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| The Untold Stories: Protracted Refugee Situations |
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UNHCR is busy helping refugees all over the world. Find out more about what we're doing in countries like Liberia, Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. |
UNHCR's partner, Earth Water, makes a unique offer to help support projects for refugees. |
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Tina Ghelli, Community Services Officer for the UN Refugee Agency in Uganda describes the most pressing needs and her most rewarding experiences. 
Corporate Responsibility: Canada’s Earth Water International is helping refugees
In Canada, we have some of the safest drinking water on the planet. Sadly, most refugees live in climates where there is a lack of water, or the available water is not clean. One of the greatest challenges that the UN Refugee Agency faces is to provide enough water for refugees living in temporary settlements.
Earth Water, a newly formed company in Edmonton, Alberta, approached the UN Refugee Agency this year with an offer to give 100% of their net profits to support water projects for refugees. Earth Water believes that everyone has the right to clean safe water. At the UN Refugee Agency we agree, but we have to find the money to support these vital projects. It is through the generosity of socially conscious companies and individual donors that we can ensure that refugees get enough water to survive.
UNHCR ensures that temporary containers are available immediately in times of crisis, along with the necessary trucks to keep them filled. As camps evolve into more permanent settlements, these bladders must be replaced by more permanent water sources: reservoirs or water towers. Eventually, wells must be planned and drilled, and community water pumps must be installed and maintained.
Water is necessary for life. The UN Refugee Agency is proud to be working with Earth Water and other generous donors to provide the most basic of human needs to people living in exile.
Access to water a basic right for refugees, says UNHCR
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TOP: Refugees in Ethiopia's Kebribeyah camp benefiting from improved water points. © Australia for UNHCR/D.O'Neill
Tina Ghelli, Community Services Officer for the UN Refugee Agency in Uganda
Q: You work with refugees who have been in Uganda a long time. What do you do?
A: I coordinate health care and schooling, and assistance for people with HIV-AIDS, children who have lost their families, and people who are disabled, elderly or heading up households on their own.
Q: What is the most pressing need?
A: Education for refugee children, especially older children. Funds to help them continue learning are very limited.
Q: What has been your most rewarding experience?
A: There are so many! Just this week I was able to help a three-year-old Congolese refugee boy whose mother recently died. Like her, he is HIV positive. I’ve got him into a wonderful day programme for HIV positive children at a local hospital. He will get medical care, go to pre-school and be with other children just like him. He is so happy and for the first time in months we have seen him smile.
Q: What has been most challenging?
A: Times when I have not been in the field – I missed having a direct impact on people’s lives every day.
Tina Ghelli registering new Rwandan refugee arrivals in Mugano Camp, Burundi during the Great Lakes emergency Latest News from Ugandaover 31,000 Sudanese refugees displaced by recent LRA raids
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For more of the latest news on the situation in Uganda, visit the Uganda Country page on the UNHCR's International website.
