Hand washing and social distancing are key to prevent the coronavirus from spreading.
Imagine yourself living in a tight, designated space where you have to share one latrine together with tens or even hundreds of people. You also have to queue for water and food supplies.
You live with tens of thousands of people without a chance to avoid daily human contact and receive information that a highly contagious disease is spreading from human to human. You learn that this disease could require intensive care to save your life but you know that you and your family have practically no way of accessing any of the hospitals that can provide this care for you.
It is hard to even picture this scenario if you are not living as a refugee in one of the world’s crowded refugee camps or belong to the poorest section of a developing country’s population.
Currently, over 70 million people around the world have been forced to leave their homes because of conflicts, prolonged crises and disasters – 29 million of them live as refugees.
Most of these refugees – 84 per cent – live in low- or middle-income countries, like Uganda, Somalia, Kenya and Jordan where Finn Church Aid operates.
The World Health Organisation WHO declared the coronavirus epidemic a pandemic on March 11th. It means that the spread of the coronavirus from one country to another can no longer be stopped. Officials can only slow down the pandemic to avoid worst-case victim estimates.
Inequality shows even in hand hygiene
An essential part of slowing down the pandemic is maintaining sufficient hand hygiene and avoiding human contact. An unfortunate fact is that people do not have the same possibilities to even wash their hands with soap. This is a challenge for people already in a vulnerable position.
In places like refugee camps or slum areas, human contact is also hard if not impossible to avoid because they are densely populated areas. For instance, the world’s largest refugee camp Cox’s Bazar hosts 850,000 people on an area roughly the size of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport.
By mid-March, Bangladesh had three coronavirus cases, but the number could be higher.
In refugee camps, latrines are often shared by a large number of people. Hygiene standards are poor already without an epidemic like the coronavirus. The poorest areas in developing countries face the same challenge.
The people forced to live in refugee camps have already experienced hardship and prolonged crisis conditions that can weaken their immune system. Many suffer from long-term illnesses that make them vulnerable to infections, and they ultimately form a risk group for the coronavirus.
While populations in Africa are generally young, sub-Saharan Africa is home to 68 per cent of the world’s 38 million HIV positive people. The coronavirus is a more severe threat to their already weaker immunity than it is to others of their age.
People in refugee camps do not have access to healthcare that corresponds to their needs. They particularly lack the intensive care facilities required to save lives from respiratory infections that the coronavirus can cause.
The world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries often suffer from a lack of proper health and sanitation services as well as clean water. These resources are at least not accessible for refugees.
Refugees might also be left without information about how to prevent infections from spreading.
Hand washing prevents many kinds of infections but the possibility to wash hands with clean water and soap is not self-evident in the world’s poorest areas and refugee camps.
One can pass the disease to tens of others
The coronavirus is known to be highly contagious in social contacts, and also those without any symptoms can spread the virus in their surroundings. That is why social distancing – reducing the number of human contacts – is key to prevent the coronavirus from spreading.
Families are often big and family members stay close to each other in cramped spaces. One infected person could pass on the disease to the entire family – even three generations of it.
Small business owners are also highly vulnerable to the effects of the disease. People that depend on service- and retail-based livelihoods have to deal with other people. It exposes them to viral infections and they can also pass on the virus to a large number of people before any symptoms appear. When falling sick, they might lose the livelihood that supports their entire family.
The pandemic delays refugees’ access to safety
The pandemic creates an additional challenge for refugees: to stay where they are.
The UN’s refugee agency UNHCR is worried that the coronavirus pandemic can increase discrimination and racism towards refugees, even though the virus is more likely to spread with regular travellers from one part of the world to another.
There is still hope. In 2014-2015, West Africa suffered from the spread of the Ebola virus. It killed 11,000 people before the disease was contained. In addition to the death toll, Ebola caused severe economic losses to those already in a vulnerable position. But much worse could have happened.
