AidBlogs

A study on The Implementation of UNHCR's Policy on Refugee Protection and Solutions in Urban Areas has just been released.  Its findings are "based on a detailed survey that was sent to the agency’s 24 programs with urban refugee programs that numbered more than 5,000 according to UNHCR’s 2011 statistics. The survey sought to gauge the rate of implementation for each of the 24 UNHCR operations against the twelve protection strategies set forth in the policy. By doing this we hoped to provide a baseline for future implementation measurements, and, to identify good practices and specific challenges concerning urban refugees."

Other recent publications include:

Accessing Services in the City: The Significance of Urban Refugee-Host Relations in Cameroon, Indonesia and Pakistan (Church World Service, Feb. 2013) [text]

Adapting to Urban Displacement: The Use of Cash Transfers in Urban Areas, Thesis (Sciences Po Grenoble, Sept. 2012) [text]

Understanding the Nature and Scale of Urban Risk in Low- and Middle-income Countries and its Implications for Humanitarian Preparedness, Planning and Response (IIED, March 2013) [text]

Events & opportunities:

Engaging Violent Cities: Operational Challenges for Humanitarian Action in Urban Areas, Online, 25 April 2013 [info]
- Note: If you miss this webcast, you will be able to access a recording of the event after the fact.

FY 2013 Funding Opportunity Announcement for NGO Programs Benefiting Urban Refugees in Egypt [info]
- Proposal submission deadline is 1 May 2013.

Course: Addressing Global Trends: Psychosocial and Mental Health Interventions for Refugees Living the Urban Context, Cairo, 16-20 June 2013 [info]
- Apply for a scholarship by 19 May 2013, otherwise by 22 May 2013.

Urban Humanitarian Emergencies Course, Cambridge, MA, 26-28 July 2013 [info]
- Register by 1 June 2013 for discounted rate.

Past events:

Improving Humanitarian Action in Urban Areas: An Action-oriented Roundtable, London, 5 Dec. 2012 [text]

Learning from the City: Humanitarian Action in Urban Areas, London, 19 April 2013 [info]
- Follow some of the discussion that took place on #UrbanLearning.

Tagged Publications and Events & Opportunities. 

Opportunity:

FY 2014 Funding Opportunity Announcement for Reception and Placement Program [info]
- Proposal submission deadline is 1 July 2013.

Publications:

Empowering Students, Empowering Communities, through Community-Based Learning and Civic Engagement: The Case Study of Refugee Resettlement in Lancaster, PA, Paper presented at American Political Science Association Conference on Teaching & Learning, Long Beach, CA, 8-10 Feb. 2013 [text via SSRN]

'Nowhere to go': Forced Evictions in Haiti's Displacement Camps (Amnesty International, April 2013) [access]

"Organized Crime and Refugee Policy in Honduras," Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid Newsletter, no. 37 (May 2013) [full-text]

Refugees and Asylees: 2012 (DHS Office of Immigration Statistics, April 2013) [text]

"Stateless in the United States: Current Reality and a Future Prediction," Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, vol. 46, no. 2 (2013) [full-text]
- Includes a survey of statelessness in the Americas generally.

UN and Ministry of Justice Data Shows 175% Increase in Asylum Requests in Brazil between 2011 and 2012 (Portal Brasil, April 2013) [text]

Tagged Publications and Events & Opportunities. 

We are in De Mazang, and half way up TV Mountain. The road was paved for the first section; now we are walking in a narrow alley, strewn with the litter of the households, and down the the middle of which runs an uneven channel of raw waste and sewerage. People are gathered around a tap stand, filling 20L yellow canisters, and then struggling on up the hill.

Higher up we stop, and Julie goes into a room to talk with the women. I stay in the yard and the husband comes over. In the small yard, three children bat a plastic ball around with a large walking stick.

