Tag: forced displacement

Humanitarian and Development Response

Displaced People need humanitarian and development actors working together as a nimble and integrated team.

Toluwalola

This post originally appeared on my Linkedin page.

Credit: Image from the book, “Through My Mother’s Eyes by Toluwalola Kasali. Illustrated by Jackson Muthoni

To put in clear perspective the impact of the global forced displacement crisis and the lives affected – the UNHCR Mid-Year Trend Statistics shows that more than 1 in every 73 people worldwide have been forced to flee their homes, and this figure continues to rise as new conflicts, violence, human rights violations and disasters break out. With limited options for voluntary and safe return, internally displaced people – who constitute the majority of forcibly displaced people, continue to live in camps, host communities, and other forms of settlements developed as temporary solutions for a prolonged period. This not only puts pressure on shared facilities, infrastructure, and resources – it also undermines the adequacy of available aid and exacerbates existing vulnerabilities.

In the early stages of a humanitarian crisis, displaced people depend on humanitarian assistance to survive with the provision of food, water, temporary shelter, and immediate medical assistance. As time goes by, displaced people begin to face new vulnerabilities linked to their journey and displacement – including trauma from their experience, anxiousness, uncertainty about the future, low self-esteem, and lack of self-confidence from losing their property and livelihood. Many have gone from being independent traders, business owners, teachers, doctors, nurses, and farmers to becoming dependent on aid, which affects their state of mind.

Internally displaced people have ideas and dreams; however, in a state of dependency, they are stuck in an extended transition gap between the emergency phase and reintegration into society because they have not been empowered and given the tools to support their state of mind, educate and upskill them in marketable skills, promote livelihood activities, achieve self-reliance and voluntarily and safely choose their preferred path of reintegration into society with dignity.

In essence, they need a bridge to move from the early phase of displacement to reintegration into society – and that bridge is required now – and not in years to come. It is becoming increasingly clear that existing support models need to be modified to incorporate self-reliance and development support from the early phase of displacement. This needs to start from day one with multisector stakeholders working together to create a nimble and integrated team with different but complementary skills, resources, and perspectives to plan towards developing the connecting bridge.

This bridge can include psychosocial support, education, health, vocational skills training, entrepreneur support, business start-up capacity building, funding, and equipment grants. Over time, providing continued support for their small businesses in camps and host communities can also help them access the private sector financing needed to scale and move towards sustainability. In addition, it is also essential to introduce schemes that support businesses and companies that employ and provide opportunities for internally displaced people across their value chain. Young people should also be linked to schemes that support mentorship and apprenticeship. It is crucial to connect internally displaced people to friends, extended family members, and acquaintances outside the camps in a safe and trusted way, as they can also provide connections, opportunities, and recommendations.

For governments, internally displaced people should be linked to national plans and have access to the government’s social safety net programs, which can provide a floor (standard of living) below which displaced people should not be allowed to fall. Internally displaced people should be linked to programs, including non-contributory pension schemes, conditional and unconditional cash transfers, school feeding programmes, and fee waivers for access to services, including health and education.

There is no single pathway from displacement to reintegration, and support should focus on providing the tools that allow displaced people to choose their preferred form of reintegration. Governments, agencies, NGOs, humanitarian, development, peace actors and all stakeholders will need to work together.

Now, there is a need for an even greater sense of urgency – with institutions and actors working together as one flexible and integrated team to achieve a humanity-centered objective.

Humanitarian and Development Response

Vulnerable children in protracted displacement need education

Toluwalola

By Toluwalola Kasali

Children are major victims of conflict. Forty percent of the world’s 79.5 million forcibly displaced persons are children under the age of 18 who face unexpected disruptions to their lives and education. During crises and displacement, children are at risk of exploitation and abuse, especially when they are orphaned or separated from their parents. 

Providing safe spaces for children to express themselves, participate in learning activities, and grow, gives them emotional support and stability. Education empowers them and reduces vulnerabilities to exploitation, violence, child marriage, child labour, and recruitment by armed groups. 

Despite the difficulties faced by children living in displacement, they have not given up on their dreams. They hope to become lawyers, doctors, presidents, general mechanics, carpenters, electricians, and fashion designers, amongst others. Like many other children around the world, their dreams are valid. Education gives children the tools to realise their dreams and access to opportunities. It increases their hope for a better future. However, that hope is gradually eroded when they cannot envision a future outside the four walls of their camp or host community. 

