Give a Little, It Will Mean A Lot

Emilie from Chad lives in the Bronx with her husband Bour

Another organization I can wholly support this holiday season is the work and efforts of the IRC. The International Rescue Committee works with refugees who have fled violence and persecution in their home countries. A fortunate few are granted sanctuary in the United States, where the IRC helps families resettle in a world very different from their own.

• We prepare adults to become self-sufficient by offering job skills training, English classes, job placement assistance, cultural orientation to life in America and practical advice including help negotiating public transportation and navigating financial systems.

• We invest in children by making sure they enroll in school and have access to tutoring, mentoring and recreational activities.

• We strengthen families through parenting classes and counseling. And we ensure every refugee has access to health services.

• We provide emergency housing assistance while refugees work to secure employment so that homelessness is never an option.

Give a holiday gift that helps refugees in your local community:

Your donation will support these efforts and will help newly resettled refugees in your community move beyond surviving and start thriving. And, when you choose one of the following gifts in honor of friends and loved ones by December 15, IRC will send them a personalized holiday card in your name.

A $25 gift can provide a backpack full of supplies for a refugee child starting school in the U.S.

A $75 gift can provide essential household supplies for a newly resettled refugee family including blankets, sheets and cooking utensils.

A $150 gift can provide emergency housing assistance to a refugee family.

A $300 gift can provide job training to help a refugee woman become a certified home daycare provider.

June 20 is World Refugee Day.

Hundreds of thousands Uzbek refugees need clothes and water after fleeing violence in which 171 people have died in Kyrgysztan (Guardian.co.uk).

"You can take away my home but you can't take away my future. (Theme 2010)"

The 1951 Refugee Convention establishing UNHCR spells out that a refugee is someone who "owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country."

There were 43.3 million forcibly displaced people worldwide at the end of 2009.

Of these, 15.2 million were refugees, asylum-seekers and 27.1 million internally displaced persons.

10.4 million of these are under UNHCR protection. (UNHCR, 2009 Global Trends)

These Internationally ordained days of awareness; such as World Womens day, day of the African child and Day of the Refugee are helpful ways of having a collective discussion of underrepresented persons. It is a fantastic opportunity to initiate dialogue in ones community. I especially think its a helpful way for teachers to incorporate issues of social justice into learning. For example, surrounding this day, teachers could have the students engage in few personal, written or historical accounts of stateless persons. After a class discussion and sharing around ideas of citizenry, ethnicity and human rights students could write their own stories, poems or drawings that reflect the notion of statelessness. It is of great historic import that we begin to broaden ideas of belonging in order to fit the increasing millions of people that are forced or choose to migrate. As our environmental systems continue in the direction of demise there will be increasing numbers of people fleeing their homelands. All of these aspects must be apprised across the lands.

Refugees too should be given the opportunity to tell their own stories. I have found self-narrative and, creative writing and poetry a powerful way of teaching English as a Second Language to refugee clients. Whether it is the story of the flight from their country of origin, or just a life account it is important to give every person a sense and right to Voice, and being heard. Storytelling also builds community.

Even when people are resettled, repatriate or are re-naturalized the journey of perseverance does not cease. The rebuilding and cultural detachment, grim realities of come of resettlement dreams. But despite challenge, making decisions everyday in order to give family a chance a new life and a brighter future.

We can do things too. These are just a few organizations that help refugees in their process of seeking protection to rebuilding lives :

The International Rescue Committee

Refugee Council, USA

Human Rights First

UNHCR

Do donate to The KYRGYZSTAN & UZBEKISTAN crisis by clicking here.

We Could be doing more for the displaced among us.

Kasulu

People prepared me for my journey to Kasulu. ‘Oooh, it is very dusty there!’ they warned, as though I was mad for making the journey. But this particular destination has been calling me since I first met Burundian families at the IRC (International Rescue Committee) who described the settlements where Grandmothers raised two generations before leaving. Those camps are closed now, the 1972 Burundians have repatriated, resettled or been integrated as citizens throughout Tanzania. Only two camps remain in the region that once hosted ten. Slowly slowly the government is closing asylum space, ceasing almost all services in one of the camps and urging for voluntary repatriation. Yet, between the two camps there are almost 100,000 Congolese and Burundians that linger still amidst two worlds.

I get on the dala dala after an hour of waiting while young hustlers fill the small van to its utmost. Once we finally set off I realize that there are at least (that I can see from my spot in the back) 25 people in the van; 5 infants, 6 school children, 4 young women (including myself) 4 mothers, 3 grandmothers, one boy, one man and one driver. We speed along a dirt road with dust as fine as flour and red as blood, it enters the windows like smoke. Luckily, the women have warned me and I have covered my face and hair in a wrap, only my sunglasses exposed. I can hardly see the landscape through the dust, but every so often we stop to let someone out – they are returning home to a place that seems like nowhere.

Three hours later we are in Kasulu and I get a motorcycle lift to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) where my host greets me. Susan is an Iranian/Dutch lawyer who loves her job. I only met her last weekend and already she has taught me a great deal about Refugee Rights and the politics, joys and trials of working in the field. That night we have a late dinner with a woman from the IRC and I am all ears, and questions.

I am awestruck by the ubiquitous nature of the IRC woman’s beauty. She was raised in India, by her English mother and Japanese-American father – I begin to notice a theme concerning place, or placelessness amidst people here. When she finds out that I am interested in education at the camps she exclaims with passion,
– Well have you Heard the situation? !
I have heard so many different things in the past week that I am not sure what situation she is referring to.
– There haven’t been any education programs in Mtabila camp for over a year!
I have heard this and I’m very glad she is bringing it up. Mtabila is the Burundian camp. In hope to accelerate ‘voluntary’ repatriation, the government of Tanzania has been nonchalantly bringing services to a close. Approximately 35,000 people live in the Mtabila camp and it is probable that nearly half of them are children. First they closed the Secondary schools, not long after they closed all primary schools. What happens when children have nowhere to be? Let your imagination go wild.

The NGOs that work in Kasulu cannot dissent the government, but can only deliberate until some resolution is made. Only now, a year later have the education responsibilities been handed over to the IRC – who is permitted to facilitate informal education – that is, games. Yes, organized play will at least gather the children together, accounting for them, providing a basic need, their right to protection. The hope is to integrate informal education and empowerment through the games, and soon injecting numeracy and basic literacy.

This is all happening now. As well as a hand over from one NGO to another of the responsibilities related to education. Unfortunately the politics and pedantic bureaucracy in place will prevent me from visiting the camps themselves. I do not feel downcast, as there are some local volunteers and UNHCR family members who have been here for months without ever entering. Instead I meet with and talk to people who have committed their lives to the situation, people who have found their place amidst the placeless. Instead I walk around and talk to children in the area, their faces and hair reddened with the dust of Kasulu.