We talk about the Self Help Group which his wife is part of. He only knows it by the name, ‘the group’. ‘It is good for her, she saves 10 Afs, 20 Afs every week. They put it all together, take loans. Why shouldn’t she do it?’ He tells how he has taken three loans from the group via his wife over the years.

‘And what have you used the money for?’

‘I sell waistcoats. I buy them in Mandaie, from the big underground market there. I carry them all the way up to Karte Se, walk down the bazaar selling them. If I have sold them all by the time I reach here, good. If not, I go on, past the zoo, and then turn around and walk home, selling as I go. That is what I do.’

I cannot capture the simple resignation with which he speaks. It was as though he was saying, ‘This is my life. That is all there is.’ I ask what he might do if he could take a larger loan, say 10,000 Afs ($200USD). He shrugs. ‘I would buy more waistcoats.’

‘Do you have any other skill, or work, or profession, or income?’

‘This is my qisb, my income.’

‘What do you want for your children?’

‘They they do not walk in the dust.’

*

These groups are doing valuable work. The houses and the alleys here are like the slums we lived in, in Delhi. People here are poor; in another group, a man and a woman, old, both blind, sit motionless, as another woman tells of how two of their children have died in the last years. The man next to me sells plastic tubs, in much the same way as the waistcoat seller. The return on such sales is microscopic.

It does take time for these groups to start working, but over 5-6 years the changes are evident; further down the mountain, people are working together, men and women, running small businesses, cooperating. Higher up, though, that process is just beginning.

Thursday night: I accompany the Blue Dragon Outreach team on the streets of Hanoi from 9pm looking for some particularly young runaway children we have heard about. We're aware that children new to the streets are being targeted for sexual exploitation so we are in a race to find the boys and get them to safety. We find them but they have already been approached by strangers and don't know who to trust. All we can do is advise them on how to find safe accommodation, and how to avoid danger.

Friday night: The team is back on the streets from 8pm, talking to young teenagers who have been coming to the Blue Dragon centre by day, but hanging out on the streets by night. One boy rings with an emergency - he's seen some boys being approached by men he's seen before, and is afraid for them. We don't finish until 2am but are able to get the kids to safety. One of the Blue Dragon boys is particularly brave in looking out for his mates.

Saturday morning: The Outreach leader, Blue Dragon's lawyer and I meet to discuss some of the issues we've been seeing in relation to the street boys courting such risk and facing the dangers that they do.

Saturday afternoon: A call comes through that the police have arrested a member of a child trafficking ring which has been kidnapping girls and selling them to China. The trafficker has confessed to selling a girl who may be either 13 or 14 years old; the police want to know if Blue Dragon might be able to assist with the repatriation of the girl.

We don't have a clear picture yet of where the girl is or what is needed, but there's a 12 hour drive to get to the border so Blue Dragon's lawyer is on the next available bus. I shoot off an email to my great friend Robert at Giving It Back To Kids to say "Hey we've already committed ourselves - can you help pay for this!?" and Robert replies that yes, he'll help out. GIBTK and Blue Dragon have only recently formed an (as yet) informal partnership to share resources on trafficking cases, and this will be our second such case together. 

Saturday night: So far, peace and quiet!

Over the years, Blue Dragon has evolved and adapted to Vietnam's rapidly changing economy and society. From time to time we have to take stock of where we are and make sure it's where we need to be. We're usually just-about-right but sometimes have to adjust to make sure we're doing what's needed most.

This year the emerging theme is: Crisis. We're receiving more calls from trafficked children and their families. We're seeing kids on the street in far more danger than ever before. The problems we face are growing more complex, and they seem to be changing/developing more quickly than before.

