer a couple of thoughts and then I'll ask Eskender to weigh in if you want and actually Nadina would be interested in your thoughts on this as well. I think that what we know, as I said in my opening remarks is that the question of managing large refugee flows is obviously incredibly hard and complicated for every country in the world, our own included. And I think that what we have seen across Europe in the last year is a tremendous amount of leadership from many of our colleagues across the European Union member states to try to manage the flows of refugees coming in the way they best can within their own national context. It's not perfect. I think that every member state that we have, for example, been talking to about the President's Refugees Summit understands that more does need to be done and they are looking for creative ways, whether it's through family reunification visas, scholarships, other alternative pathways. I know that many of those countries are working very hard to try to expand those opportunities. And I know it's probably no consolation to you personally for the specific question you're asking me, but I do think that these countries are working very hard to try to expand those opportunities. Eskender, I don't know if you'd like to add anything on that in that regard. Just briefly, I'm assuming that what the UN is trying to do in September and our President, President Obama is trying to do is to bring other nations to their Refugees Settlement field. And I'm very sure, I mean, what the President as Assistant Secretary Berkeley mentioned at the beginning that that's really the intent of expanding the Refugees Settlement arena, bringing other nations to be actively helping refugees, and hopefully the UN also coming up a system of responsibility sharing with so many countries. So I hope the outcome of the September meeting is going to produce some very tangible result. And I hope that part of that discussion, the Afghan refugee situation would be mentioned. There's so many Afghans in here and so many Afghans in Pakistan for many, many years, perhaps decades. So this is really a global issue. It's just not only an Afghan issue. We have so many refugees around the world that have been there for generation. And hopefully through the summit, the UN and the presidents convening this international meeting will produce some relief. Thanks, Eskender. I mean, that's definitely our intent with the President's Summit. So thank you very much. Nadina, I'm gonna come back to you to see if you have another question from your group. My name is John Saropoulos. I'm a journalist with Al Jazeera, foreign correspondent. I think the pertinence of the question for you is the following that was just asked now. The relocation program in effect in Europe that was agreed last September allows only those ethnicities with an acceptance rate of 70% or more in the asylum systems across Europe to be relocated from Greece and Italy into the north of Europe. Afghans fall just shy of that 70% acceptance rate. And that arbitrary threshold was seen as discriminatory both by them and by a lot of NGOs in the months after that agreement was made. I think only Iraqis and Syrians from the Middle Eastern countries fall above that 70% threshold. So I think the pertinence of the question towards a US official is twofold. One is why can the US not pick up the slack in a situation that is patently unfair to an ethnicity that is suffering from war and that isn't being recognized in Europe. And secondly, particularly if you have the fact that this state of war stems from a US intervention, military intervention in their country, why can many people who worked with US authorities not be relocated? Thank you. Okay, thank you very much for that question. I think I'll start by asking Eskender if you wanna jump in. The question is back to the EU Turkey Plan and the quota on certain ethnicities and that the Afghan refugee population falls below that quota under the EU Turkey Plan. And the question is why can't or how can the US as the questioner asked pick up the slack or I would say help in that regard because the Afghan refugee population falls just below the threshold under the EU Turkey Plan. So that was the basic parameters of the question. And I would just say from the outset that I'm not an expert on the EU Turkey Plan. I think that from our perspective, we know that our partners in Europe again are trying very hard. I hear your point and I take your point back to my colleagues here in the department who work more closely on this issue. And certainly as we get closer to the president's summit and we continue our conversations with our European colleagues who will be there with us, we will take your question and concern back into those conversations as well and make sure that we highlight the challenges that you're raising around the quotas and see if we can have a deeper conversation with our European partners in that regard. Eskender, I don't know if there's anything you wanna add on that one? No, nothing clearly, but I just wanted to share that we have been, the US had been resettling Afghan refugees for I would say almost 30 years, not just the result of the current engagement, but we have resettled thousands of Afghan refugees from Pakistan and other places. Currently, we have a special immigrant visa also we give to Afghans also coming to the US. So we have actually the US has a long history of resettling Afghan refugees. Again, I'm not an expert on EU Turkey and other issues in Europe, but there is a history of resettlement of Afghan refugees in the US. Thank you. Okay, so Nandina, thank you all very much for starting off our program with those tough and insightful questions. We really appreciate it. Now we're going to take some questions from our viewing audiences around the world. If you have questions for Eskender, please ask them in the chat space next to the video player. Okay, so the first question we have is from our American corner in interest. A question for the relief workers in Greece. Has your day job changed since the EU Turkey agreement? Yeah, good afternoon. My name is Debbie Valencia and I am a co-founder of Melisa, but I also represent my community, the Filipino migrant workers community here in Athens. And over the years we were, we are the longest organization, migrant organization here in Athens. And over the years, we were able to set up a women's cooperative and take care center for children of migrants. It was very difficult for us because there are limited resources and we being migrants, it was difficult to deal with bureaucracies. And my question is, how can the government's make commitments in terms of supporting grassroots organizations like Melisa and like migrant organizations or refugee organizations in supporting their initiatives because we believe that migrants and refugees are key actors in finding short-term and long-term solutions to this crisis. That's great. