INTERVIEW | An interview with the Refugees Welfare Association’s founder and president: Mukete Talhe Itoe. Changing the lives of vulnerable migrants

No one imagines that he or she will become a refugee. Many of those who are forced to fly only have a few minutes to make vital decisions, collect what they can, and run. Where will they go? How will they get around? What will they take? Desperate decisions must be made in a short span of time. Decisions that may impact the rest of their lives.

What is your dream?

“Contributing my own small quota in making the world a better place.”

-Mukete Talhe Itoe

FROM ARGENTINA- I had the honor to make some questions to the founder and president of the Refugees Welfare Association. An incredible non-governmental organization that improves migrants’ lives. The organization that invites you to believe in second chances. REWAC has a positive impact in 26 countries, with the help of Mukete Talhe Itoe, who created the NGO eleven years ago, in 2009.

In January 2009, five young men from Burkina Faso crossed the Nigerian border and entered Cameroon via the Bakassi Peninsula. They were arrested and detained by law enforcement officials for ‘attempting to seek asylum in Cameroon’. After nine days, they were brought before a Common law Court where they faced charges for illegal immigration. Fortunately, the Judge who oversaw the young men’s trial from Burkina Faso is a long time reader in international law and a researcher in global migration trends. He applied article 31 of the UN Refugee Convention as ‘customary international law’ and dropped all the charges against the young migrants. He ordered the State of Cameroon to conduct the young migrants to the UN’s Refugee Agency Office in Yaoundé for their request for asylum. After 10 days, the young migrants were free to enjoy their liberty and to pursue their asylum claim since there was no appeal against the Judge’s decision. — Source: www.rewac.org