Last week our Head of UK Ben Wilkes, together with Mark Hermann one of our corporate partner supporters, visited the projects we support for Syrian refugee children in Lebanon. What they were most struck with was the vulnerability of the families living here. These people have fled to Lebanon for safety and refuge, but have found themselves in volatile environment, trying to survive a day to day existence that is full of uncertainty. After spending time with different people in the camps Mark described how "Refugees do not necessarily escape in a cloud of bomb smoke or a shower of bullets. They live in situations not so far from our own, but they feel a threat coming closer and closer, and finally they are forced to flee. They may have lost close family or had threats made against them. For one woman we talked to, the final drop was when her husband was kidnapped for two hours and told he must spy on family and friends - or he would be killed. They crossed the Syrian border shortly after and moved into a very primitive Lebanese refugee camp (these are not like the much nicer UN tents I see in the media a lot!). Although she had very little she proudly showed us her family and offered tea". When interviewing different people from within the refugee community about what their most important priorities were, the constant response was they wanted to feel safe, to be able to stay with family and near friends in a culture similar to home. Most of all there is a longing to be able to return home and to normal life as soon as possible. We all see comments on our news-feeds and screens intimating that refugees somehow have the agenda of pursuing ‘our’ possessions, lifestyle, housing and jobs. What we have found spending time with this community is that none of these things are considerations for a family fleeing violence. Mark described how “Even when living in an improvised 'tent' made of plastic and bits of wood, the people I met did not even remotely think of going west unless they were literally forced to. On the same morning they had stated that they felt safe in the refugee camp, the military arrived there, fully armed, announcing that the camp had to be cleared in a week due to a military base expansion. They gave no direction of where to go to, and still till this did not put the west on the radar for these families”. The military base is being expanded from a nearby checkpoint, and for security reasons the army do not want any camps in the sightline of the base. This will affect not just this camp, but up to 25 camps along the border. To give some context, this is around 2,500 Syrian families (10,000 people) who will be displaced within Lebanon. This evacuation is a devastating blow for people in the camps we are working in. The school we support in this camp will have to move, the families will have to move, and there is currently no place for them to go. One family had just saved up a year’s worth of rent money and paid the landowner for a space for their tent. They will not get this money back, and will have no money to pay rent should they find another space to rent. Many landowners abuse the desperation of families needing land, using sexual exploitation, unpaid labour and child labour as payment when people have no other means to pay. Project Manager Nuna has managed to negotiate a 10 day extension to the evacuation deadline, but describes the current feelings of the community: “We met again some of our teachers yesterday (they’re from within the camp and want to follow us wherever we set the new education centre) and the fear of the unknown is really high. It’s winter time. How can they quickly find another place to go to? What will they do with their families, where will they sleep? How will they pay for the next landlord? How will they move their belongings? After they dismantle their tent how will they take all the wood and plastic?” We’d really appreciate any support you can give, whether it’s a donation via our site or our Just Giving appeal, whether you can buy our ‘All Wrapped Up’ Christmas paper, or just share information about the project, it all makes a difference. Thank you. This space was covered in tents before being moved on by the military a few weeks ago
Lebanon’s ‘Back to School’ initiative for refugees - can the children we work with be integrated?26/11/2015
For two years now Children on the Edge has been supporting education for Syrian refugee children in small settlements in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. With a vastly overstretched national education system, there have not been enough school places available for refugees in the Government schools, making informal ‘camp schools’ a crucial part of providing education for Syrian refugee children.
With the support of UNHCR, UNICEF, the World Bank and bilateral donors, this September the Lebanese Ministry of Education launched a nationwide 'Back to School' campaign to invite all parents to register their children in Lebanese schools. The purpose of this initiative is to maximise access to certified education for all children in Lebanon, and could mean that 200,000 Syrian refugee children between the ages of 3 - 14 could access certified basic education. Children on the Edge welcome this initiative and our partners are working with local and international agencies to shape and promote it. However, at present there are many practicalities that prevent the children we are working with from taking advantage of this opportunity. The cost of travel to local schools is prohibitive for the refugee families we work with and the ‘shift’ system (refugees are to be taught in a second afternoon shift) means that children would be travelling home in the dark. The quality of education in the state system has also suffered - The 3RP report states that children are struggling with the new and different curricula, language of instruction, lack of appropriate infrastructure, teacher capacity, over crowding, students suffering from trauma and distress, lack of safe WASH facilities, and limited catch up programmes, all of which are continuing to create barriers to education, even for those children who have managed to enrol. People we have spoken to in the camp have said that sometimes this has resulted in the mistreatment of children, so all things considered at this point, the ‘Back to School’ initiative is currently not the right fit for the communities we are working with. Work is continuing by the UN to strengthen the national education system and to provide education for both Syrian refugees and the vulnerable Lebanese population. This is a long term process on which the UN is working in close partnership with the Lebanese government and the Ministry of Education. In the meantime we will continue to support informal education through our child friendly spaces in the refugee camps and work with local and international agencies to shape the implementation of the ‘Back to School’ initiative. The teachers have changed the time of the shifts offered at the camp schools, so that they finished in time for those who wanted to attend public school as well. It is our hope that through these partnerships, the current barriers to attending mainstream school will be lessened and the children we work with will be able to gain safe access in the future. In the meantime, the camp schools need our support more than ever. Find out more about the project Donate to our work here
When our staff witnessed first-hand the indiscriminate shelling and burning of civilian villages in Kachin state in 2012, Children on the Edge set out to provide aid to the children who were most affected by the conflict. After an initial survey and a delivery of aid to the hardest to reach areas, we have gone on to establish safe, nurturing environments in seven different camps for 580 internally displaced Kachin children aged 3-6.
