Carnegie Corporation's Support of Refugees

The work of humanitarian relief has been a priority of the Corporation since its beginning.

The plight of refugees is again front page news. The overcrowded rubber rafts, the multitudes marching through southeastern Europe, and the image of a drowned child seen by millions of people are all reminders. A refugee, as opposed to a migrant, is a person fleeing his or her homeland from fear of bodily danger.  

In their opinion piece from the August 18, 2015 Miami Herald, former President of Costa Rica, Oscar Arias, and Carnegie Corporation President Vartan Gregorian stressed the importance of humanitarian work. They cite a United Nations report that states there are currently 60 million refugees away from their homes due to conflict.

The work of humanitarian relief has been a priority of Carnegie Corporation since its beginning. An acknowledgment of this work can be seen in the letter (below) from John D. Rockefeller Jr. to Andrew Carnegie expressing his appreciation for relief provided during the last months of World War One.

Our assistance for refugees continued through the years, as shown by the memo from the Corporation’s executive vice-president Barbara Finberg to John Whitehead concerning Kurdish refugees. 

And more recently, assistance to the Institute of International Education enabled them to produce studies on the situation of Syrian scholars and students in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey.