As refugee populations increase in times of disaster or conflict, their specific needs - and the specialised knowledge needed to address these needs – become a focus of development organisations. This issue of The Drum Beat highlights communication responses - projects launched and resources published between 2000 and 2008 - to support people living as refugees, including highlights on advocacy and empowerment, the special needs of women, and policies and services.
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WORLD REFUGEE DAY - June 20 2008
June 20th is World Refugee Day, as recognised by the United Nations General Assembly and highlighted each year by the Office of the UN High Commissioner on Refugees (UNHCR) (click here to learn more). In a series of videos (available here), the UNHCR has added its visual presentation of the needs for protection, promotion of rights, and efforts towards repatriation and resettlement of today's 30 million refugees.
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ADVOCACY AND EMPOWERMENT
1. Tuyage Twongere (Let's Talk) - Burundi and Tanzania
Tuyage Twongere was a radio drama series, ongoing until 2007, which focused on the lives of Burundian refugees who lived in the camps in western Tanzania, and followed refugees who were repatriating back home to their villages of origin in Burundi. Tuyage Twongere, which means "Let's Talk" in Kirundi, aimed to reconcile Burundian refugees - some of whom had been exiled for over 30 years due to ethnic conflict - with their fellow Burundians inside Burundi. While a key theme addressed by Tuyage Twongere was reconciliation, the drama also sought to sensitise listeners on gender equality, health, hygiene, human rights, and other issues to improve living conditions for Burundian communities.
Contact: Louise Tunbridge louise@IRINnews.org OR Jocelyne Sambira jocelyne@IRINnews.org
2. Beyond School Books - Global
This initiative draws on the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to spark dialogue on how to provide education during emergencies, following natural disasters, and in post-crisis transition periods. "Beyond School Books" is a series of podcast discussions featuring the participation of figures from the academic, development, media, and humanitarian communities. As of this writing, 5 segments have been produced; they explore the following themes: When Crises Strike Children; The War's Over, Now Where's Your Homework?; Education Under Attack; 'A World Fit for Children'; and A Classroom Far from Home.
Contact: Najwa Mekki nmekki@unicef.org
3. Refuge Media Project - United States
Created by filmmakers, health educators, and human rights activists, this initiative is designed to raise awareness about, and inspire action around, the issue of immigrant torture survivors living in the United States. As part of this effort, a half-hour video documentary entitled "Refuge: Caring for Survivors of Torture" is being created (with an expected completion date of late 2008 or early 2009); it will explore the identification, treatment, and support of immigrant torture survivors living in the United States. The film will serve as a tool for educating, engaging, and motivating healthcare, mental health, and social service providers and students, as well as community organisers and groups serving immigrant communities. The effort also involves a website whose purpose is to share information and spark activism around this human rights issue.
Contact: Ben Achtenberg ben@refugemediaproject.org OR refuge@refugemediaproject.org
4. FilmAid Bringing Film to Refugees - Kenya
FilmAid International uses film and filmmaking to address the needs of displaced people around the world. It operates in 2 refugee camps in Kenya (Kakuma and Dadaab), where it assists people fleeing war, violent conflict, or natural disaster in countries including Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Uganda, Rwanda, Eritrea, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. FilmAid's programmes are based on the principles of refugee participation and empowerment. Refugee advisory boards review films and select those that are shown in all screenings. Members of the various refugee communities within the camps are taught to write scripts, direct, act, and edit the videos that are used in FilmAid's programmes. One part of the programme, called the Participatory Video Project (PVP), puts video cameras into the hands of refugee youth, enabling them to tell their own stories.
Contact: Caroline Avakian info@filmaidinternational.org
5. Refugees: Communication as a Tool for Advocating the Rights of Refugees
by Jean-Marie Vianney Kavumbagu
From the Introduction of this paper: "Communication is 'an ensemble of phenomena related to the possibility, for a subject, to convey information to another by means of an articulate language or other codes'. At a time when communication technologies are being increasingly perfected, information is more and more the central concern of States, organised communities, and public and private institutions in their attempts to set out educational or political strategies, to advocate issues, to lobby and apply pressure...It is, in fact, by means of mass communication, such as the media and reports by organisations defending human rights, that the cry of alarm can be raised in order to prevent or combat serious violations of refugees' rights. It is also by means of information in those same media and by means of the educational work of organisations in civil society that refugees can learn about their rights, duties and obligations, so that they can make legitimate claims in conformity with the internal laws and regulations of the countries that give them shelter."