Based on the universal declaration of human rights, everyone has the right to education – this includes forcibly displaced persons. Therefore, a combination of formal, non-formal, and vocational learning programmes such as classroom learning, community-based programmes for children, focus group discussions, mentorship, and vocational skills training should be prioritised in providing humanitarian and development support. 

To achieve improved outcomes, interventions should not ignore the interdependencies between providing nutrition, healthcare (physical and psychosocial support), and education – improving a child’s nutrition, feeding, health, and overall well-being, has a positive impact on development and learning.

While education has clear benefits, there is often an opportunity cost to parents or guardians living in displacement because children often have to help out with errands or go out to earn money. Decisions to allow children to learn are also affected by personal beliefs, language barriers, social and cultural factors. Overcoming such constraints requires a combination of advocacy through trusted camp leaders, information sessions, conditional cash transfer programmes to incentivise enrolment and maintain attendance and other flexible forms of support. These measures should be supported by marketable skills and job programmes to assist households in transitioning into livelihood activities that promote productivity and self-reliance. 

 As crises become increasingly protracted, short-term educational provisions become insufficient. The needs of displaced children should be integrated into National Policy Frameworks, National Education Plans, and Social Safety Net Programmes. Successful implementation would require budgetary support, improved governance structures, increased funding commitment from international partners, basic social infrastructure, trained and highly committed teachers, and strong political will. 

The perspective of displaced persons should not be overlooked in gathering evidence for decision making. Policymakers can use relevant evidence to base interventions on what has been proven to work in displacement situations. Interventions should be tailored to the context of a particular country and local settings to achieve impact. 

In the long-term, access to education for displaced children will create positive externalities, support long-term productivity, and inclusive economic growth. 

BOOK: MY NAME IS AISHA

MY NAME IS AISHA: DISPLACEMENT IS NOT A CHOICE.

Toluwalola

“I liked life at home, it was very peaceful before the attacks.”

Life was peaceful at home before BokoHaram invaded our town and I look forward to going back home someday. We had to leave everything behind, enduring a long and dangerous journey to escape our attackers. The first few years living in the camp were very tough; we were exhausted, frequently experiencing flashbacks, feelings of isolation, depression, and hopelessness. It was hard to understand why this happened to us – we did not choose to be here. We were faced with our new reality which was hard to accept; everyone had lost someone or something they loved dearly in the violence, and many of us had lost the zeal to go on with life. Here we were, several miles away from home and expected to start all over again.

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BOOK: MY NAME IS AISHA

MY NAME IS AISHA: A COLLECTION OF STORIES FROM INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS

Toluwalola

How it all started…

It started off as a typical day in Gwoza, located in a Local Government Area of Borno State, in North-East Nigeria. The rocky and hilly terrain, providing beautiful scenery. My parents were at home, and my siblings were playing outside as usual. I was washing my clothes inside the house when I started hearing gunshots. I called out to everyone, and we tried to see what was going on. That was when we noticed men moving into our village in large groups. At first, we thought they were soldiers who had come to protect us because they came in trucks, but later, we realised that the gunfire was coming from BokoHaram militants who were engaging soldiers in battle. Everyone was running, and we knew it was no longer safe to stay in the house. So, I left with my siblings and parents; we ran to the hills and stayed there hoping that the militants will retreat, but they did not – they had taken over our town. They killed our men, destroyed our property, farmlands and went away with valuable items. Living in the mountains, we ran out of food and water and survived by eating dry Guinea corn and Millet. It was not long before we realised that we would not survive much longer if we continued to stay, so we decided to leave the village. We had heard of people being killed as they tried to flee town, but we were left with no other choice.

We left in the rain carrying only some of our belongings and followed a path that had some people on it. We dressed my brothers in female clothing and covered their heads because if they were identified as men, they would have been killed. We helped to disguise many other men, but some of them were discovered and killed – my brothers were able to escape. We were stopped twice along the way by militants; they collected our identity cards, phones and the little money we had and were allowed to continue our journey. At some point, they started chasing us, and we ran for our lives.

Many men were killed, and some died of hunger while hiding from the militants.  Young girls and women were taken away.

Finally, we got out of the village trekking by foot from Gwoza to Madagali, a local government area about 15 miles away in Adamawa State; we were tired, thirsty, hungry and dirty. Our feet were swollen and pierced by thorns. We stayed there for two days and did not have money to continue our journey. Later, a bus was sent, and we were brought to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) Camp in Area 1, Abuja. The story is not very different for many of us. My family and I have been displaced since 2014.

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