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that question. I'm happy to answer that question, but I just wanted to make sure that you guys got the question that we had from the online questioner. And so just to repeat that, Nadina, for you, the question from our online colleague was how has your day job changed since the EU Turkey agreement? So that was the question that online wanted to pose to you all, but let me give some thoughts to your colleague's question about how the summit will support local grassroots organizations to do your work. And I think that it's a very important question, not least to me because I come out of the NGO world in my old days, but it is a very important question because I think often we watch these international events happen around the world and we don't really know how that will come home to us, where we live and where we work. So thank you very much for that question. I think the most direct way that civil society partners around the world will feel the impact of the president's event or one of the ways that we hope that you do and your organizations do is through ultimately an increase in the global contributions to UN agencies and appeals. Now we know that's still very top level and it takes a long time for that funding to come down to the grassroots level. I understand that deeply, but certainly one of our objectives with the president's summit this year was to both get additional resources into the UN system. We know that UN humanitarian agencies and appeals are chronically underfunded, barely 50% of the appeals globally are funded on an annual basis, but in addition to getting more money into the system, one of the other objectives we have for the summit is to expand the number of countries under the tent who are providing in a long term way providing assistance to the UN appeals and agencies. And I think that we will succeed in that regard in the summit, but certainly at the end of the day, our hope is that as that funding continues to come in, that increased funding comes into the UN system, that at the end of the day, that will ultimately support the extremely important work at the grassroots level that you and your colleagues are doing with Melissa and other organizations around the world. I wanna just check with you, Nadina, to see if anybody wanted to take the question on how the EU-Turkey agreement has kind of changed your work on the ground. In answer to that question, we're also an organization working for about one year in this refugee crisis in Greece. Of course, Action 8 works internationally for a long time. First of all, I think I would like to clarify one thing. The EU-Turkey deal did not start this crisis. This crisis has been happening since last year. The present population that we have in Greece that is on the mainland are people who have arrived prior to that deal. So they fall under a different status and then the same ones that can be before a certain nationality be relocated. The remaining population that has come after the deal are the ones that are about 10,000 or so presently stuck in the islands that keep coming in small numbers. So initially, what has really changed with our work is that with the first crisis last year, it was a transit population. So it was very quick assistance in NFIs, in women's protection, because this is what we work with, providing information, trying to give it just a basic dignity kit for a woman to be able to continue her journey. Since then, that the population is more or less stuck or trapped in the situation, we had to very much strengthen our psychosocial support and our resilience and empowerment activities for women. So we both really change as far as, in the sense you have to look at long-term time of solutions and to provide a lot more psychosocial support which was not something that you were able to do in our population in transit. Thank you, that's great. I really appreciate that perspective. Okay, so it looks like we have another question from our online audience. Eskender, this one's for you. From your role at the Office of Refugee Resettlement and at USCRI, can you tell us a bit about your perspectives on the role of education and the importance of legal work authorization for refugee self-reliance and resettlement? Thank you very much. Again, the US experience in terms of work authorization, education is quite different because if you are coming in as a refugee to the US, you have the same right like an American citizen to go to school, to go to university if you wish to do that, to work. So the day you arrive to the US as a refugee from overseas, you have the same rights in terms of school employment, having ownership, everything that a US citizen is eligible for except voting. So that's from the US perspective. From other places that I have seen, I think the idea is if you have refugees and if you are not providing them employment authorization, if you are not giving them the right to work and the right to go to school, the whole process of just bringing them is becomes meaningless. What refugees in my experience always expect the freedom to choose and where they go, the freedom to get a schooling, the freedom to work, the freedom to own. Very much what you as a policy expert discuss in terms of the 1951 convention. So that's really where it's lacking in some places, signatories of the convention have a certain reservation in terms of employment. At the same time, refugees are leaving your refugee camp without the education, without any healthcare, without employment. I think that the issue of refugees is whether a country is willing to take them but at the same time whether the country is willing to give them the freedom to be part of the society. That's great, thank you Eskender. And Nadina, I wanna come back over to your group and get thoughts from your audience on this question as well from the Greek perspective and from the perspective of where you all are working. And the question I think would be interesting for our viewers to know is how you see the issue of getting more