Ebola spread mostly in fragile states like Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. It also reached other countries but never spread widely on other continents.
The key to defeating the disease was that people received enough information and avoided contact with others.
Text: Elisa Rimaila Translation: Erik Nyström Picture: Carla Ladau
In the Kalobeyei refugee settlement of nearly 200,000 residents, Finn Church Aid (FCA) increases awareness on the coronavirus and on preventing the infection.
“In the densely populated refugee settlements, diseases can spread faster than anywhere else. Now we need to act fast and start preventive actions before the virus reaches these areas,” says FCA’s Head of Humanitarian Assistance Eija Alajarva.
Information on e.g. the importance of handwashing will be shared among the residents of the refugee settlements in events, as well as through radio, text messages and posters. Information will be provided in local languages. FCA will set up handwashing facilities and distribute hygiene products such as soap and hand sanitizer.
Funds will also be used for supporting distance education. Kenya’s decision to close schools on March 16 means that there are 17,000 children and youths out of schools in the Kalobeyei area.
”Due to the school closures, there are likely to be dropouts, teenage pregnancies, early marriages, drug abuse and antisocial behaviour. Unless alternative ways are sought to encourage these learners to continue to access learning opportunities while at home, the likelihood that they will return to school will decrease,” says FCA’s Country Director for Kenya, John Bongei.
These efforts will reach 15,000 students. Through the radio, FCA aims to reach all the residents in Kalobeyei.
FCA also works to help prevent the coronavirus in Uganda and Somalia.
More information:
Head of Humanitarian Assistance Eija Alajarva, Tel. +358 40 582 1183, eija.alajarva@kua.fi
Country directors’ interviews are organised by: Head of Communications, Noora Jussila, Tel. +358 50 576 7948, noora.jussila@kua.fi
Finn Church Aid (FCA) prepares to deliver hygiene products and awareness campaigns to prevent the coronavirus from spreading within refugee camps and settlements.
People living in refugee camps and settlements are already in a vulnerable position and suffer from a lack of hygiene products and health care facilities. A spread of the coronavirus could have devastating consequences.
FCA works as the UN’s refugee agency UNHCR’s partner in the education sector and arranges education for 120,000 learners in Uganda’s refugee settlements.
“Schools are full and there are a lot of learners. It is now essential to improve hygiene conditions”, says FCA’s Country Director for Uganda, Wycliffe Nsheka.
“We arrange hygiene training for learners, teachers and health committees at the settlements. We increase the availability of hand washing facilities, sanitisers and other products for disinfection. We also print information brochures in different languages and disseminate the same information on the radio.”
Kenya closed down its schools on Monday March 16th. FCA supported schools and pre-schools are also closed. FCA now prepares an information campaign on the importance of washing hands.
The campaign will run on the radio, targeting children and their parents while schools remain closed, says FCA’s Country Director for Kenya, John Bongei. FCA plans to distribute hand sanitisers, soap and buckets also to the children’s parents.
“We will also share information from the Kenyan government on lectures held on radio. We are scouting service providers to support long distance learning, in case the schools remain closed for a longer period”, Bongei says.
FCA’s country programme in Somalia also takes measures to improve hygiene conditions in schools.
Uganda is said to have the most welcoming refugee policy in the world and continues to host a large number of refugees from its neighbouring countries.
After being registered at the border, refugees have the right to receive education, healthcare, work and other services. Only the right to vote in national elections is excluded.
This policy is usually not the case in other countries, and that is one reason why refugees flee into Uganda. War, violence, economic crisis and political instability, especially in South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, cause people to leave their home country, and Uganda receives the largest portion.
Currently, we host some 1,1 million refugees, one of the largest refugee populations in the world.
One of the reasons I believe we Ugandans are fully accepting and welcoming towards refugees is because of shared cultures. Some ethnic groups from South Sudan live on both sides of the border and have for decades had that connection with hardly any cultural differences.