This is done through 12 Early Childhood Development Centres in some of northern Myanmar'’s most dangerous and remote Internally Displaced People’s (IDP) camps. These centres are places with a trusted adult presence where children can receive the building blocks of basic education, access nutritional support, and simply enjoy being a child for several hours each day. In this way the centres play a vital role in helping these displaced children process their harsh surroundings and past experiences. Constructed primarily from bamboo, ply wood, and tin, the structures are basic, but teachers and students have transformed each centre into a colourful space where the children can learn and express themselves. Supplied with art materials, musical toys, building blocks, sand pits, tire swings and a large collection of story books, the centres are vibrant hubs of activity in the heart of each IDP camp. Each centre blends an organized curriculum, that includes maths, language basics, hygiene, and environmental sciences, with free and organised play activities. Focus group feedback from teachers and parents has already reported an increase in confidence and positivity among the children over the past year. Community groups which meet monthly in each centre engage with parents to educate them about the principles of early childhood education and discuss issues which children are facing in the broader community. Parents also pitch in to help construct and maintain each building as well as assist with food preparation and logistics for the centres. This year Children on the Edge will continue to ensure the delivery of winter provisions so the children can survive the harsh, high-altitude weather conditions. A set of warm clothes, which includes a wool hat, jacket, warm trousers and pair of socks, is provided to each child in the IDP camps. As most homes are constructed from thin ply wood, and temperatures regularly plunge below zero, hypothermia is one of the greatest threats faced by young children in these camps. Children on the Edge are the only international organisation operating in these remote, northern camps. When our Asia Regional Manager visited last month it took him over 2 days to reach the outlying camps, and he was the first non-Kachin visitor to the area in 3 years. He describes the situation, “We cannot stress enough how little help these people are receiving. They are physically pushed to the edge of their country, teetering on the border in case of attack from forces that have no hesitation in razing villages and harming civilians”. Living in such locations presents numerous challenges to daily survival. The high altitude makes the digging of wells nearly impossible, so camp residents must rely on surface water to survive. Finding clean surface water often means a trek of several miles and firewood must be sourced outside the camp from considerable distances. Most families rely on daily labour and subsistence farming in order to make ends meet. In this environment, the support of early childhood care has become vital to these families. By providing care for the community’s youngest children, this programme is also allowing parents to provide food, water, and firewood for their families. You can support this project by both donating to the work here and by raising the profile of the need here by sharing this story. Children on the Edge have been involved in providing education for Syrian refugee children in Lebanon for over a year and a half but naturally since the refugee crisis in Europe hit our TV screens and papers, we have had many more enquiries about how to help, and about what our general response is. Here is a brief statement that hopefully answers most of these.
Where can funding help best? Funding can make the most difference in the border areas around Syria. Less than 2% of those displaced by the current conflict have made the journey to Europe. The project we support in the Syrian refugee settlements in Lebanon needs a lot of help. The UN still only has a third of the funding needed for refugees in the border areas around Syria. This has resulted in a severe cut in rations and is one of the main push factors for refugees into Europe, forcing them to make long and dangerous journeys. Recent EU discussions have suggested that the UN will get an increase in their budget but this will take much time to materialise. What about those in Europe? We are currently not pursuing any project for those refugees in Europe as the media attention is so strongly focussed on this area, there is a lot of aid being directed there. In truth, the most vulnerable people would not be able to attempt a trip to Europe and our policy is to focus, where we can, on the most vulnerable and where the vast majority of refugees reside. With regards to European arrivals, we believe that refugees need to be registered properly, not turned away and not put in internment camps. A Europe wide co-ordinated effort is necessary to process people and identify genuine asylum seekers so they can get support. If you wish to voice your concerns, and urge for a humane, co-ordinated and effective EU response, Amnesty have an e-mail link that is useful. What about the British government’s response? Children on the Edge feel that the response of the British government with regards to admitting 20,000 people over 5 years is inadequate. At least 20,000 each year for 5 years would be an appropriate response. However we welcome their focus on taking refugees direct from the border camps and the input of aid into these border areas through DFID. Find out more about our work in Lebanon Donate to the project The tragedy facing the Kachin people in Myanmar (Burma) is rarely cited in the international media and runs counter to the popular narrative that the country is steadily transforming into a democracy. In truth, the scale and nature of the needs for internally displaced Kachin children is vast, urgent and critical. At present, Children on the Edge is the only international organisation reaching these isolated children, in the hard to reach areas of the state.
