United States - IOM has assisted the United States in the resettlement of close to 70,000 refugees from some 80 countries during the US fiscal year ending today, which coincides with this week’s release of The Good Lie, a Hollywood production that tells the story of a group of refugees known as the “Lost Boys of Sudan”.

IOM figures prominently in The Good Lie, starring Academy Award Winner Reese Witherspoon and opening in the US Friday, 3rd October.  A group of Sudanese refugees given the chance to resettle in the US arrives in Kansas clutching their IOM bags, where they are met by Ms. Witherspoon, who plays an employment agency counselor.

The Lost Boys of Sudan was the name given to a group of over 20,000 mainly boys, but also girls, of the Nuer and Dinka ethnic groups who were displaced and separated from their parents during their long trek across the desert to escape the civil war in their country in the 1980s.

IOM has provided essential services in support of refugee resettlement operations for over six decades. In the last decade alone, IOM has organized resettlement movements of 892,243 refugees from 186 locations around the world.

IOM works closely with governments, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), NGOs and other partners to ensure that refugees accepted for resettlement are duly processed, given health assessments, pre-departure orientation, transport and reception in their new country.

“This US fiscal year we assisted more than 14,000 from Africa, exceeding the original admission target of 12,000,” explains Michel Tonneau, IOM Global Program Coordinator for the US Refugee Admission Program (USRAP).

Over 10,500 refugees from Iraq were also resettled to the US during this fiscal year. In September alone, over 1,200 Iraqi refugees were resettled from Baghdad, from where the international community has now been evacuated.

“The work we do on behalf of the US government, specifically the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) to resettle refugees could not be carried out without the support of our local staff, the American people and the various agencies that help refugees in their integration,” notes Tonneau.

To better prepare refugees for their new lives, IOM also conducts cultural orientation courses.  IOM trainers provide factual information about the new country; the assistance refugees will receive upon arrival; their rights as newcomers; and their employment and educational opportunities.

Sasha Chanoff, founder of the NGO RefugePoint, was an IOM staff member and worked in the USRAP in Kenya.

“I first flew to Kakuma camp in north western Kenya in 1999 to teach IOM cultural orientation classes when 3,600 ‘Lost’ boys and girls were given a chance to resettle to America.  The Good Lie highlights how they didn’t have any idea what to expect: how to turn on a light, or shop in a supermarket, or what winter could be like.  To give them a sense of how cold it could be in America’s Midwest, I asked them to pass around a large chunk of ice, an idea that has been adapted as a scene in the movie,” said Chanoff.

“When I first met them, I didn’t imagine that they would one day become some of the most inspiring US citizens in our country. Yet they have,” he added.

As the new US fiscal year starts tomorrow, IOM will continue working with its partners to resettle another 70,000 refugees who will be admitted to the US in the coming 12 months.

For more information about The Good Lie and to watch the trailer, please go to: http://www.thegoodliemovie.com/

For more information about IOM’s Resettlement Assistance programmes, please go to: http://www.iom.int/cms/en/sites/iom/home/what-we-do/resettlement-assistance.html