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CWS Durable Solutions for Displaced People program gives hope to long-term refugees
Students in class at Kanembwa Secondary School.
Photo: Erol Kekic
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The U.N. identifies three options for refugees: return home, stay in the neighboring country to which they have fled, or resettle in a third country.
Resettlement is an important tool of refugee protection, but only one-half of one percent of all refugees are able to benefit from this solution. Where is the hope for the other 99.5 percent, especially the millions stuck in camps for years, even decades, while war and oppression continue in their home countries?
"The country of first asylum usually is unable to absorb large numbers of newcomers," said Erol Kekic, Associate Director of the Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program.
"Two thousand might manage," he said, "but how can 200,000 be accommodated in countries already suffering astronomical unemployment and material scarcities? Host governments often are forced to keep them in camps."
Many of the world's nearly 12 million refugees are crowded into camps, where the second or even third generation has never known life outside that stark reality. More than seven million of today's refugees have spent 10 or more years "warehoused" in camps or segregated settlements.
"Feelings of despair and apathy are common in refugee camps, and take their toll on inhabitants' mental and physical health," Kekic said. "Some 'long-stayers,' especially the young ones, become recruitment targets for paramilitary groups, gangs and drug traffickers."
Refugees and internally displaced persons need solutions that meet their specific and immediate needs, and through its Durable Solutions for Displaced People program, CWS is reaching out to them.
"International funding is earmarked for either emergencies or sustainable development, but there is very little in between," Kekic said. With a focus on people displaced for two or more years, "the Durable Solutions program seeks to help fill the gap with small programs that complement the broader work of CWS and other agencies."
A distinctive feature of all Durable Solutions for Displaced People projects is that they serve both refugee and host communities. This helps build good relations and ease tensions common when a large refugee population puts pressure on a host country's already scarce resources and fragile environment.
"We meet with the community, listen to the needs and get buy-in and participation in implementing the project," Kekic said. "Almost all staff are refugees or from the local community. CWS just facilitates. In the process, we leave behind permanent infrastructure and people trained to serve in both refugee and host communities and, we hope, someday back home."
 Refugee participants in the CWS-FilmAid International Participatory Video Program shoot footage in Tanzania's Kibondo region. Photo: FilmAid International
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Durable Solutions' "Legs"
The program has three "legs": post-primary education and vocational training, health, and information dissemination.
"The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is committed to providing funding for primary schooling but doesn't have enough for post-primary education," Kekic said. "This is the case globally. While more than two-thirds of refugee children get some kind of primary education, the vast majority have no access to post-primary education."
CWS is helping to fill that gap in Tanzania's Kibondo region, arguably the poorest part of the country and host to multiple camps hosting tens of thousands of refugees from Burundi. As one of its contributions to the broader CWS Africa Initiative, the CWS Immigration and Refugee Program is supporting Kanembwa Secondary School, where about 400 students, one-fourth of them girls, are enrolled in a rigorous curriculum preparing them for university.
"If Burundi is to rebuild its shattered economy," one refugee student said, "people with secondary and university education will be vital." Said another, "There is still no peace in Burundi. Killings are going on. I want to do well in my exams so that I can go on to study law. Burundi has problems and needs people who know law."
 In a culture in which open discussion of such matters is very new, a community female health worker teaches safe delivery in Afghanistan's Nangahar Region. Photo:CWS Pakistan/Afghanistan
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The third "leg," information dissemination, helps meet refugees' need for reliable information, aims to alleviate trauma and restore a sense of hope by motivating and entertaining, and seeks to rebuild healthy community life by creating outlets for communication.
"Timely access to information is the right of every human being," Kekic said. "In the age of e-mail and satellite communications, it is hard to visualize that many still live in the dark. Refugee camps typically are islands in the middle of nowhere, with little or no information from the outside world coming into the camp."
In a collaboration with FilmAid International (FAI), CWS serves three camps in Tanzania's Kibondo region and acts as the umbrella agency for FAI in Kenya. The program consists of large outdoor evening screenings of both feature and educational films, small group daytime screenings with follow-up discussions of things seen and heard, and a Participatory Video Program that gives refugee and community youth an opportunity to express themselves through film and video on subjects of their choosing.
This project "engages and empowers refugees, displaced persons and their host communities by providing knowledge, tools and vision to take on critical social issues," Kekic said. Commented one refugee, "We get food, but our minds are empty. This is some food for thought."
Read more about the Durable Solutions for Displaced People program.
Flyer/Congregational Bulletin Insert: Durable Solutions for Displaced People
PDF (293K) • Microsoft Word
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