kids, refugee kids in school and creating livelihood opportunities, work opportunities for refugees as our action aid colleague laid out who are I think the word she used was trapped who will now be there for some time. How does this look from where you sit today? I guess the word is trapped and trapped in hopelessness because your lack of access to education and to opportunities is something that deprives you of a sense of hope for the future. And instead of me saying something about this I would like to maybe ask two of the participants in our integration program who are both from Syria and who both had their lives suspended and their education interrupted and who may perhaps convey this a little more from their side. My name is Rasha, I'm from Syria. I have masters in agriculture and my husband's in Sweden for two years. I'm in immigration but I don't know why it takes a lot of time and when I asked the NBC or the immigration here they told me they don't know. And I hope it's not to take that time because I want to be with my husband and continue my studies. So I don't know what's going on. That's what, and my start with me. Hello, my name is Iman, I'm also from Syria. I came to here to go to my brother in Sweden but I am a poverty team. I'm going to want to ask the silent service. They said it's hard to go to my brother because I am above 18. So I don't know what the solution is about that. Also I graduated from my university in economics and I hope to continue my studies also. So I always looking for an opportunity to do that. So that's my two questions. That's great, thank you very much. I really appreciate hearing from both of the colleagues there with you, Nadina. I think that as we again sort of taking that the experiences that you're having to the global level where I sit back here in Washington, one of our expectations, one of our goals from the very beginning of the president's summit was to work with countries in the way that they are able to work to create opportunities for refugees to be able to continue their studies when they are in countries for long periods of time and to be able to work as well while they are there. I think what we have found as we've gone about this global diplomatic engagement over the course of the last nine or 10 months is that many countries can do more and they will be trying to do more as part of their commitments to the summit. As I said in the beginning, these are, as you all know better than I do, hard and long-term changes for countries to absorb and manage. But certainly one of our objectives from the very beginning was to address exactly these types of frustrations, challenges that your colleagues there in Athens, Nadina are managing and dealing with so admirably right now. I think we may have another question from one of our online viewers and Eskender, this one's gonna come back to you. Can you tell us from your vast experience of working to resettle refugees in the United States? What partnerships and strategies work best to create an enabling environment for refugees to thrive? In your opening remarks Eskender, you talked quite a bit about the different communities in the United States that are involved and we heard about this from Nadina as well in terms of citizens, all the way from citizens to governments and everything in between. Grassroots groups, civil society, networks of organization, government actors, the private sector, the UN. Tell us how you have seen this work in order to create opportunities for refugees to thrive and plug in and contribute. Thank you for the question. If I may, I wanted to also add to your response to the previous question. I think we need to have a global perspective in terms of when we discuss about this refugee crisis. Keep in mind, as some Secretary Berkeley mentioned, there are over 60 million refugees and IDPs. Some of these refugees have been refugee situations since 1964. They don't know education, nothing. We have over 500,000 refugees in Somalia and Dadaf. We have thousands of refugees in Kakuma. We have electric and refugees since 1964. We have the four-year refugees in Chad. So we have to really look at it globally. I understand the crisis is because some refugees decided not to stay in the camp and decided to go to Europe. So have a global perspective. I understand the need for education on employment. My view is that the first thing that any country has to do is give freedom to the refugees who are running to their country, recognize them as a human being and recognize them as an asset rather than a burden to the community or to the state. For my experience in the US refugee program, it's not really the amount of money the social support system that refugee gave. It's actually the freedom they get, the freedom to choose where to go, where to live, to own a business, to pursue education. That's really the cornerstone of what they, from my perspective, what the US refugee program is. In the US, even though the government provide financial assistance to resettlement agency, the entire refugee resettlement program is done by civil society organizations. Some of them are face-based organizations. Some of them are just local agencies. Some of them are former refugees founding their own organization and providing services to the newcomers. So in the US, we have a very inclusive refugee resettlement model. In every city, there is a resettlement agency, non-profit. Some of them are face-based. Some of them are just simply a non-profit civil society organization. All of them working collectively to make sure that the transition of a refugee to the community is smooth and at the same time to make refugees as part of the community and then contributing member of the community. And again, at the end of the day, the other thing we do is, and then there is also citizenship. Refugees will have the chance to apply to become a US citizen. That process takes five years. After that, they get the citizenship and again, they're the privilege and the responsibility of being a citizen in any country extent to the refugees. So our model is a public-private partnership. We bring the business community, face-based community, volunteer. A lot of in-kind donation people. We have host families in different places. So it's a very grassroots-based, community-based, business-based model of refugee settlement we have. I just want to also to clarify that. I mentioned for 2016, we're bringing 85,000 refugees. That's just only coming in from overseas. We have also as a list, that