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In focus: UNHCR and Platon launch collaboration to bring refugee voices, aspirations into focus.
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Initially, UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, was established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1950 in the aftermath of the Second World War to help the millions of Europeans who had fled or lost their homes. We were given three years to complete this work, and then disband.
Today, we are a global organization dedicated to protecting people forced to flee. We lead international action to protect refugees, deliver life-saving assistance, help safeguard fundamental human rights, and develop solutions that ensure people have a safe place to call home where they can build a better future.
Over the years, our scope has widened to also include supporting refugees returning home, people forcibly displaced within their own country, and those denied a nationality and left stateless.
UNHCR now has 18,879 personnel working in 137 countries. We have helped more than 50 million refugees to successfully restart their lives, and continue to protect and provide support for the 89.3 million people currently displaced.
UNHCR’s first task in 1951 was to help an estimated 1 million mainly European civilians, including these refugees in a camp in Germany, still uprooted in the aftermath of World War Two.
When the Hungarian uprising erupted in 1956, UNHCR faced its first post-war emergency, coordinating help for more than 200,000 people who fled that country. Some refugees remained in Austria where UNHCR funded housing projects like the one above.
Africa’s first modern refugee crisis occurred in the late 1950s during Algeria’s independence struggle against France. UNHCR, during its first intervention on the African continent, provided assistance for 200,000 refugees who fled to surrounding countries.
With your support, we can continue to be there for people in need. Will you help protect people forced to flee?
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