Moreover, we generally consider this open-door policy a win for all parties. Ugandans and refugees both benefit from lifesaving solutions. Also, turning our backs to refugees can be fatal.
Through our friendly policies towards refugees, they are able to get an education, health and even employment within Ugandan host communities. Eventually, they become productive members of society. This contributes to the whole country’s development.
Refugees are allocated a small piece of land to settle, which encourages self-reliance and promotes their coexistence and integration. Because they are members of society, they purchase goods and services in the local markets and different businesses.
Many other countries would also want to be in the position to host refugees but might lack the resource pull and also assistance from international and local organisations. Uganda is fortunate enough to have different players working together with the government to support refugees.
There are still many challenges in hosting such a large number, for instance, funding gaps in health, education, water and security. These issues can naturally also cause tensions between the host communities and refugees. But we choose to do our best to solve this rather than looking away.
The government and humanitarian organisations consistently pair appeals to the international community to provide Uganda with adequate resources to continue working with refugees.
Despite these challenges, Uganda has never looked at refugees as a burden. We continue accepting, looking out and protecting them because it is the morally right thing to do.
Sharon Shaba works as Communications Officer for Finn Church Aid in Uganda.
Al Jarir is one of the biggest refugee camps in the city of Hassakeh, located in northeast Syria. The camp started to fill up after Turkey launched its military operation in northeast Syria in October, forcing 200,000 people to leave their homes.
To many people, the word “refugee camp”, conjures an endless row of tents. At Al Jarir, the building serving as a refugee centre used to be a school. Because of the war, children in many parts of Syria have been unable to attend school for years, but at least the school building itself can now provide internally displaced people with walls around them.
Some of the families in the camp have fled several times. Nine years of war is a long time.
It is winter in northeast Syria as well. As the sun sets, the rooms get cooler. When the temperature outside nears zero degrees Celsius, the inside of the building is a cold place to sleep in, even though the families with an average of seven members live in close quarters.
”My only dream is to have a room with heating. That is enough. I don’t have any more dreams left. I’m tired of this cruel war,” says Maryam Al Saleh, 32.
The classroom floors are covered with thin mattresses meant for emergency housing, blankets, and cardboard boxes from aid organisations. Some families share their room with another family.
Maryam Al Saleh’s family fled to Hassakeh from the city of Ras al-Ayin shelled by Turkey in October.
”We left everything behind”
In early October, the Turkish troops started shelling Al Saleh’s hometown Ras al-Ayin, located right on the border between Syria and Turkey. The family of seven ran for their lives.
”We left everything behind; clothes, canned food, everything we own. I didn’t even receive my last salary,” Al Saleh tells.
When the shelling and air raids began, youngsters passing by on motorcycles helped the family escape, transporting Al Saleh along with her husband, four daughters and son to within a safe distance from the city. They travelled the rest of the way to Hassakeh onboard a lorry.
Finn Church Aid (FCA) has granted 100 000 euros from its relief fund to support humanitarian operations in northeast Syria.
According to Maryam Al Issa, 41, what is hard about being a refugee, in addition to losing your home, is not receiving help to process the trauma caused by the war. Since October, the family of seven has been living at the Ismael Toqan refugee centre in the city of Hassakeh, northeast Syria.
Nearly 80,000 people still waiting to return home
The stories of the families who have ended up in the Hassakeh refugee camps are very similar: the air strike in October, along with other military operations, hit their home, forcing them to leave so quickly they did not have time to take anything with them.
The situation in northeast Syria is still very unstable, even though a truce was declared in the region at the end of October. This is why tens of thousands of people are still unable to return home. They may not even have anything to retrieve or to return to waiting back home.
The need for humanitarian aid is enormous.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), around 80,000 people are still living as internally displaced people in northeast Syria, even though more than half of those who fled in October already have been able to return home.
