College to hold roundtable on global refugee crisis

Flathead Valley Community College’s international student club Global Friends has invited the public to a roundtable discussion on the ongoing European and global refugee crisis.

Humanitarian aid worker and retired nurse Manita Coggins will lead the discussion from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, April 20. The event will be held in Blake Hall Room 140 and is free and open to the public. Attendees are invited to bring lunch to eat during the discussion.

Gerda Reeb, the FVCC international student services director, said Global Friends hosts informal socials every Wednesday. She said the club is a place for international students, who often arrive on campus without knowing anyone, to meet people outside the classroom setting.

“We don’t always talk about serious topics — sometimes we talk about simple things like class or tennis. But since some students are hearing about the crisis from their homes, it came up,” Reeb said.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, there have been 177,244 refugee arrivals in Europe by sea so far this year. In 2015, there were 1,015,078. As of March, the organization recorded 727 people who had died or were missing after trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea into Europe so far this year.

Reeb said the upcoming social gathering is intended to hear about the crisis from a woman who has witnessed it — not make a statement about state or national refugee policy.

“This is not us taking a political stance of any form. This is just us saying, ‘Hey, something is going on in the world and let’s talk about it,’ not necessarily taking sides or being militant,” she said.

A longtime resident of Whitefish, Coggins has volunteered around the world for various humanitarian relief efforts. She assisted in Thailand after the 2004 tsunami, in post-Katrina Louisiana, with Doctors Without Borders in Angola and also helped provide educational resources in Madagascar.

Last January, Coggins traveled to Slavonski Brod in eastern Croatia, where she handed out clothing to refugees traveling northward by train. She was recently invited to assist at a refugee camp in Thessaloniki, Greece.

For more information, contact FVCC International Student Services Director Gerda Reeb at greeb@fvcc.edu or 756-3889.

Reporter Katheryn Houghton may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at khoughton@dailyinterlake.com.