With you - News of the help that together we're bringing to refugees

News of the help that together we’re bringing to refugees - 2005 Issue 2

Mr. António Guterres A personal message

Mr. António Guterres, the UN High from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, sends a message to UNHCR's donors.

Why I help refugees

Helping hand Ana Ferrero, Field Protection Officer, the UN Refugee Agency Branch Office, Colombia

Article Index

Refugees around the world

UNHCR is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide. Its primary purpose is to safeguard the rights and well-being of refugees. It strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally or to resettle in a third country. Today, a staff of around 6,540 people in 116 countries continues to help 19.2 million persons.

In this issue, we focus on UNHCR's successful activities in the following 3 countries: Central African Republic , Togo and Uzbekistan.

Central African Republic

Amboko camp in southern Chad

Amboko camp in southern Chad is now hosting some 24,000 refugees from the Central African Republic. It is also being used as a transit centre for Chadian returnees. © UNHCR/B.Heger

Frightened people continue to flee fighting in the Central African Republic, crossing the border into Southern Chad where the UN Refugee Agency is already urgently relocating up to 10,000 refugees who are in danger of being cut off by heavy rains. Thanks to the generosity of donors, we will be able to carry on supplying essential relief like food, blankets and water buckets at the main camp in Amboko – where the refugees are being relocated. The camp already holds 20,000 people. More than 45,000 Central African refugees, many who fled their country following a coup in 2003, have already found refuge in Chad.

Togo

Togolese refugee students

Togolese refugee students between classes at Agame camp, Benin. © UNHCR/J.Leduc

More than 40,000 people fled their homes for neighbouring Ghana and Benin following the volatile presidential elections in April, leading the UN Refugee Agency to oversee an urgent and increasingly challenging emergency relief operation in both countries. Refugees are scattered across large areas, stretching our resources and delaying important work on shelter and sanitation in some areas. Despite these difficulties, we continue to help refugees in every way we can.

Uzbekistan

Sasik camp in Kyrgyzstan

Sasik camp's 439 Uzbek refugees have left for Romania, but another 15 remain in detention further south in Osh, western Kyrgyzstan. © UNHCR

Thanks to the UN Refugee Agency, more than 400 Uzbek refugees were dramatically airlifted to temporary sanctuary in Romania in late July. They had previously been unsuccessful in seeking asylum in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan following political unrest in their homeland which had forced them to flee. The refugees, who relied on basic emergency relief items from us, await the outcome of negotiations with a number of governments, in their search for a safe place to resettle. Fears remain though over the safety of 15 Uzbek refugees detained by Kyrgyz authorities and threatened with deportation to Uzbekistan. Urgent talks continue to secure their safe passage to a neutral third country.

Girls attending school in Kenya's Dadaab camp

Kenya:
Together for Girls

“Together for Girls” tackles a serious problem at the camps in Dadaab, home to some 130,000 refugees who fled conflict in Somalia during the 1990s. Less than half of school-aged girls at the camps are enrolled in school – a situation seen across the developing world – making the progress of young women more exceptional still.

Habibo Bishar Mohamed, a 19-year-old girl, recently passed her certificate of secondary education, and now has the chance to go to university. Nothing too unusual about that, you might think. But there’s more. She passed it with one of the highest marks in the whole of Kenya’s vast North Eastern Province. And she lives in a refugee camp.

Habibo’s achievements are her own. But they would not have been possible without the kind of vision that drives “Together for Girls”, a pioneering schools project run by the UN Refugee Agency in three sprawling refugee camps in Dadaab district, 500 kms from Nairobi.

Barriers to girls’ education are being broken down in a comprehensive way. Not only are more girls being given the right facilities when they get to school – 57 new latrines for girls have recently been built, addressing a problem that was keeping many girls at home. The project is also taking the unusual step of using school sports like volleyball, netball and badminton to involve girls more deeply in school life when they get there. New classrooms, desks, textbooks and newly trained teachers – with more of each on the way – are further improving girls’ opportunities.

“Together for Girls” is making a real difference. The number of girls attending school has gone up significantly. And exam results have improved dramatically – Habibo was just one of many refugee girls at Dadaab to sit last year’s final high school exams and pass with marks good enough to get them into university.

“We are very happy with our students this year – especially the girls,” says Toshiro Odashima, head of the UN Refugee Agency office in Dadaab. “Girls normally encounter cultural difficulties such as early marriage, female circumcision and community apathy.” These are considerable concerns, indeed. But with your help, and our continuing efforts, “Together for Girls” is set to build on the outstanding success so far – providing confident, better educated young women who will have greater opportunity to rebuild lives and communities on their eventual return to Somalia.

Graduation cap For UNHCR, education is a basic refugee right, one that is vital in restoring hope and dignity to people driven from their homes, a tool to help them get back on their feet and build a better future. Go to UNHCR's International site to find out more on our education pages.

With you, the UN Refugee Agency can pay for further education or training in refugee camps

Kenya: Together for Girls

Kenya:
Together for Girls