Finn Church Aid (FCA) is working together with its local Syrian church based partner in Damascus to provide the displaced people in city of Hassakeh food packages, water and winterization items during the next two months.
FCA granted 100 000 euros from its relief fund in October to support humanitarian operations in northeast Syria. Together with its local Syrian church based partner, FCA provides 200 households winterization items such as blankets and tarps as well as kitchen kits and water tanks.
“In addition to safe drinking water, we are providing food and winterization items for two shelters in Hassakeh,” says FCA’s Middle East Regional Development Manager Aleksandr Avramenko.
Besides the drinking water and winterization items, there are shortages in food supplies and medicine, as well as lack of medical assistance and primary care to children.
An estimated 200 000 people left their homes after the Turkish military operation started in northeast Syria on 9th October. Approximately 117, 000 people have returned to their areas of origin.
However, the need for humanitarian assistance remains high in northeast Syria. According to UN OCHA, 75,438 people, including around 31,700 children and 18,800 women, remained displaced from the Hassakeh, Raqqa and Aleppo governorates in the end of November.
Of those displaced, approximately 58,000 are residing in host communities and the rest are accommodated in 96 active collective shelters mostly located in Hassakeh governorate.
According to UN OCHA around 1,650,000 people are still in need of humanitarian assistance. Despite recent agreements between parties in northeast Syria aiming at cessation of hostilities, sporadic fighting has continued in the area throughout November causing more people to flee their homes.
On the occasion of World Refugee Day, 16 non-governmental organisations call for urgent action to prevent and mitigate the impact of environmental degradation around refugee settlements in Uganda.
Uganda currently hosts more than 1.25 million refugees, most of whom rely on natural resources in and around refugee settlements for domestic fuel, construction and livelihoods. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Uganda’s refugees consume at least 1.1 million tonnes of firewood every year, as fuel wood is the primary source of energy security. Each individual in the refugee community is estimated to consume up to 1.6 kg firewood per day, compared with host community members who consume up to 2.1 kg per day. This puts a strain on the availability of wood, grass and other resources in refugee-hosting districts.
The impact is not only environmental – it also fuels increased competition over natural resources between refugees and the Ugandan host community. While the latter continue to show considerable generosity in hosting refugees, they rely on the same trees, grass and water sources as refugees. As scarcity increases, so do tensions over access to, and management of, natural resources. Violent incidents affecting both refugees and Ugandans have already occurred, as documented in research done in Lamwo, Adjumani and Arua by International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI).
Scarcity of resources has an acute impact on women and girls who are responsible for the day-to-day collection of firewood and grass for thatched roofs. They can spend 12-24 hours collecting firewood which they have to seek further from their homes, putting them at risk of sexual violence. Refugees and Ugandans living around the refugee settlements also rely on the same natural resources to make a living. Sustainable management of natural resources is therefore key to enable Uganda’s promoted policy of self-reliance and inclusion of refugees, especially as humanitarian assistance suffers from insufficient funding.
National and international actors responding to the refugee situation in Uganda, including signatories to this statement, are investing in alternative sources of energy and efforts to mitigate environmental damage. Environmental protection has been identified as a key priority for Uganda’s refugee response. The Ugandan government is developing a water and environment response plan to address environmental degradation in refugee-hosting areas, under the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework (CRRF) and supported by the humanitarian response led by the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM) and UNHCR.
But more concrete action has to be undertaken on the ground. Tree planting in and around the refugee sites has been significant, but remains insufficient. The government of Uganda, UNHCR and its partners should increase reforestation efforts, and ensure follow-up. As less than half of the refugee population and 20% of the host community use energy-saving stoves, the same actors should increase their distribution and the efficiency of their use. Community dialogues and sensitisation have yielded results, but need to be scaled up to allow refugee and host community leaders to adequately detect, prevent and address tensions around natural resources.
To do so, we call on international partners to direct resources towards programmes that address environmental degradation and promote peaceful co-existence among communities affected by displacement. International commitments to share responsibility with major refugee-hosting countries like Uganda have to be translated into real action and, crucially, financial support.