6. Reproductive Health and Rights: Reaching the Hardly Reached
edited by Elaine Murphy and Ann Hendrix-Jenkins
This book brings together a public health and human rights focus on the reproductive health and rights of women and men who are considered, by the editors, to be the most disadvantaged and underserved: the "hardly reached." Each article intends to fill a gap in the understanding of the health needs of those least served by existing reproductive health programmes, including survivors of gender-based violence, refugees, sexual minorities, indigenous women, adolescents and young girls, and women who have been trafficked. Article 5: Reaching Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons, which is available as part of the book or as a separate PDF document, specifically addresses the needs of refugee women.
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CI Launches a new way to support its work - CI ASSOCIATES.
Do you feel that your organisation's work benefits from CI? Have you ever wondered how your organisation could support CI? We'd like to invite your organisational office, department or programme to consider becoming a CI Associate. Becoming a CI Associate will help ensure that the CI network continues to grow and expand its capacity to improve the effectiveness of international development through media and communication for development. Each Associate's contribution will support the network, and benefit everyone through more effective development action.
For more information, please click here.
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ADDRESSING WOMEN
7. Reproductive Health in Refugee Situations
This United Nation Population Fund (UNFPA) Humanitarian Response manual discusses reproductive health (RH) services for populations who are refugees living in emergency situations. The manual is written from the perspective of a multi-sectoral integrated approach that involves the refugee community in the development of services. Information, education, and communication (IEC) programmes are highlighted at the end of this manual. The section explains the essentials of IEC, particularly emphasising aspects that empower people to make decisions, modify behaviours, and change social conditions. It then discusses verbal and non-verbal communication, provider and service-user relationships, community relationships, counselling as a key component of an IEC programme and the role of the counsellor, how to undertake a needs assessment that collects both quantitative and qualitative data, how to use questionnaires as field tools, the GATHER method of counselling, steps in developing IEC activities, the messages pertinent to RH, and how to link the population to continuing support services.
8. Meeting the Reproductive Health Needs of Refugees
This article addresses the concerns of women who are escaping persecution, war, and violence, both as international and internally displaced refugees. According to the article, the breakdown of law and order, social norms, and family structures leads to high levels of violence against women and life-threatening reproductive health (RH) problems in the aftermath of conflict and flight. As stated in the article, refugee relief organisations have collaborated with RH professionals to develop new strategies for meeting the RH needs of displaced populations. They have developed the Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP), which is described in detail here.
9. Impact Data - Reducing Maternal Mortality among Repatriated Refugee Populations
According to the Baseline Maternal Mortality study for 2000, the maternal mortality ratio for indigenous women living in Guatemala is 3 times higher than for the non-indigenous group. In response to this situation, Marie Stopes (MS) Mexico engaged in a project with the aim of raising awareness of, and improving access to, sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services among indigenous returned refugees in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. From June 2001 to October 2003 a mobile team from MS Mexico provided cross-border services to the returned communities, including family planning (FP) and maternal child health services. They also carried out IEC activities to raise awareness about SRH in remote, under-served border areas. During the 2-year project the mobile unit helped 2,786 women access SRH services and trained over 28 health promoters and 45 traditional midwives in 22 rural communities. FP use increased from 9% to 30%. After 2 years of the project, 93% of the community called MS Mexico's work in Huehuetenango, Guatemala "important" or "very important", signalling acceptance of and demand for services.
10. How To Guide: Reproductive Health in Refugee Situations, Kakuma and Dadaab, Kenya
This guide describes the process used to assess the reproductive health (RH) services provided in 2 refugee camps in Kenya. Information is provided about RH services in refugee settings as well as the activities undertaken during the assessment process. The main findings of the assessment are presented, together with conclusions and recommendations for strengthening the capacity of the agencies involved in RH activities. The guide covers the main components of RH services (safe motherhood, family planning, sexually transmitted diseases (including HIV/AIDS), and sexual- and gender-based violence) and describes how to undertake an assessment of these services.