number could be 30 to 40,000. And then we have also as a loss in the US that also give relief. We have the Q1 Haitian program that also provide under the Q1 Adjustment Act. So our number, when you look at it, 85,000 when people mention about that, that number when you take the asylumes and others, that number can actually reach up to 150 to 200,000. That's great, Eskender. Thanks very much. Nadina, I want to come back to you for one minute and see if you wanted to comment at all on the question of community engagement. You talked a little bit about that in your opening. I think it's really so important in every country around the world, my own included, as you hear from Eskender. The question of how various parts of our communities come together in different ways to support refugees in our cities and in our towns. And I don't know if you have any examples or sort of model programs or engagements that you might want to describe to our viewing audience that Melissa is undertaking or other of your partner organizations that are undertaking in Greece to sort of talk a little bit about how different parts of each of our communities engage in the support question locally. Thank you. And thank you for giving me the opportunity to refer a bit more to our current activity, which is an integration pathway focusing on refugee women. With all the things you kind of mentioned earlier, but providing trying to provide lessons, language lessons, psychosocial support, as well as a wide range of activities enhancing creativity and building confidence and really bringing out the distinct voices of these women. But I think that the key element for us is the involvement of the migrant communities, their active engagement, the daily interaction of people who have a common backgrounds who have things to share. And I think that this creates a bridge, a bridge of integration and opportunity for sharing, which is valuable, it's a treasure for the whole community. So I think that by giving, creating opportunities for refugees today, we are actually giving opportunities to our societies to maybe see things differently and enlarge our visions. And at the same time, we are creating opportunities at the global level because the people who are refugees today and who will be our neighbors tomorrow, maybe for a long time or maybe for a short time are the ones eventually that are going to return back and rebuild their countries. So the more opportunities we are able to create and give today, the better it is for all of us. Thank you, that's very meaningful to hear you talk about that. So thank you very much. Okay, so at this time, we're gonna go back to take a couple of questions. Nadina, again, back to you from the audience in Athens. And I would check to see if there are any questions for Eskender from the group or otherwise. I have two basic questions from both of you. It's somehow not doing with the present situation in Greece only, but as a whole community of refugees and displaced people. The first question is that why in the last years, at least in the five last years, there is not enough efforts made from the international community to stop the war. I mean, peacemaking process. And always we are watching, leaving the problems getting bigger and then we are looking for solutions. And as we know that the best way would be to stop the war and the problems and the wars. So why international leaders have not been dealing seriously about that? And the second question is that there is somehow a discrimination between the refugees. I mean, we give chance to a part of refugees to go further in safer places and for others not. Even there is discrimination somehow between countries. Like some people are called refugee because of their backgrounds. Like if they are from Syria, from Iraq, Afghanistan, some of you are not. But I believe that only your backgrounds and from which country you are is not the case that you would be a refugee. A refugee could be also coming from a very different country like Iran and other places that there is no any war but they have another problems. Like democracy or freedom of speech. So we can see in this relocation program that Iraqis, Afghans and a lot of other countries, people they are not included in this program that I think is not right. And okay, so my main question is that why there is not made enough effort to resettle these people from the neighbor countries, like from neighbor of this and of course countries through a safe procedure in order to not lose their lives and the seas on the boats. We have seen a big number of refugees losing their lives and the agency. So why there is not a will for stopping these issues? And then we are looking for smaller issues to find solutions. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for those questions. There as always they're excellent from the floor there, Nadina, so thank you very much for that. Eskender, I'm just gonna paraphrase the question. So you have sort of two questions from our colleague in Athens who I heard at the very beginning during his introduction as a sociologist. So we have to make sure that we keep that in mind Eskender when we respond. Okay, two-part question. The first one is I think something that's probably on both of our minds on a regular basis, I know it is for me, which is the question of why isn't the international community doing more to end the conflicts that are causing these large flows of refugees? That's the first question. And the second question is about sort of discrimination amongst refugees as they resettle and move around where some countries will admit and accepts some ethnicities or refugees from certain countries but not others. And then the questioner came around at the end to ask about safe pathways and moving around so that people don't have to lose their lives crossing the Mediterranean as they seek safety and a more dignified life. So let me just start while you think about that Eskender and I'll just offer a few thoughts and then turn it over to you. So certainly I'll take the second question first. I mean one of the objectives that we have had again this year in asking our partner countries around the world to come together next Tuesday around at the President's Summit, one of the big pushes that we have been making is to ask countries to increase the number of resettlement slots for refugees globally. In January, we set out to double the number of resettlement slots globally for refugees. Very much for the reason your question is