More refugees continue to arrive, and large-scale returns to their country of origin remain untenable in the short time, given the protracted situations in Uganda’s neighbouring countries. Without a significant increase in investment, environmental degradation in refugee-hosting districts will have serious consequences for many years to come.
World Refugee Day takes place each year on 20 June. This year’s global theme is #StepWithRefugees — Take A Step on World Refugee Day
A group of 19 NGOs call on international donors to share responsibility and increase funding.
Statement signed by
Action Against Hunger, Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), BRAC, CARE, Catholic Relief Services, Danish Refugee Council, Finn Church Aid, Finnish Refugee Council, Food for the Hungry, Humanity & Inclusion, Mercy Corps, Norwegian Refugee Council, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tutapona, Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), War Child Holland, World Vision, ZOA
One of the biggest biometric verification processes ever undertaken has confirmed that Uganda is hosting 1.1 million refugees, by far the largest number in Africa and the third largest worldwide. With the scale of the crisis now confirmed, the international community should ensure the response is appropriately funded. As the end of the year approaches, the 2018 response plan has received just 42% of the required funds.
Since March 2018, the government of Uganda and UNHCR have embarked on a biometric verification exercise aimed at validating and updating the total number of refugees in Uganda. This process has been essential to confirm numbers, which are lower than previously reported, and must be the start of a renewed long-term commitment to provide an adequate and well targeted response to the largely unmet needs of refugees and their host communities.
We look forward to a consolidated and unified refugee database that will support protection, identity management, well-targeted provision of assistance, and awareness of accurate population statistics. All of this is necessary to ensure better support, service delivery and durable solutions for refugees and their host communities in Uganda.
Uganda cannot handle this crisis alone. Uganda’s refugee policy is one of the most progressive in the world and the country has continued to welcome refugees at a time when many countries are shutting their doors. The support from donors so far is welcome and has helped save lives and provide services; but is falling far short of what is needed.
The international community has not kept its own commitments made in the 2016 New York Declaration to share the responsibility and provide enough funding. In our daily work we see the impact of this: more than half of children are out of school; sick and pregnant women walk miles to reach health clinics that lack beds and medicine; poverty and need leaves girls vulnerable to sexual exploitation and forced marriage; families queue for hours to try and get water; and frustrated youth have no jobs or hope for the future, as evidenced by a recent increase in suicides in some settlements.
We recognise and echo donor calls for accountability and are committed to measures that prevent and combat all types of wrongful conduct, including fraud, corruption and Sexual Exploitation and Abuse. However, continued failure to provide funding will lead to a further decrease in assistance for refugees, more than 60 percent of whom are children, and host communities. The influx has put enormous pressure on host community resources, with far-reaching political, economic, social, developmental and humanitarian consequences.
The humanitarian community in Uganda is committed to supporting refugees’ resilience and self-reliance, but further cuts to services such as food rations, water provision, healthcare and education could exacerbate tensions and generate violent conflict.
Uganda’s refugee policy is held up worldwide as a good example, so what happens next in Uganda will have global implications for how the world deals with refugee crises. A failure to support refugees and host communities here will jeopardize the credibility of the Comprehensive Refugee Response Framework and the forthcoming Global Compact on Refugees. At a moment in time when the international community is setting out a new way of working and sharing responsibility, Uganda is the test case which cannot be allowed to fail.
