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So I started working
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with refugees because I wanted
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to make a difference,
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and making a difference starts
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with telling their stories.
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So when I meet refugees,
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I always ask them questions.
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Who bombed your house?
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Who killed your son?
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Did the rest of your family make it out alive?
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How are you coping
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in your life in exile?
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But there's one question that always seems to me
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to be most revealing, and that is:
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what did you take?
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What was that most important thing
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that you had to take with you
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when the bombs were exploding in your town,
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and the armed gangs were approaching your house?
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A Syrian refugee boy I know
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told me that he didn't hestitate
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when his life was in imminent danger.
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He took his high school diploma,
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and later he told me why.
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He said, "I took my high school diploma
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because my life depended on it."
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And he would risk his life to get that diploma.
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On his way to school, he would dodge snipers.
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His classroom sometimes shook
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with the sound of bombs and shelling,
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and his mother told me,
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"Every day, I would say to him every morning,
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'Honey, please don't go to school.'"
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And when he insisted, she said,
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"I would hug him as if it were for the last time."
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But he said to his mother,
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"We're all afraid,
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but our determination to graduate
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is stronger than our fear."
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But one day, the family got terrible news.
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Hanni's aunt, his uncle, and his cousin
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were murdered in their homes for refusing
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to leave their house.
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Their throats were slit.
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It was time to flee.
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They left that day, right away, in their car,
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Hanni hidden in the back because they were facing
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checkpoints of menacing soldiers.
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And they would cross the border into Lebanon,
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where they would find peace.
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But they would begin a life of grueling hardship
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and monotony.
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They had no choice but to build a shack
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on the side of a muddy field,
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and this is Hanni's brother Ashraf,
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who plays outside.
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And that day, they joined
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the biggest population of refugees in the world,
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in a country, Lebanon, that is tiny.
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It only has four million citizens,
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and there are one million Syrian refugees living there.
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There's not a town, a city, or a village
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that is not host to Syrian refugees.
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This is generosity and humanity
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that is remarkable.
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Think about it this way, proportionately.
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It would be as if
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the entire population of Germany,
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80 million people,
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would flee to the United States in just three years.
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Half of the entire population of Syria
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is now uprooted,
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most of them inside the country.
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Six and a half million people
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have fled for their lives.
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Over and well over three million people
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have crossed the borders
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and have found sanctuary
in the neighboring countries,
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and only a small proportion, as you see,
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have moved on to Europe.
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What I find most worrying
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is that half of all Syrian refugees are children.
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I took this picture of this little girl.
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It was just two hours after she had arrived
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after a long trek from Syria into Jordan.
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And most troubling of all
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is that only 20 percent of
Syrian refugee children
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are in school in Lebanon.
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And yet, Syrian refugee children,
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all refugee children tell us
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education is the most important thing in their lives.
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Why? Because it allows them to think of their future
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rather than the nightmare of their past.
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It allows them to think of hope rather than hatred.
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I'm reminded of a recent visit I took
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to a Syrian refugee camp in northern Iraq,
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and I met this girl,
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and I thought, "She's beautiful,"
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and I went up to her and asked her,
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"Can I take your picture?"
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And she said yes,
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but she refused to smile.
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I think she couldn't,
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because I think she must realize that she represents
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a lost generation of Syrian refugee children,
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a generation isolated and frustrated.
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And yet, look at what they fled:
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utter destruction,
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buildings, industries, schools, roads, homes.
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Hanni's home was also destroyed.
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This will need to be rebuilt
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by architects, by engineers, by electricians.
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Communities will need teachers and lawyers
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and politicians interested in reconciliation
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and not revenge.
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Shouldn't this be rebuilt
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by the people with the largest stake,
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the societies in exile, the refugees?
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Refugees have a lot of time
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to prepare for their return.
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You might imagine that being a refugee
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is just a temporary state.
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Well far from it.
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With wars going on and on,
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the average time a refugee will spend in exile
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is 17 years.
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Hanni was into his second year in limbo
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when I went to visit him recently,
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and we conducted our entire conversation in English,
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which he confessed to me he learned
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from reading all of Dan Brown's novels
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and from listening to American rap.
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We also spent some nice moments of laughter
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and fun with his beloved brother Ashraf.
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But I'll never forget what he told me
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when we ended our conversation that day.
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He said to me,
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"If I am not a student, I am nothing."
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Hanni is one of 50 million people
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uprooted in this world today.
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Never since World War II
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have so many people been forcibly displaced.
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So while we're making sweeping progress
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in human health,
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in technology, in education and design,
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we are doing dangerously little
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to help the victims
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and we are doing far too little
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to stop and prevent
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the wars that are driving them from their homes.
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And there are more and more victims.
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Every day, on average,
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by the end of this day,
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32,000 people will be forcibly displaced
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from their homes,
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32,000 people.