11. Partnering with Local Organizations to Support the Reproductive Health of Adolescent Refugees: A Three-year Analysis
This resource focuses on adolescent reproductive health (ARH) programmes that include activities such as: holding ARH information sessions; training youth as peer health educators; facilitating peer-to-peer education and counselling; providing educational support and income-generating skills training with integrated RH messages; distributing brochures, fliers, and pamphlets with RH messages; distributing condoms for free; and running workshops for parents about ARH. The report discusses the various strategies that are used to reach adolescent refugees. As stated here, funded by the Eleanor Bellows Pillsbury Fund for Reproductive Health Care and Rights for Adolescent Refugees (EBP Fund), more than 61,000 adolescents have attended seminars, workshops, drama and cultural performances, discussion groups, and video screenings. Lessons learned from these funded projects are included in this resource.
12. Assessment of HIV/AIDS Behaviour Change Communication Strategies Employed by NGOs in Kakuma Refugee Camp, Kenya: A Field Experience
by Elizabeth Ngugi
This report summarises the work of the UNHCR with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in Kakuma, Kenya, to provide HIV/AIDS services to refugees. Approximately 82,000 refugees, mainly from Sudan, Somalia, and Ethiopia, live in the Kakuma area. NGOs have adopted behaviour change communication strategies for different groups, including adolescents, young women, and commercial sex workers. UNHCR notes the following challenges: "The major difficulty that emerged throughout this study lies in condom availability, promotion and use. Condoms are viewed by the Sudanese and Somalis as going against religion and culture. The Sudanese are a polygamous society and their wealth dictates how many wives they can have. A sex industry exists in the camp but is "ignored" and these women are subject to a lot of stigma and human rights abuses."
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Discussion of C4D Evaluation Trends
Please join a discussion among the Drum Beat Chat network of the World Bank Working Paper (#120), "Communicating the Impact of Communication for Development: Recent Trends in Empirical Research" by Nobuya Inagaki. Click here to access the archives. Click here to register. Either participate online or send your contributions via email to drumbeatchat@comminit.com (you must be registered to participate). If connectivity is an issue for you, you may also send your contact information via email to the moderator, Deborah Heimann - dheimann@comminit.com - who can assist you with the registration process.
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ADDRESSING POLICIES AND SERVICES
13. Who Asked Them Anyway? Rights, Policies and Wellbeing of Refugees in Egypt
by Katarzyna Grabska
This research paper explores policies and rights related to refugees in Egypt. The researchers looked at the domestic policy environment as shaped by national and international political, social, and economic forces, and considered the actors, forces, and conditions which determine policy in all its stages - from how it is devised, to how it is applied. They also analysed how policy may be subverted or rendered ineffectual. The research found that, for "bottom-up" and rights-based approaches to succeed, there has to be a clearer understanding of who is responsible for upholding and protecting refugee rights. The research also suggests that for a rights-based approach to be truly functional, primary stakeholders - i.e., refugees - need to be involved in the decision-making process.
14. Phone Service for Refugees to Be Expanded
According to this article, in 2004 the UNHCR started a new phone service linking Western Saharan refugees residing in El Auin camp in southern Algeria with their relatives in the Western Sahara Territory. This was an expansion of the service that was started when UNHCR collaborated with the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) to open a call centre that refugees from neighbouring camps used to communicate with relatives in the Territory. This article includes a description of family visit flights to the refugee camps and describes an attempt to initiate mail service in the camps.
15. Track Two: Refugees, Conflict & Conflict Resolution
Published from 1992 to 2005, Track Two was a quarterly publication of the Centre for Conflict Resolution (CCR) that was designed to promote innovative and constructive approaches to community and political conflict, as an alternative to traditional adversarial tactics. The articles included in this thematic issue (which was published in 2000) focus on the militarisation of refugee camps, legislation for asylum seekers and refugees, lack of conflict resolution skills, and the gendered nature of persecution of refugee women.
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Please VOTE in our current Democracy and Governance POLL:
Which of the following contributions on the part of media is the most supportive of substantive democratic governance processes?:
- Watchdog on government actions
- Supplier of public information
- Forum for public debate
- Provider of political analysis
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- Mobiliser of political involvement
- Alternative forum to formal processes
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To VOTE, click here - Top Right Side of the website.
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This issue was written by Julie Levy.
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The Drum Beat seeks to cover the full range of communication for development activities. Inclusion of an item does not imply endorsement or support by The Partners.
Please send material for The Drum Beat to the Editor - Deborah Heimann dheimann@comminit.com
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