One of Blue Dragon's strengths is that we can adapt quickly to these changes, and we can respond even more quickly to calls for help. Our challenge is to not only be responsive, but to make an impact on the broader issues to reduce the incidence of crisis.

the true enemy of our threatened wildlife like the nightingale is not housing but agricultural intensification ...  There is now more bio-diversity in back gardens than on English farms. ...  Intensively farmed land has a negligible - even negative - environmental value and is almost sterile from the point of view of wild life; take a look at the 2011 National Ecosystem Assessment. That is the sort of land we should be allowing houses to be built on. The vehement opposition to building on any intensively farmed greenbelt land fails to recognise it for what it is – almost worthless from a social, environmental or amenity perspective.  Paul Cheshire, Emeritus Professor of Economic Geography at LSE

Click to see the destruction HERE

Last night, Kijabe received more that 5 inches of rain overnight. 26 inches of rain in the past month.

Add in the ongoing deforestation of the Kijabe Forest above RVA and the result was a severe MUDSLIDE.

The pictures tell the story.

The physical destruction of property will reverberate for some time...

- Severe erosion and mudslides seem to have made the road up to the main highway both impassable and possibly irreparable.  Many, many patients and hospital employees access the hospital via this road.  They will be inconvenienced and it may have considerable impact on the health of many people.

-  Water supply pipes to the Kijabe Hospital have been destroyed.  This will severely impact the functioning of the hospital almost immediately.

- RVA fences have been destroyed.

- Kijabe Boys School (a senior secondary school) experienced serious damage.

-  Many homes and business have had significant damage.

- This will seriously impact the travel of those coming for the funeral of Martha Pontier, AIM missionary who will be buried tomorrow.

There are some things for which to be thankful:

- Miraculously, RVA signed their FLOOD INSURANCE CONTRACT LAST WEEK!

- NO ONE DIED OR WAS INJURED IN KIJABE
     (N.B. - the Kenya newspaper The Daily Nation reported that 3 girls were killed in Kiambu County, but that did not happen in the immediate vicinity of Kijabe.  The news story is HERE ).

Let us pray for those responsible for those responsible for reconstruction and clean-up.

From the Lagos State Government Facebook page:

Africa Confidential has an article [gated] on the new opposition alliance in Nigeria and the proposed Boko Haram amnesty. Excerpts:

The membership of the President’s Amnesty Committee for Boko Haram, chaired by Minister of Special Duties Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, is relatively low profile. Some, like northern-based rights activist Shehu Sani, claim they weren’t even consulted before their membership was announced. Sani has refused to join, dismissing the Committee as an attempt to defraud the government.

[...]

However, in a digital recording in Hausa sent to the media in mid-April, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau rejected any negotiation with government: ‘What wrong have we done? On the contrary, it is we that should grant you pardon.’

This issue also has a full-page flow chart called “Who’s who in Guinea’s mining intrigues.” It’s very cool. Africa Confidential is great.

The days have been simply packed and tonight I'm tired and very tempted once again to skip blogging in favor of just showering and crawling bed. But I managed to negotiate a deal with myself: keep it short. Capture one highlight of the many over the past 2 days. That was a tough choice, but here it is.
This afternoon, Cara, Bob Guzak, Ernesto and I visited the home of one of our students. First, we had to contend with the horribly eroded road to the school (shoot, no photo of that yet). Then, we walked the "short" distance of about 1.5 km to the home. The kids were SO excited!

When we got to the home, we were welcomed warmly and a grass mat was brought for us to sit on. This is the Mozambican bush home's equivalent to a living room with a comfy sofa. It was a great time for Cara to connect with a sponsored student. It was also a great video/photo op which always delights the kids immensely when you show them the playbacks.


We all enjoy seeing moving images of ourselves, but it's especially fascinating when it's the first time ever.


Gifts were presented and the moment was enjoyed by all, but note the two boys still stuck on video replays on the iphone.

The momentum really picked up when Bob videoed the whole scene and replayed it on his ipad. I don't think any two apple screens have ever been touched by such wondering fingers as these were today, repeatedly. 
Photo fever reached an all-time high as I snapped a few more shots and kids squealed with delight at the playbacks. "The dog! Take a picture of the dog!!" they cried.

That seemed a rather boring subject to me but since it's what they REALLY wanted, I took the shot.