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They flee across borders like this one.
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We captured this on the Syrian border to Jordan,
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and this is a typical day.
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Or they flee on unseaworthy and overcrowded boats,
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risking their lives in this case
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just to reach safety in Europe.
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This Syrian young man
-
survived one of these boats that capsized
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— most of the people drowned —
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and he told us,
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"Syrians are just looking for a quiet place
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where nobody hurts you,
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where nobody humiliates you,
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and where nobody kills you."
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Well, I think that should be the minimum.
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How about a place of healing,
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of learning,
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and even opportunity?
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You know, Americans and Europeans
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have the impression that proportionally
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huge numbers of refugees are coming
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to their country,
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but the reality is
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that 86 percent, the vast majority of refugees,
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are living in the developing world,
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in countries struggling with their own insecurity,
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with their own issues of helping their own populations
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and poverty.
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So wealthy countries in the world should recognize
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the humanity and the generosity of the countries
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that are hosting so many refugees.
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And all countries should make sure that no one
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fleeing war and persecution
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arrives at a closed border.
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(Applause)
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Thank you.
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But there is something more that we can do
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than just simply helping refugees survive.
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We can help them thrive.
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We should think of refugee camps and communities
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as more than just temporary population centers
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where people languish
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waiting for the war to end.
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Rather, as centers of excellence,
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where refugees can triumph over their trauma
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and train for the day that they can go home
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as agents of positive change
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and social transformation.
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It makes so much sense,
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but I'm reminded of the terrible war in Somalia
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that has been raging on for 22 years.
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And imagine living in this camp.
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I visited this camp.
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It's in Djibouti, neighboring Somalia,
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and it was so remote
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that we had to take a helicopter to fly there.
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It was dusty and it was terribly hot.
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And we went to visit a school
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and started talking to the children,
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and then I saw this girl across the room
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who looked to me to be the same age
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as my own daughter, and I went up and talked to her.
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And I asked her the questions
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that grown-ups ask kids,
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like, "What is your favorite subject?"
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and, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
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And this is when her face turned blank,
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and she said to me,
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"I have no future.
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My schooling days are over."
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And I thought, there must be some misunderstanding,
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so I turned to my colleague
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and she confirmed to me
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there is no funding for secondary education
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in this camp.
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And how I wished at that moment
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that I could say to her,
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"We will build you a school."
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And I also thought, what a waste.
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She should be and she is
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the future of Somalia.
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A boy named Jacob Attaim
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had a different chance, but not before he experienced
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terribly tragedy.
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He watched, this is in Sudan,
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as his village — he was only seven years old —
-
burned to the ground, and he learned
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that his mother and his father
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and his entire family
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were killed that day.
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Only his cousin survived, and the two of them
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walked for seven months.
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— this is boys like him —
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chased and pursued by wild
animals and armed gangs,
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and they finally made it to refugee camps
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where they found safety,
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and he would spend the next seven years
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in Kenya in a refugee camp.
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But his life changed
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when he got the chance to be resettled
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to the United States,
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and he found love in a foster family
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and he was able to go to school,
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and he wanted me to share with you
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this proud moment
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when he graduated from university.
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(Applause)
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I spoke to him on Skype the other day,
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and he was in his new university in Florida
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pursuing his Ph.D in public health,
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and he proudly told me how he was able to raise
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enough funds from the American public
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to establish a health clinic back in his village
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back home.
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So I want to take you back to Hanni.
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When I told him I was going to have the chance
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to speak to you here on the TED stage,
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he allowed me to read you a poem
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that he sent in an email to me.
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He wrote:
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"I miss myself,
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my friends,
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times of reading novels or writing poems,
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birds and tea in the morning.
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My room, my books, myself,
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and everything that was making my smile.
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Oh, oh, I had so many dreams
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that were about to be realized."
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So here is my point:
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not investing in refugees
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is a huge missed opportunity.
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Leave them abandoned,
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and they risk exploitation and abuse,
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and leave them unskilled and uneducated,
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and delay by years the return
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to peace and prosperity in their countries.
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I believe how we treat the uprooted
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will shape the future of our world.
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The victims of war can hold the keys
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to lasting peace,
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and it's the refugees
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who can stop the cycle of violence.
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Hanni is at a tipping point.
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We would love to help him go to university
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and to become an engineer,
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but our funds are prioritized for the basics in life:
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tents and blankets and mattresses and kitchen sets,
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food rations and a bit of medicine.
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University is a luxury.
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But leave him to languish in this muddy field,
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and he will become a member
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of a lost generation.
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Hanni's story is a tragedy,
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but it doesn't have to end that way.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
Mari Arimitsu
I am wondering if "Honey" at 1:27 - 1:30 is "Hany" instead. His name suddenly appears at 1:51 - 1:54 (Hany's aunt, his uncle...) and I felt a bit strange.