pointing to. In order to create more safe opportunities for refugees to move around the world. And so that has definitely been part of the objective of the summit and one that I think that we will have a good story to tell next week at the event in terms of meeting our goal around doubling the number of refugee resettlement slots. On the question of conflict prevention and resolution, certainly I agree and many people have asked, you know, are asked the same question. The objective of our summit next week was to deal with one particular part of this challenge, as you know. Which is about funding, number one, the funding, number two, increasing resettlement slots and number three, questions around work in school and creating more opportunities for refugees where they are living and working for extended periods of time. I would say that that doesn't negate the US's engagement around other peacemaking processes. Has it been sufficient? That's debatable. But certainly I think in the last year we have seen Secretary Kerry take a very strong interest in the questions of Syria and other conflicts. These are extremely complicated dynamics and relationships, but certainly I would agree with you. But again I would say that the summit, the president's summit on Tuesday is focused on a different set of issues than peacemaking and conflict resolution. But certainly that doesn't negate what you're asking and the validity of what you're asking about greater international support on the peace and reconciliation side. So I hear you on that point and certainly take it back on this side. Eskender, anything that you'd like to add on those questions? Just briefly, that's why I'm trying to give you a global perspective. The question we need to ask is this a refugee crisis we have or is the crisis is the international community response to the refugees? I happen to believe, it's my view, we have a crisis of humanity, we have a crisis of not accepting people who are different like ours. I know a few years back Syria used to be hosting over two million refugees. Now Syria is now becoming one refugee-sending country. So I think we need to look at it a little bit deeper. If we have over 60 million refugees and IDPs and some of them have been in this protracted situation, my organization, the US Committee for Refugee and Migrant have been advocating for anti-refugee warehousing for almost 10 years. But we didn't get any response. We have refugees for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years sitting in the refugee camp. And when did this crisis came? Did it came 20 years ago? No, it came because some refugees decided to have self-determination and decided not to stay in refugee camp. And when they start going to places normally refugees would not go, then it became a crisis. If you are a Somali refugee living for 25, 30 years in refugee camp with no education, with no future, is that a crisis? Or it becomes a crisis when you decided to go to Europe, is that a crisis? So I think the question of why not solve the Syrian crisis peacefully? Why not solve the Somali crisis? Why not solve the Eritrean crisis? Every crisis needs a solution. I think in my view, the international community for many, many years decided as long as refugees are staying in refugee camp, as long as we can contain them, then it's not a process. The first time when refugees decided to get out of camp and decided to go other places, it became a crisis. So I think the international community has a certain responsibility in terms of about the refugee crisis, which I happen to believe it's a crisis of our response to the crisis is really the real crisis. Not refugees seeking a settlement, seeking freedom, seeking a place to stand should not be a crisis. I don't believe that a human being is a burden to another human being. Even the language of refugees are becoming to communities and the state is a misplaced definition of the current crisis. In terms of discrimination, again, look at it globally. I mean, when you have 65 million refugees in Indo-Piaz and then maybe in one person get a chance for resettlement. I mean, you see that the issue is more complicated than that. From the US perspective, that's basically my experience. We have had about 60 to 70 countries origin refugees. So we have actually a refugee program, whether you have a PhD or you're just a farmer from Bhutan. If you establish a well-founded field of persecution and if he goes through the process, the US refugee program accept based on that factor. We have a different program for skilled worker. So whether you have a master degree or just a farmer, the US program is quite inclusive and that's it from my experience. We have resettled Iranian refugees, Bhutanese refugees, Somali refugees, the last voice of Sudan, Eritrean refugees. So we have a very rich, inclusive resettlement program. Do we resettle everybody? No. Do we resettle enough? No. In fact, my agency has been trying to encourage our administration to bring in more refugees, more Syrian refugees and Azure refugees. And under the president push, the first president push, we actually resettled over 200 refugees in one year. So we have a lot of history of doing that, but I understand the situation of bringing refugees is a little bit more complicated. But I think as Assistant Secretary Barakley mentioned, the recognition by the UN and our leadership of President Obama to bring this issue and then to have this shared responsibility for the refugees, not just for only the Syrians and the Afghans in Iraqis who deserve a resettlement. It's just also as our forgotten refugees are old. Thanks, Eskender, I appreciate that. Nadina, we're gonna come back to you now and see if any of the colleagues in your audience have another question. Hello, I'm Kedija, I'm from Syria. I remembered now something written in the earlier because the king said, why should the dog has a life and my brother has not? Now I want to ask you, why should the dog has a house and my daughter, she doesn't, why everyone has a language and my daughter, she has not. I don't know what to teach her, is it English, is it Greek, what? I just want to know when should we Syrian have them and I have another question to the whole world also. It is when the international community will interfere in Syria to make the law above that blue-shed permissiveness, thus I can go back to my brother. Thank you, Nadina, I'm just gonna ask you if you could just repeat the question for me, I was having a hard time hearing it. I