When I showed them this playback, they doubled over and screamed with laughter. It's delightful to see a replay of yourself, but apparently it's hilarious to see them of your plain, ol' dog laying around in the dirt!

theworldwelivein:

Vivid Lions Head [Explored] (by Adriaan Fenwick)

It's been a while since I've beaten on the Guardian (I love you really Guardian, you're* still my main newspaper, despite the typos in 3 out of 3 articles I read the other day).

But really:
Stowaway from Angola highlights airport security problems  Police continue to try to identify man who fell from BA plane on to London pavement, the second African stowaway in recent weeks Personally, I'd say that the story of a young man in his 20s, wearing a grey hoodie, jeans and trainers, who was so desperate for the chance of a better life that he risked and lost his life by sneaking into the hold of an aeroplane bound for London, mostly highlights the utterly grotesque global inequality that we choose to tolerate because they are mostly out of sight and out of mind, and we are worried about the impact of all these foreigners on our precious "community" or some other vague bullshit. Not fucking airport security.

(*embarrassing typo here fixed but whatevs, I can and will continue to beat on the Guardian for typos, because this is not a national newspaper it is a BLOG. Thanks as ever for the vigilant editing though K)

Almost as scary is his insider’s view of international organisations’ lack of readiness to deal with such threats. He questions the future effectiveness of the UN, and the legitimacy of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, created at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. “The picture of global governance today is one of duplication, ambiguity, overlap and confusion,” he concludes. Tax-free salaries and comfortable career paths encourage entrenched views and organisations out of step with modern working practices.  Pretty damning, from the FT review of Ian Goldin's new book.

Got a call at the end of the day to saying someone down the highway had been (badly) bitten by a dog and needed to be taken to hospital for shots. I wasn't sure what shots were even available locally, but we went to see the person and at least dress the wounds.

We pulled off the highway several km's from here where the family stood in a huddle waiting for us. A man held a child, about 5 or 6 years old, who was crying. The mom was nearly hysterical. Turns out the "someone" bitten was this child. As we examined the wound and discussed what to do, we discovered the child's older brother was also bitten, though not as badly. And apparently a 3rd person was also attacked. We decided to all pile into the vehicle and head to the Pungue Health Center. At least they had Tetanus immunization.

We arrived at the health center after dark, and the place has no power.

The nurse emerged from his house nearby to greet us in shorts and flip-flops. He quickly ushered us into the room labeled "Triagem" and set about cleaning and dressing the boys' wounds. The youngest boy cried from the moment we arrived until the moment we walked out, but especially when he got his shot. Everything about the place was so very humble and simple. He used a flashlight to work by that he obviously was used to positioning "just so" while doing this sort of thing. Since there were quite a few of us in the room with idle hands, Dwight held the flashlight from a better angle. I had brought one as well that was quite bright and I couldn't help but think that was the brightest that little triage room had ever been after dark. He worked quickly and efficiently. Thankfully he had the basic supplies for dressing the wounds and immunizations were kept in a battery operated cooler.

When he was done, we made small talk. He asked Dwight if he recalled giving him and his laboring pregnant wife a ride to Vanduzi awhile back. Dwight said, "Yes, I remember you." The nurse said, "Well, that baby is born and at home now. Won't you come meet my family and see our baby? It's our firstborn." So we took the extra few minutes to visit his home, meet the family and neighbor kids who were there for supper (spaghetti...a delicacy out here) and some TV viewing, and then we left.

By the time we stopped to drop our passengers and little patients off, the little boy had stopped crying and the whole family was settled and happier.

