By conservative estimates the urban refugee population in Egypt numbers more than 190,000, with the majority concentrated in Cairo. While most of Egypt's refugees are relatively recent arrivals from Syria, Egypt also hosts significant numbers of longer established populations from Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Iraq, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and other countries. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has a mandate to provide protection for this population, but it is struggling to cope with the recent influx of refugees into post-conflict Egypt. This talk will address the major challenges facing refugees in Cairo (from healthcare, to housing, work, education, and safety), what NGOs and charities are doing to address the needs of the refugee population, and what the prospects are for the future.

Founded in 1979, St. Andrew's Refugee Services (StARS) is a refugee service provider in central Cairo that works to enhance the quality of life for refugees and vulnerable migrants through four programs: adult and children’s education, legal, and psychosocial services. We provide high-quality services meeting the unaddressed needs of refugees, and we provide a safe and inclusive space for displaced people to come together as a community. We work for refugees, with refugees, to make rights recognition a reality. St. Andrew's mission is to enable refugees and migrants to recognize their potential by encouraging self-motivation and independence through quality, client-centered programming. The organisation's vision is that every refugee and asylum seeker is entitled to health, security, dignity. StARS serve people from many places, including Ethiopia, Iraq, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, and Syria.

Chris Eades is the Executive Director of St Andrew's Refugee Services. Chris began his career in 1997 as a British barrister and US attorney representing people on death row in the southern USA. In 2004 he returned to the UK and after a short period began working for refugees. Since then he has worked with refugees in the UK and with refugee organizations in Egypt (as the Director of Legal Programing of Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance), and Thailand (as the Director of Legal Services for the Jesuit Refugee Service), and has provided training and operational support to refugee NGOs working in Morocco, Libya, Cambodia and Indonesia.