While conflict in Kachin State dates back decades, the past three years have seen the most intense and brutal fighting. Camps for over 120,000 people displaced by the war continue to grow in both size and number, and those seeking refuge are increasingly downcast about how unlikely the prospect of returning home has become. On his visits there, John Littleton, our Asia Regional Manager has witnessed first-hand the indiscriminate bombing of civilian villages by central government forces and spoken with dozens of victims who have been forced to flee their homes. He describes how “Those I’ve spoken to speak of wide-spread burning of villages, rape, maiming and executions. As the central government appears determined to crush this last remaining pocket of wide-spread armed resistance in Myanmar, their tactics have been increasingly harsh”. Reaching the unreachable While there is broad recognition of the pressing humanitarian need in northern Kachin State, it seems that the prevailing opinion is that there are simply too many logistical obstacles to providing support there. Most of the roads are little more than crude, unpaved logging routes, cut through dense forest and steep terrain. In order to reach the most remote Internally Displaced People (IDP) camps, it is necessary to criss-cross the Chinese and Burmese borders sometimes more than once. Consequently, Children on the Edge finds itself alone in providing assistance to these outlying communities. Despite access and supply issues proving challenging, they are not insurmountable. Children on the Edge has therefore been providing support to displaced children in Kachin State since 2012. We have been focussing on seven, northern (IDP) camps, which are situated in high-altitude locations. These settlements have been ignored by the larger organisations who have concentrated their efforts on the easier to reach locations around Laiza. Because of the high altitude of these camps, temperatures regularly plunge well below freezing. Given that many of the IDP residents fled their villages with only a handful of belongings, winter supplies to survive these conditions are scarce and there is a particular lack of warm clothing. During our first site visit to Kachin in January 2012, we visited a village where a young child had recently perished due to hypothermia. In response, our first action in Kachin state was to purchase hundreds of sets of warm clothing for children. Education and traumatised children The next step was to create some activities that would build sustainable change. Together with our local partners Kachin Development Group (KDG) and Kachin Women’s Association (KWA), our full Early Childhood Development Programme was launched in November of 2014. This programme consists of 12 Early Childhood Development (ECD) centres in the seven remote IDP camps, reaching 554 displaced Kachin children. While some community buildings already existed in the camps, most were unsuitable for use as an ECD space and extensive renovation work was needed. Complicating these efforts, the purchase and movement of building materials in such remote areas is difficult due to poor roads and arbitrary security checks. The most outlying IDP camps take more than 11 hours to reach from the nearest supply points. Thankfully, all 12 centres received the needed materials, and the structures were ready before the arrival of severe winter weather.The centres have become real child friendly spaces which provide play, early years education, creative expression and training in health and hygiene. Through these centres we are working with communities who have faced very real and sudden trauma. Children in the camps have experienced the shock of being forced from their homes under a wave of brutal violence and many of the personal accounts collected in the field are too graphic to publish. In the knowledge that many of the children carry significant, residual trauma, the 10 teachers in the centres have not only been trained in child friendly curriculum development, child protection issues, and managing logistics but are highly focussed on providing a safe space in which the children can feel secure to express themselves. The aim of the programme is to help the children regain a sense of security and self-worth while facilitating their long-term recovery and well-being. Community ownership Each centre is supported by a committee comprised of parents and community leaders. These committees help organise support for the centres and deal with any problems that arise. The group also assists with providing labour for construction and maintenance of centres, as well as arranging for volunteer cooks and cleaners. At monthly meetings, the committees talk with teachers and staff about issues related to the centre and broader community. These round-table discussions strongly connect the project with the community and enable valuable insight into the ongoing issues faced by the IDPs. How you can help Donate to the project - Funding is surprisingly hard to find as many donors simply aren’t aware of the scale of this situation. Contact your MP on behalf of the Kachin people - While there have been measurable strides taken towards progress in Myanmar, the atrocities and violations of human rights taking place in Kachin state and surrounding areas is evidence that the old regime has yet to fully reform. It is time for the international community to take notice. Related stories: 'Their villages burned and their families attacked, the Kachin People have been physically pushed to the edge of their country and given no help' Share this story - to raise awareness (use the Facebook and Twitter buttons below) |
RECEIVE OUR EMAILSBlog Categories
All
Archives
July 2024
|