A few months ago we realized that we didn't have enough money in the Jonah Kule Memorial Leadership Fund to pay this year's tuition/fees for the Uganda medical students we are currently sponsoring through this fund.  
We currently have a 5th (last) year student (Julius Monday), two 4th year students (Baluku Morris & Amon Bwamale), a 3rd year student (Katuramu Tadeo), a 2nd year student (Birungi Fred), a first year student (Isaiah Kule) and a student finishing his MPH (Baguma Charles).  It takes over $3500 (all fees) per year per student --quite a deal compared to an American friend we know who is at the Columbia University Medical School in NYC and is paying $75,000 per year.
Well, we asked and you responded.  We now have enough to send this group for another year of medical studies.  Jehovah Jireh (God will provide - Genesis 22:14).  God provided a ram in the thicket for Abraham to sacrifice in place of Isaac.  When no apparent solution is visible, God provides.
Thank you for your generosity! 
While the seed of Jonah's life was buried in Bundibugyo as he cared for his friends with Ebola, we believe that these students are the fruit of that death.   We continue to pray that all of these students will return to serve in Bundibugyo District … for the good of the people there and for God's glory.

I was pre-testing my survey with a market trader this morning. I asked him how often products that he orders arrive later than they are supposed to. How often are there delays?

“We are used to delays. If my supplier says 1 week, I know it will be 2 weeks. Is that a delay?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All five of us are enjoying being in Afghanistan for these two weeks, with some caveats.

1. the mud. While technically it is spring, it has rained every day since we got here. Julie was meant to fly to Mazar yesterday, and couldn’t because there had been so much rain, the airport was flooded. Yep, you read it right. And Afghan mud has unique and strange qualities. You can walk from the bedroom to the bathroom, and come back muddy. You can wash mud off your pants, three times, and it is still there! You can tiptoe carefully around a patch in the road where the mud is thick, only to find mud in your hair. Hours later!

2. the cold. We didn’t expect this, and had to make hasty trips to the bazaar, to buy jackets. Only their winter jackets are all packed away, because it is summer. So only T shirts are on sale now. So naturally, I bought T shirts. Now we are all layered up like lunatics.

3. the sickness. Within hours of getting here, Rachel had a fever. Elijah vomited carefully into his cupped hands last night at 3am and carried it to the bathroom, but couldn’t open the door, and had to stand there yelling/ vomiting till we came. (He then repeated this trick 2 hours later). Pieta has a cold and sore lips (eh?). Seems there is something about arriving here that activates bugs.

4. the way plans get cast aside. Twice now Julie has tried to get to Mazar. Rain and flooding has foiled both attempts. We have ended up sharing rooms with a couple trying to get back to Lal, who have been stumped twice now, because of weather. The upside to this is pleasant surprises – kissing your wife good bye for three days, only to have her show up two hours later. More time with friends. But it does make for low-level frustration, and traversing many low levels of frustration can lead you to the basement of despair.

All that said, it is good being here. The kids are loving seeing their friends. It is good to see Tom and Lyn settling in so well. We are doing good work. We have been welcomed back into a what is still a family for us. It is almost as though we never left.

Yes, the closer you get here, the more wonderful it is*.

  *As long as you can expand your definition of wonderful to include some pretty annoying things.

Recently stumbled upon these photos which were taken a while ago, before the SHONA ladies had to flee Congo.  They are photos from celebrations of births and weddings.  The SHONA ladies have had a lot of both in the past year.

I love these photos because they are what Congo looks like.  They are what Congo feels like.  And they are home to the SHONA ladies.

The ladies are doing well in their new country.  They are slowly getting back on their feet.  But it is never easy.  And they think often of their family and friends.  They worry for their families, many of whom are in areas that continue to be shaken by fighting.  It is hard to keep in touch, with cell phone connections that barely work at best.  And they think of all the joyful times.  Here are a few...

Arriving


Preparing Food
Bringing Drinks
 
 Argentine, with a pot of food on her head, in traditional celebration

 
Generations meet (Mapendo's son with a great grandmother)


 Hands raised in celebration! (Solange with her husband)


Buy something that matters today! Support the work of handicapped women in Congo. www.shonacongo.com

Holy Mental Deficits! Wow! Cassava could be mentally retarding babies and children.
Congolese babies are weaned on cassava. It's their first food. And they grow up eating it at least once a day or more.
More tests should be done. Since it acts like lead paint toxic, then what do you do for the hundreds of millions of babies and children who eat it every day?

