Commemoration of World Refugee Day

To be born with beauty is a stroke of genetic luck, but to act with beauty is a matter of personal choice. So it is my honor today to stand alongside someone who brings new meaning to the term "beautiful actress." Whether she is representing the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Sri Lanka or Kenya or Tanzania or Kosovo, Angelina Jolie speaks to the subject of refugees with professional clarity and a deeply personal commitment.

And while there are those who might tell you that fame is a burden, I think it is fair to say that Ms. Jolie sees it as an opportunity – an opportunity to help the most helpless among us, the 21 million people who walk the earth in a desperate flight from persecution and from fear.

It is a life most of us here today cannot even begin to imagine, but Nargiz Alizadeh can. She will have a chance in just a moment to tell you her own story of the dangerous journey that took her from Afghanistan, around the world, to a new home in San Diego. But I believe that you will find in her experience, and that of other young people featured in the photographs out in the lobby to which Terry referred, what you'll find is something that we can all understand and so many of us share, and that is a simple desire of any parent to see a better life and brighter future for our children.

So today we gather together for the world's refugee children to highlight not so much the misery of their lives, but the chain of consequence that links us all together. Indeed, it is not just the tragedy of hunger and homelessness that ultimately defines even the most desperate experience, but the triumph of hope and that faith in the future that lives inside all of us. And so we have really come together today in a celebration of that human spirit.

But I think we all recognize that it will take more than hope to see a better future for refugee children. It will take action from the nations and organizations that make up the international community. To the United States, that means helping those who have fled their homes, or helping those who have fled their homes to return safely and with dignity, or providing those unable to return home with a new home.

But it also means making a firm commitment to the UNHCR, and, indeed, we are proud to be the single largest donor, as well as an extraordinarily strong supporter. This year alone, your government has already contributed more than $250 million in support of UNHCR programs, including in Afghanistan, where the UNHCR helped repatriate more than 2 million refugees last year and will help again with the many thousands more expected this year. The United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees is also getting ready for the hundreds of thousands of refugees who will return home to Iraq, where they no longer need to fear repression, disappearance or torture for their faith, their ethnicity or their beliefs. In Africa, the UNHCR is assisting some 3 million refugees – as well as one million more who are internally displaced or seeking asylum – repatriating them if possible, or caring for them in camps and resettling them elsewhere if necessary. Everywhere in the world where refugees and others are forced to roam, the staff of the UNHCR is there, often in difficult circumstances and in dangerous situations, offering people who have lost everything both help and hope.

These brave individuals remind us that while the commitment of nations and of organizations is certainly important, we, each one of us, must make a commitment, as well, to help as we can with countless acts of beauty. And so I congratulate our poster winners for the donation they have made of their time and their talent, but also for the demonstration of empathy for their peers, which I suspect will motivate many who see this work to make contributions of their own.

Gifts of such personal generosity are important not just in a global context, wherever persecution, hunger and conflict drive people from their homes; they're also important in the local context here in our own country. We are, after all, a nation of refugees. Immigration and the renewal it brings have always been a key source of strength for this country. Indeed, how we treat each other and the newcomers who keep our nation so vibrant will ultimately shape the future for our own children here at home.

So I want to thank the National Geographic and the UNHCR for giving us the opportunity to celebrate that human spirit and the brighter future we want to see for all of our children. In particular, I would like to thank Ms. Jolie, Ms. Alizadeh and those of you who designed posters. Today you are serving as ambassadors for the world's refugees, but in effect you are also serving as ambassadors for all Americans. Because today you are helping to show the best that our refugee nation, with all its variety and all its heartfelt values, has to offer the world in both hope and in human potential.

Thank you very much.