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Two young islanders are relocating thousands of kilometres across the globe to Bangladesh and Lebanon to provide relief at the heart of serious refugee crises.
Newly appointed ‘Junior Protection Officers’ Faye Coggins (31) and Johnny Rebours (32) are being deployed as part of a UN scheme in collaboration with Jersey Overseas Aid.
Faye (pictured top, right) is a former JOA intern, which saw her spend two months with the Jersey office and 16 months with HelpAge International. Most recently, she has been working for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's Women's Integrated Sexual Health programme.
She will be travelling more than 5,000 miles to Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh, where an estimated 1.2m Rohingya people reside in refugee camps.
The Rohingyas have faced decades of systematic discrimination, statelessness and targeted violence in Myanmar, which has forced them to flee to Bangladesh.
Pictured: A Rohingya refugee in Bangladesh. (Simon Murphy/SCIAF/PA)
Johnny (pictured top, left), meanwhile, is moving more than 2,000 miles away to Lebanon, which is the temporary home to the highest number of refugees per capita in the world.
It won't be his first time working in this area, having most recently held the role of Head of Fundraising at Safe Passage International. The MA in Applied Human Rights holder has also worked with Medical Aid for Palestinians, the British Institute of Human Rights, and the United Nations Association International Service.
In addition to 850,000 asylum seekers registered from Syria alone, Lebanon also hosts nearly 200,000 from Palestine, and nearly 16,000 from countries including Iraq, Sudan, and Ethiopia.
The vast majority of refugees in Lebanon live below the extreme poverty line and face specific risks including forced early marriage, child labour, and sexual exploitation.
Existing difficulties with the number of asylum seekers, which has been increasing since 2011, have been compounded by the pandemic and the deterioration of Lebanon’s economy.
Pictured: JOA has previously provided support to Lebanon.
Johnny will join the UNHCR field office in Tyre to respond to the needs of refugees and asylum-seekers in the South and Nabatieh Governorate.
“Having worked for a number of smaller organisations on refugee issues and human rights, I'm welcoming the challenge to work for the biggest organisation seeking to tackle the most pressing challenge for human rights of our time, protection of refugees and migration,” he said.
“I hope to learn a lot from this new perspective and to have a great impact.”
Faye also said she was “looking forward to the incredible learning experience.”
The opportunities to work on the frontline of humanitarian emergencies were made possible when Jersey became the 19th member to join the United Nations’ Junior Protection Officer (JPO) scheme earlier this year.
Pictured: Jersey's International Development Minister meets the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
“The JPO programme is a mutually beneficial recruitment stream bringing in new talent and ideas to the organisation, offering young professionals a unique opportunity to serve the most vulnerable, and strengthening partnerships between donor countries and the organisation, We are very excited to have Jersey join this flagship programme and sponsor two passionate and dedicated colleagues where they are needed most, in field locations and emergency operations,” said UNHCR’s Director of Human Resources, Catty Bennett Sattler.
International Development Minister Deputy Carolyn Labey – who recently visited UN headquarters in Geneva to meet with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi – said she was “immensely proud” that Jersey had made an annual commitment to the JPO scheme.
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