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/04/23/health/in-central-africa-bitter-cassava-is-linked-to-mental-deficits.xml

Konzo, a disease that comes from eating bitter cassava that has not been prepared properly - that is, soaked for days to break down its natural cyanide - has long been known to cripple children.
The name, from the Yaka language of Central Africa, means "tied legs," and victims stumble as if their knees were bound together.
Now researchers have found that children who live where konzo is common but have no obvious physical symptoms may still have mental deficits from the illness.
Cassava, also called manioc or tapioca, is eaten by 800 million people around the world and is a staple in Africa, where bitter varieties grow well even in arid regions. When properly soaked and dried, and especially when people have protein in their diet, bitter cassava is "pretty safe," said Michael J. Boivin, a Michigan State psychiatry professor and lead author of a study published online by Pediatrics. "But in times of war, famine, displacement and hardship, people take shortcuts."

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Dr. Boivin and colleagues gave tests of mental acuity and dexterity to three groups of children. Two groups were from a village near the Angolan border with regular konzo outbreaks: Half had leg problems; half did not but had cyanide in their urine. The third was from a village 125 miles away with a similar diet but little konzo because residents routinely detoxified cassava before cooking it.

The children from the latter village did "significantly better" on tests of remembering numbers, identifying objects, following mazes and fitting blocks together, while healthy-looking children from the first village did almost as badly as children with obvious konzo.

The mental damage was like that done by lead exposure but more subtle, Dr. Boivin said.

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At 3:30 a.m. got a call that a woman in the community who had given birth to twins had lost a lot of blood and needed to be taken to hospital. The babies were 2.4 kg and 2.6 kg and wrapped in a capulana and towel each. Two teeny tiny, perfectly formed little girls. When we pulled into Vanduzi Hospital Maternity ward, they took the twins into the birthing room, where the only scale is, to weigh them. It was a busy night for the one nurse on duty and the small birthing room was packed. One mom was on all 4's on one stretcher, laboring I imagine. Another woman was lying on the only other stretcher. And a third woman was lying on the floor (on a mat, I presume) and had just given birth. The twins were placed in a large, square receiving bassinette along with the other newborn, and carefully unwrapped and placed on the scale one at a time and then in turn, wrapped up again. I couldn't help thinking about stories of inadvertent baby-swaps. I saw no I.D. bracelets on moms or babies last night, but this nurse seemed pretty on top of things and kindly handed the correct infants back to us to take in to their mom.
I was thankful it was still dark when we arrived back home again at about 5 a.m.. I was all too happy to crawl back into bed and steal a few more winks before the sun and busy day ahead leapt up to greet me.

Event:

National Day of Action, Canada, 17 June 2013 [info]
- Organized by Canadian Doctors for Refugee Care.

Publications:

Access to Healthcare in Europe in Times of Crisis and Rising Xenophobia: An Overview of the Situation of People Excluded from Healthcare Systems (Médecins du Monde, April 2013) [access]

"Discourse on Malaria Elimination: Where Do Forcibly Displaced Persons Fit in These Discussions?," Malaria Journal 12:121 (April 2013) [open access text]

"Family Therapy Sessions with Refugee Families: A Qualitative Study," Conflict and Health 7:7 (March 2013) [open access text]

"A Framework and Methodology for Navigating Disaster and Global Health in Crisis Literature," PLOS Currents Disasters (April 2013) [open access text]

Refugee Health Care: Impacts of Recent Cuts (Canadian Council for Refugees, Feb. 2013) [text via Oppenheimer Chair]

"Vitamin D Status of Refugees Arriving in Canada: Findings from the Calgary Refugee Health Program," Canadian Family Physician, vol. 59, no. 4 (April 2013) [free full-text]

Tagged Publications and Events & Opportunities.