Working With Refugees In Lugufu Refugee Camp

by Logan Cochrane

Thirty children in the Lugufu refugee camp in Tanzania take part in RESPECT's pen-pal program. Upon my arrival they were all busy with exams before entering a two-month break so I was unable to meet with the children.

Instead I wandered around the large schools of home-made brick and thatched roofs. Classrooms use the walls as a blackboard and are vastly under-equipped. Books are scarce and were the most requested item of my meetings.

When one first walks into Lugufu refugee camp it doesn't look much different from the surrounding small villages, maybe a few hundred residents. But it is not so. The small houses continue on and on. In fact, almost 120,000 Congolese refugees live in Lugufu Camp I and Lugufu Camp II.

These people fled their home country of Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) due to an international war followed by a civil war, which began in 1996. As such many refugees are this year spending their tenth year in the camp.

RESPECT University currently has 40 enrolled students in Lugufu camp who are studying statistics, human rights, English, and commercial rights. The students like the opportunity to study but become frustrated with the slow mail process and waiting for packages to arrive so they begin their studies without them. The students have requested I let RESPECT and e-Zine readers know they need books, calculators, and more courses if anyone has an opportunity to help them in their studies.

I was in the camp to hold an HIV/AIDS seminar. It originally listed 40 participants, but we ended up with a higher demand, and were able to accommodate 52 participants.

All participants received t-shirts and meals for the duration of the seminar. The t-shirts had Swahili slogans on the back, AIDS ribbons on the arms, and the Center of Youth Development and Adult Education (CELA), a local partner organization, logo on the front.

The topics covered were the same as the previous seminars; however, according to the program design there were different outcomes. On the day after the seminar we invited leaders from the 33 villages in Lugufu Camp I to come and discuss the ideas presented. In addition to showing a video for the participants in French, we showed a video in Swahili for the village leaders to help with awareness.

They were impressed that we had invited them to share knowledge and not just to ask for their help. CELA directors and I worked with four selected peer educators on the following days to design projects for the future of Lugufu camp.

These four peer educator will receive monthly incentives for the next six months to continue the HIV/AIDS educator process in the Lugufu community. Such activities include sports education, drama education, speaking in churches, speaking in schools, holding large seminar meetings once a month, working with local radio shows, and video presentations.

The CELA office has now become an HIV/AIDS resource center, with the purchase of a sign for the front and a bookshelf for the inside, which was filled with items donated by Working To Empower (WTE) and will continue to be filled with donations of books in the future.

In order to reach more people within the community CELA and WTE purchased team jerseys, soccer balls, basketballs and net, volleyballs and net, which will be used for sports education. Other items, such as a generator for CELA, will help them with projects in the long-run.