did get the first part where our colleague was asking about her daughter, so I want to make sure I hear that part of the question as well again. And then I believe the second question was about the Syrian conflict, but I couldn't quite get all of it. The question was about the right, it's a dual question. The one is about the right to education and the steady, solid life, a steady life in the reception place. And the other part was about the options of returning and about the international response in the case of Syria and her options for a future back in her home. Okay, thanks very much, I appreciate that question. I mean, I'm sure I'm not gonna have a fully satisfactory answer for you on those questions, so let me just offer a couple of thoughts. First of all, in terms of the work that we've been doing with other countries around the world for the President's Summit this year, it has been exactly to get at that question you are asking. How am I to educate my daughter? How am I to create an opportunity for my children where I am now? And that has been the focus of the diplomatic work and conversations that we have had with countries all over the world, over the course of the last year leading up to next Tuesday. And I sincerely hope that over the course of time, hopefully not that much time, we will start to see countries evolve their policies to allow children like your daughter to be able to continue her education in Greece or where you find yourself if you continue to move on. On the question of the Syrian conflict, I don't have the answer for you. I will say that our Secretary of State, John Kerry, as you know, has been deeply involved in trying to broker a peace agreement in Syria. And we are going to keep at that. I know the Secretary plans to keep at that as hard and as long as he possibly can. Eskender, I don't know if you wanna add anything on the education question or otherwise. Again, you know, look at it a little bit globally. There, according to recent report, 50% of all refugees are children. You have children and unaccompanied minors and refugee camps living without any supervision, without any education. You have unaccompanied minors from Central America fleeing violence going to places. And so I think the International Committee has this responsibility. What kind of future do we wanna have? If the children are our future and if we are very much ignoring the plight of children, whether from Syria, Afghanistan, Iran, or Salvador or Guatemala, what kind of future are we gonna have? So I believe, you know, hopefully the issue of children and their education would be a major discussion at the UN. Again, this is a first meeting. I hope that it will have hopefully part of the agenda ongoing. But right now, as we speak, millions of millions of children are not going to school. Millions of children are unaccompanied without any family around them living basically in refugee camp. Probably they will grow up if we don't come up with a solution. So it's not just only the education question. It is a question of again, humanity, what kind of do we want our children to grow up without education, without any hope, without any dignity? And what would that do for them when they turn 20, 25 and 30? I mean, that's really the big question, you know, that International Community should consider. And there's a lot of organization like Melissa and my own organization, US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants and others around the globe advocating on behalf of children. Thanks very much, Eskender. And I would just add that the last set of questions that you posed rhetorically to us, I have to say are the thoughts that have animated our work at the State Department and across our government over the course of the last year as we have worked around the world to bring countries together on Tuesday next week. So we feel it deeply on this side and it certainly has been part of all of the work that we have been doing over the course of the last year. Okay, so I'm being reminded that we're all supposed to keep our answers short. That includes me. So I will try to be a bit more succinct. Okay, so Nadina, thanks very much for those questions. Really appreciate it. We're gonna check back in now with our online audience for some more questions. Okay, Eskender, this one is for you again. Can you share a few examples of integration and inclusion efforts you've witnessed in communities in the US that you view as particularly successful? We have a lot of very successful integration examples I can share with you, but I think keep in mind, for any integration to be effective, the people who are needed to be integrated need to have the full range of freedom. They have the freedom to go to school, if they have the freedom to work, if they have the freedom to own properties, then integration becomes an easy process. We, I mean, our country, as you know, is a country of immigrant and refugees. It is actually the US's DNA. So recently I was reading an article about 44% of new take startup in Silicon Valley, the place where Google and others is started by immigrants or refugee. So we have a very successful community. We have doctors, engineers, we have business owners. We have also even politicians. So our education process is a very active process that involves language skill, employment skills. And then we have around the country, a lot of very successful community, mostly refugees brought in new businesses from Lewiston, Maine to Minnesota and other places. You will see that refugees are actively engaged in their community. So again, for any integration to be successful, the primary ingredients in my view is give them the freedom to choose. And then if they do, then refugees will be very, very successful and they'll be integrated and they'll become an access to the country. But countries and communities need to make a decision whether they see refugees as an access to their community or they just perceive them to be burdened. Thanks, Eskender. Nadina, I wonder if you might want to comment on that question as well, in terms of inclusion, efforts and programs that have been successful either in Greece or in other parts of the world, organizations that you may work with or have spent time with, if you'd like to offer anything on that. Yes, there are many people actually here tonight who represent different organizations, but just a brief comment from me. I think that, of course, Eskender is so right that integration is not something that begins