We therefore urge international donors to:
– Recognise the verification exercise as the first step in committing to ensure a fully comprehensive and effective response to the refugee influx in Uganda
– Fulfill their commitments made in the New York Declaration to share responsibility for responding to refugee crises and urgently provide funds to meet the verified levels of needs
– Follow up on outstanding actions under the Joint Action Plan, ensuring that investigations of allegations of wrongful conduct are concluded and reported against
– Commit to upholding the quality of asylum for refugees by meeting their lifesaving needs through predictable multi-year funding and investment in infrastructure in order to achieve the minimum standards in the provision of multi-sector assistance and protection
– Step up efforts to find durable solutions to the crisis, including though committed international political action to end conflict in countries bordering Uganda
Humanitarian funding has an increased emphasis on education, but resources do not yet meet the needs. As world leaders gathered in New York for the 73rd UN General Assembly, FCA’s representatives highlight that Finland can gain from its educational expertise.
With one in four of the world’s 1.8 billion youth affected by violent conflict, the need for education for refugees and internally displaced people is dire. The importance of refugee education was highlighted in many sessions of the UN General Assembly this week.
“This year, the topic was not only discussed in sessions related to refugees and education, but also at other important events. The focus was however mainly on children’s education. We cannot afford to forget about the youth, says Katri Suomi, Head of Advocacy and Ecumenical Relations at FCA.
The report highlights that “policy panic”, driven by stereotypes of youth as prone to violence, is counter-productive. There is for example simply no correlation between bulging youth populations and violence.
Education may on the other hand become an enabling factor for an increased political participation of young people. The report outlines three effective ways to activate the youth peace dividend: invest in youth, include youth and collaborate with youth.
Earlier this week, the UN also launched its’ Youth Strategy to ensure that every young person is empowered to achieve their full potential, get their voices heard and advocate for positive change.
Finland should prioritise education in development policy and funding
The emphasis on education has grown within humanitarian funding, but the funds do not meet the needs. Countries, such as Denmark, Norway and Canada, as well as the EU and the World Bank are now investing in refugee education. The UN General Assembly demanded that also leaders of developing countries increase their national budgets for education.
FCA’s Executive Director Jouni Hemberg says that Finland now has the opportunity to raise its profile with its educational expertise. Finland has so far been absent for example at the Global Partnership for Education fund.
The report ‘Stepping Up Finland’s Global Role in Education’, ordered by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, states that the Finnish expertise in the education sector should be prioritised more in the country’s development cooperation policy and funding.
“Finland has so much to give to refugee education and the education sector of the developing countries in general,” says Hemberg.
FCA ready to start post-war reconstruction in South Sudan
In South Sudan three out of four children are out-of-school. The country’s security situation remains extremely poor after conflict parties reconfirmed the peace treaty on September 12.
International donors expressed their strong support to the civil society organisation’s working in the country, and criticized the taxes and fees that the South Sudanese government charges from aid organisations.
There are also severe challenges in accessing areas in need of humanitarian assistance. During the rainy season, around 60 percent of the country is inaccessible due to bad roads and flooding. In addition, one must negotiate with several armed groups to gain access. So far this year, 13 humanitarian workers have been killed and 70 have been detained.
Internally displaced people and refugees from Uganda and other countries hosting South Sudanese refugees have begun the long process of returning home. The war has ruined infrastructure, schools and food production, and everything needs to be built from scratch.
FCA has stayed in the country throughout the crisis, and its employees are now in well positioned to begin assisting in the reconstruction efforts.
“We have already started a vocational training programme together with the Norwegian Refugee Council. In addition, we deliver food aid, build schools and support the peace work of the South Sudanese Council of Churches”, says Hemberg.
New partnerships to step up development
Participants of the UN General Assembly called for investments in African businesses in the session ‘Africa: Open for Business’. What Africa needs to do is invest in the infrastructure and the regulations, for example visa policies, the session concluded.
Africa is on the rise, but not without investing in education. The American economist Jeffrey Sachs emphasised the importance of education to the development of the African private sector: Quality education is a vital condition for businesses.
FCA Investments, a new financing company founded by Finn Church Aid, is investing in small and medium sized enterprises in developing countries. In its initial phase, it invests in Uganda among others.
“FCA has many years of experience from development cooperation in the most fragile states in the world, and we believe that we can lift people from poverty through vocational training and granting loans to small and medium sized businesses”, Hemberg states.
