Organizers are using "the universal language of soccer" to bring together people from different countries, cultures and experiences Saturday in a celebration of World Refugee Day. The celebration is free and open to the public. Twelve teams will compete 8 a.m.-7 p.m. at the J.H. Williams Soccer Fields in Riverside Park. There also will be plenty of food, dance, games and family fun throughout the day.
"When people are playing soccer, there will be kids' activities, like water balloon fights, and lots of fun games," said 13-year-old Noor Kadhum, who is coordinating the family fun. "In my culture, we have lots of fun games, so we'll bring that, and other people from other cultures or communities will bring their games, and everyone will play together."
The Williamsville teen is originally from Iraq. She was only three years old when her family had to flee because of threats by the insurgents then in control, in lieu of a government. At age five, they then lived in Syria before coming to the United States.
"I remember us struggling, my parents would try their best to get food for us, to get work and get me into a good school," Kadhum said. "When we came here, the most thing that my parents focused about was to get me into the best school. And now I'm in Williamsville Schools, which is like the best. So they did a really good job in that."
Very much a typical teen, Kadhum is busy with end-of-the-school-year work and has future hopes of becoming a criminal attorney.
However, as a refugee, what she finds most difficult is that so much of her family is still in Iraq and that she is not able to see them. She misses them, but connects through social media.
Her father, Ali Kadhum, is the event chair. In Iraq, he was an organizer for the Mercy Movement, which focused on helping everyday citizens with their health, education and public safety needs in lieu of a government. The insurgents did not like that kind of work.
"There is no safe environment to continue this kind of job, so I left the country because of that kind of threat," Kadhum said. "I almost lose myself. I was, in different situations, to be killed. I was on the list to be killed."
When he tried to hide, Kadhum said the insurgents targeted his brother.
"They took my brother. They tried to negotiate that I go back," he said. "So after about a month, they gave them money and they release my brother."
Kadhum says once in the United States, he earned his master's degree in social work, went through leadership training with VOICE Buffalo and is currently a mental health counselor - helping refugees find a healthy way to transition to life in Western New York.
World Refugee Day is a global event initiated in 2000 by the United Nations to honor the courage, strength and determination of those who are forced to flee their homeland under threat of persecution, conflict and violence. Kadhum said Saturday's event is an opportunity for immigrants and refugees themselves to embrace the challenge of unity, but also the general public to get to know the courage and diversity of Western New York's refugee community.
Mustaffa Aahomgaron, who's been in the United States for only four months, will be at Saturday's celebration. In his native Afghanistan, he was hired as a civilian interpreter to work with the U.S. Marines deployed there.
"I like to experience the foreign people that I haven't met there before," Aahomgaron said. "I thought 'I know English', so I was supposed to go and help the American peoples who came here to help Afghanistan - and also to help my peoples to realize each other."
Because of this dangerous work, the Marines helped him get a VISA to come to the states. Today, Aahomgaron is continuing his work as an interpreter and wants to go to school to learn how to start his own car repair business.
He said he has found Buffalo to be much more diverse than his homeland, which he likes. Kadhum said he has found Buffalo to be very welcoming to refugees.
The number of refugee arrivals in Buffalo has doubled compared to 10 years ago, according to data from the State Department's Refugee Processing Center. Nearly 90 percent of the refugees in 2015 came from five countries: Bhutan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq, Myanmar and Somalia.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the U.N.'s refugee agency, the world is now witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record. The UNHCR found:
- An unprecedented 59.5 million people around the world have been forced from home.
- Among them are nearly 20 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18.
- There are 10 million stateless people who have been denied a nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement.
- In the world, 42,500 people are forcibly displaced every day as a result of conflict or persecution.