simply with giving out aid. It's something that it starts only with giving the opportunity and also promoting agency, letting people decide for themselves and really try to build a better future for themselves and their families. And that brings about so many good things. Would anybody from maybe the cities? Our work with Melisa, when we started this Aleph program, integration of refugee women and the men in the Greek society, we did not, we don't only deal with language training, but we also are involved in a holistic approach, meaning we provide psychosocial services. We also provide other activities which would build confidence and self-esteem for women, migrant women and refugee women so that they could start rebuilding their lives, whether it's here in Greece or in other countries of their choice. I'm Fani, I'm the founder of Solomon. It's a new initiative in Greece. It's happened on January of 2016. And what we're doing is to encourage involvement of immigrants, refugees and locals in the co-saving of society through their views, through the free expression of their views, ideas and skills. And right now we have a multinational team of 30 people from 19 countries. And our first action is the digital magazine. Our editorial team comes from Afghanistan, Belarus, Greece, Pakistan, Russia, Somalia, Ethiopia. And they're all immigrants who live for a long time in Greece. And the fact that our topics vary is what we believe is social integration because an immigrant or a refugee doesn't mean that you can only speak about immigrant or refugees. And I think a big step for social integration is to stop treating these people as refugees and immigrants and stop and start treating them as human beings. Thanks very much. I really appreciate hearing about the work that you're doing. Eskender, the colleague in Athens was just talking about his organization that works on free expression and sharing views publicly. And they produce a magazine of views from long-standing refugee populations in Greece. And I'd like to ask the participant in Athens if you can make sure that our embassy has a couple copies of that magazine because we'd love to see it on this side as well and see the work that you're doing live and in-person back all the way back here in Washington. Okay, we are going to go to another online question. This is from our American Corner in Belgrade. And Nadina, this one's for you. How has the local Greek population reacted to the influx of refugees and migrants? How have they kept the situation calm? Within the last year, we've had two major waves. The one was a wave of refugees passing through Greece. The other was an unprecedented wave of solidarity from the Greek population which had been severely, well, I may use the word tormented from a very hard financial crisis. So this is something that we somehow didn't expect and at the same time we expected because it was like an explosion of humanity, of empathy, compassion. You saw everybody involved in the relief effort from the small, the neighborhood to the whole community. Elderly people, students, free school age kids, everybody became involved. I personally believe that this is actually a great opportunity for our society but I also believe that it comes from our, this is a discussion we had earlier, Skinder, from our past as a country with a refugee and migrant history. We have a great diaspora all around the world. Every Greek household has a story of migration in its cupboards. So wherever you look, you find a story, you know, an uncle and aunt, you know, somewhere, somebody from far away who's a migrant or a refugee. So this is something that somehow mobilized our deeper human instincts and I think that this was a wonderful response that came in the middle of a very severe financial crisis and I think that I sincerely believe that this is a great opportunity for us to reconsider our values and to really see that what we now term as a crisis is perhaps an opportunity to enlarge our goodness and to really give a chance to humanity to have a positive and a better response. So I think that this is something that in Greece was really unprecedented and we all took part in it without even thinking about it. Such a commendable thing, the response from the Greek citizens and the organizations there and I really commend you for that. I also think that, Nadina, your view of how it's both a challenge and an opportunity is a theme that we have talked a lot about with countries around the world as we go forward towards the president's summit next week to try to see it similarly and certainly I think Eskender can comment on that from the U.S. perspective. As you said, Eskender, in your opening remarks, the U.S. has certainly benefited in innumerable ways from refugees who have contributed to our societies and cultures over the years. So I don't know if you wanna add anything on that, Eskender. No, I can briefly add, I think from the U.S. perspective, given the history of the U.S., what you see as ordinary people, regardless whether they came from Syria or Somalia or Sudan or Ireland where I am now, they actually, these ordinary people ended up doing extraordinary things that make the United States a better country. So in my view has been always, refugees are always an asset because a human being is an asset. 80% of all refugees and IDPs are in a developing country. So that tells you it's not really the size of the economy, it's the size of your heart that matters when trying to help refugees. So any businessman, any, if we look at the refugees as a business, refugees bring more to their country than they take. We have a saying in the U.S.I. team, probably it's a UNSUR slogan, it used to be many years. It's not only the bundle of belongings they bring refugees, they bring all kinds of things to the country. Albert Einstein was a refugee. It's just one example. The founder of Google came in as an immigrant from Russia. So I think from our view, we, the U.S. has benefited more out of refugees and out of immigrants, I think, and I think every country should consider that. And then sometimes it's not a bad idea also to consider, should you be a refugee yourself? What kind of response do you want people to give you? So I think that's as Melissa is doing in Azerbaijan, doing around in Greece, in Bosnia and other places, in Kenya, poor country, welcoming refugees for the past 20, 30 years. This should be an example for all of us. That's great, thanks very much, Eskender. Okay, but you're not off the hot