At this year’s UN General Assembly, partnerships between governments, the private sector and civil society organisations, including faith-based actors, as well as a search for new ways of working were prominent, Suomi adds.
“Many enterprises, such as Google, Amazon and Microsoft were visibly present, and for example artificial intelligence was discussed in many occasions.”
Faith-based actors have a lot to offer to the UN system, and the cooperation benefits both, says Suomi. Churches and mosques are present in almost every community, even in the most remote places.
“Partnerships with them can provide access, help spread information, and do advocacy work. Religion can also be a big resource in difficult circumstances and crisis situations”, she states.
The Network for Religious and Traditional Peacemakers also organised a side event called ‘Demystifying the narrative of the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’, together with the UN Office on Genocide Prevention. The event discussed gender issues concerning ISIL.
ISIL strategically projected women’s empowerment to persuade them to travel to ISIL held territories while subjigating them once they arrived through sexual slavery, their physical appearance and limited social interactions. Additionally, the enslavement of women, often as sex slaves, was used as a recruitment tool for ISIL fighters.
“In my interactions with survivors, I heard loudly and clearly from women and girls who escaped ISIL captivity, the desire that ISIL perpetrators be held accountable not only for terrorism, but the sexual atrocities they committed,” stated Pramila Patten, Special Representative to the UN Secretary General.
Other pressing topics discussed were climate change, girls and women’s rights, tuberculosis, the status of International Humanitarian Law, the UN reform and the situation in Syria.
“I was pleased to see that Finland had a broad representation at the assembly. President Niinistö and several ministers were present. A huge part of Finland’s international weight relates to development policy”, Suomi says.
Women and girls learn to read and acquire new skills in the FCA/DCA project in two refugee camps in Bangladesh.
“I feel secure to work in the safe space for women and girls. I enjoy coming to this place and sharing with others,” says a refugee woman volunteering as a teacher. In Myanmar, she taught the national language Burmese and sewing.
Almost a million ethnic Rohingya now live in a cluster of camps in the Cox’s Bazar area in Bangladesh. They have fled Myanmar because of violence described in the recent UN report as mass murder and gang rape. According to the report, the intent of violence was genocide.
Most of the refugees are women and children. The situation of orphans and young women and girls in particular is very difficult.
”My dream is that the women and girls I teach could start to teach others. And that they could make a living for themselves.”
Support after violence
Education and livelihood opportunities are in short supply at the biggest refugee camp in the world. Especially education for young people is sorely needed.
A joint project by Finn Church Aid and DanChurchAid provides psychosocial support and education for women and adolescent girls who have experienced gender-based violence.
”Since the programme started we have reached 169 women and girls with basic literacy & numeracy lessons as well as 179 women and girls with life skills sessions, focusing on topics such as hygiene, nutrition and family planning. In addition, 765 women and girls have received psychosocial support, and our team has visited 1,050 families to tell them about the facilities and services aimed at women and girls,” says FCA education expert Petra Weissengruber who works at Cox’s Bazar.
Information sessions on hygiene, child marriage and disaster risk reduction have reached almost 1,400 women and girls. A questionnaire carried out at the beginning of the project revealed that there is a great deal of need and interest towards education. Also, there is a high number of women and girls that already have tailoring skills and reported that they would enjoy passing their skills on to other female refugees. The opportunity to do this has also been provided, and teaching has begun.
Conditions at the camp are harsh. People live in tiny shacks right next to one another.
”Fortunately, the monsoon rains have not been as hard this year as we feared. On the days it rains a lot, the education team can’t always make it to the camps. The rain that turns the roads at the refugee camps into mud obviously makes it difficult for the women and girls to reach the education facilities as well,” says Weissengruber.
Text: Ulla Kärki / Finn Church Aid
Photo: Tine Sletting Jakobsen / Dan Church Aid