seat yet. We have another question from you, from one of our online viewers. Eskender, how can the U.S. celebrate admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees when Europe has taken over a million? Well, I can tell you that, if we are only looking at the 10,000 Syrian refugees without taking also into consideration the other 75,000 refugees, it's very difficult to make the argument. And I'm not sure I am the right person to answer this question, but I believe that the U.S. can do more, I think, organization like mine, USCRI and other refugee resettlement organization have been advocating on behalf of refugees for more admission. And I think, I believe that the president is gonna be proposing additional numbers, you know, over 85,000 from what I heard. But I defer to Assistant Secretary Barkley in terms of why we are bringing 10,000 when we can actually bring more. And as I mentioned, you know, under President Bush, we actually reset over 200,000 refugees just in one year. Okay, thanks very much, Eskender. I think we have time for one more question. Oh, this one's for me, what a surprise. Okay, for DAS Barkley, are you pleased with the level of participation and pledges you've seen so far for next week's summit? So thank you very much to the questioner for giving me the opportunity to say a couple of last words here about the summit. I think we're really happy where we're headed next week. Our partners around the world, countries, over 40 countries, we expect to stand with the president and our co-hosts next Tuesday. And all of those countries are the ones who've really done the hard work. And frankly, the hard work is just beginning. What we'll be talked about at the summit next week, we will be extremely happy with what countries come and commit to the global response for the humanitarian and refugee needs. But we know that going forward in implementing those commitments is really the hard work that we are all gonna have to stay after for many years to come. From where I sit, from Nadina, where you sit, your colleagues in the room and Eskender and other colleagues who are viewing this. So thanks very much for the question. We have just a few minutes now before the program ends. So Eskender, if you have any final thoughts to wrap up, over to you. Well, again, thank you very much for allowing me to speak and to interact with Greece and other stakeholders in this discussion. I think we have a lot of work to do. In fact, I'm very happy that President Obama is leading this discussion at the UN. But I think it's a responsibility of all of us to make sure that refugees will not be forgotten at the end of the meeting, that there will not be just another issue to be discussed. And so we have a lot of hope, but at the same time, we have to push. It's we, the people, whether in Greece or here in the US have a certain responsibility to make sure that every refugee has a chance to live a decent, dignified life, regardless where. So I think our work is starting actually now. You know, I have a lot of hope at the UN. Countries will show up and pledge to help refugees. But at the end of the day, it is a humanitarian response as whether it's whether there are refugees or immigrants. And I think we have a lot of work to do. At the same time, the idea that we can actually contain refugees in a refugee camp, warehouse them for 20, 30 years, is I believe that it's against humanity. It's a crime against humanity. And I think as we advocate on behalf of the Syrian Sea Afghan, we should also remember that the other refugees are around the world. There's a lot of refugees dying, trying to come to Europe. And as we mourn their days, we have also to fight for the living. So again, thank you very much for the opportunity to participate. Thanks very much, Eskander. It's always great to have you. Nadina, I want to send it back over to you for any final wrapping up comments or remarks, please. Yes, just, well, I would like to thank you all for giving us this opportunity to share our views and questions tonight. And sorry we made the atmosphere a bit heavier with the questions coming from the ground here, but you realize Greece is an altogether different world because it's what we call the after the boat stage. So a lot of people are caught up in a state of limbo uncertainty. They don't know where they're heading to. So there's a lot of frustration and that has to be voiced. And I think it's good that we are having these discussions and exchanges. And thanks again for that. So I would like to thank you also to thank you and Eskander for the all the insightful remarks and for speaking from the heart and really saying that this is a collective responsibility and the collective opportunities, a long journey and every step counts, every small action counts. Thanks very much, Nadina. And no apologies necessary for the heavy questions. I agree with you that I think these are the questions that we all need to keep talking about and wrestling with because it's gonna take all of us to solve the problems together. So thank you very much to all of your colleagues in the audience there for the questions that you had. So I just will wrap up. Thanks very much to you all, to Eskander for giving such a great presentation and for answering everyone's questions. I wanna say a huge thanks to our embassies and American spaces for organizing the viewing groups. We have just a few. I mentioned at the top Macedonia, Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, Italy, Copenhagen, Brussels, Cyprus and many others I think are probably on that list. And also wanna thank all the folks who were watching online. I wanna express our gratitude here in Washington to Impact Hub for hosting today's event in Athens. Impact Hub, the Onassis Cultural Center and the US Embassy will be teaming up for a hackathon on refugee issues. The first round of which will take place on October 21st and 22nd. Stay tuned for future announcements. I also wanna say a huge thanks, Nadina, to you and the colleagues in the audience for sharing your stories, your concerns and also for our colleagues sitting at the end of the first row whose daughter was I think sleeping for some of it. So I know you stayed up. I know you stayed up to talk to us and all of our viewing audience. So thank you and thanks to your daughter as well. I hope you all enjoyed this conversation as much as I have. So thanks very much again and I look forward to working together with everybody going forward. Have a nice evening Athens.