Communication for Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons

This issue of The Soul Beat contains summaries of project experiences, strategic thinking documents, materials, events, and awards related to communication, refugees, and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Africa. It highlights how the tools of radio, the internet, and print materials, as well as the strategy of edutainment, can provide valuable information to refugees, assist refugees in communicating with each other and the outside world, and raise public awareness around the plight of refugees.

If you would like your organisation's communication work or research and resource documents to be featured on the Soul Beat Africa website and in The Soul Beat newsletters, please contact the Editor - Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com

EXPERIENCES

1. Radio Kwizera (RK) - Tanzania

This community radio station, supported by the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS), broadcasts to approximately 500,000 refugees in camps as well as to local communities along the Tanzanian border with Rwanda and Burundi. Established in 1995 for refugees who had fled the Rwanda genocide, the station's foremost aim is to foster peace and reconciliation in the region and to empower refugees by supplying them with information and by giving them a voice. Programmes cover a broad range of issues such as peace and conflict resolution, environmental degradation, health, sexual- and gender-based violence, and the need for a tolerant attitude toward refugees.

Contact Elias Mokua eliasmokuan@yahoo.co.uk

2. BOSCO: Battery Operated Systems for Community Outreach - Uganda

Inveneo, a non-profit social enterprise, partnered with the Battery Operated Systems for Community Outreach (BOSCO) Uganda Relief Project to provide access to computers, internet and voice over internet protocol (VoIP) telephony for Northern Uganda's Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps. The project has set up a solar powered WiFi network in refugee camps to offer communications to the organisations that serve the IDPs and to the refugees themselves. The project is in its first phase and currently serves nearly 100,000 refugees fleeing the Lords Resistance Army which has raged a civil war in the area since the late 1980's.

Contact Gus A. Zuehlke gusaz@bosco-uganda.org OR Thomas Loughran tloughran@bosco-uganda.org AND info@bosco-uganda.org OR info@inveneo.org

3. Mine Risk Education (MRE) Circus - Sudan/ Ethiopia

This circus, performed by the Debub Nigat Circus of the Awassa Children's Project, aimed to create awareness among Sudanese refugees and internally displaced Ethiopians about land mines in an entertaining and educational way. The circus was performed by 28 refugee youths and was a result of the Sherkole Mine Risk Education (MRE) Circus workshop held in UNHCR's Sherkole camp in western Ethiopia, near the Sudanese border.

Contact awassa@awassachildrensproject.org OR awassach@telecom.net.et OR asterdabels@yahoo.de OR Dr. Hermann Hunzinger Dr.Hunzinger@t-online.de

4. Right to Play (RTP) - Global

This is a humanitarian organisation using sport and play programmes to encourage the healthy physical, social, and emotional development of refugee children, former child combatants, and young people at risk for - or orphaned by - HIV/AIDS. RTP's communication-centred projects are informed by a stated commitment to improving the lives of children and to strengthening their communities by translating positive values of sport into opportunities to promote development, health, and peace.

Contact info@righttoplay.com

5. Tuyage Twongere (Let's Talk) - Burundi/Tanzania

This is an ongoing radio drama series which is co-produced by IRIN Radio and Radio Kwizera. The drama series deals with the lives of Burundian refugees living in the camps in western Tanzania, and follows refugees who are repatriating back home to their villages of origin in Burundi. Tuyage Twongere, which means "Let's Talk" in Kirundi, aims to reconcile Burundian refugees - some of whom have been exiled for over 30 years due to ethnic conflict - with their fellow Burundians inside Burundi. While a key theme addressed is reconciliation, the drama also seeks 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

6. Elles Parlent, Elles Écoutent (She Speaks, She Listens) - Sudan/Chad

This is a radio programme, produced by Internews Network's Humanitarian Information Service, which forms part of a programme of mass communication for Sudanese refugees in Chad and in Sudan. The programme intends to help women refugees who have survived the genocide in Darfur and who have become traumatised by the events they witnessed. The first programmes in the series aim to highlight services that are available to women in an effort to promote psychological healing and offer support to women refugees.

Contact George Papagiannis george@internews.org

7. Kasulu Internet Project (KIP) - Tanzania

This rural development project aims to integrate information and communication technology with advances in appropriate and sustainable power sources. The project is based in Kasulu, a small town in the Kigoma region of western Tanzania, and in the nearby Mtabila Refugee Camp for Burundian refugees. KIP is providing education, health and economic development resources for refugees who have been forcibly displaced as well as for the rural poor in their Tanzanian host community.

Contact info@global-catalyst.org

8. Community Safety Initiative (CSI) - West Africa

Implemented by the American Refugee Committee (ARC), CSI aims to prevent and respond to gender-based violence (GBV) among Sierra Leonean and Liberian refugees in Guinea by increasing their safety and their awareness of GBV. The programme also works to facilitate access to appropriate health care for GBV survivors and to promote self-sufficiency through skill-building and income-generating activities that aim to minimise refugee women's vulnerability to exploitation.

Contact archq@archq.org

STRATEGIC THINKING

9. Partnering with Local Organisations to Support the Reproductive Health of Adolescent Refugees: A Three-year Analysis

Published by the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children Reproductive Health Project, this resource focuses on the Eleanor Bellows Pillsbury Fund for Reproductive Health Care and Rights for Adolescent Refugees (EBP Fund), which supported adolescent reproductive health (ARH) around the world including in Africa. The report discusses the various strategies that were used to reach adolescent refugees which included reproductive health training and education on issues such as condom use, prevention and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), family planning techniques, and protection against gender-based violence. Projects have conveyed this education through seminars, workshops, drama and cultural performances, discussion groups and video screenings.

10. Adding Spice: Collaborative Video as an Intersection Between Institutions and Refugees in Dadaab, Kenya

by Alicia Blum-Ross

This paper examines the creation of an original video about HIV/AIDS that was written and produced in the three Dadaab Refugee Camps of Northeastern Province, Kenya. The analysis seeks to clarify the role of participatory methodology in rewriting the concept of selfhood and the relations of power between agencies and refugees in the context of refugee encampment. The public health educational video project was undertaken as a collaboration between aid agencies (led by FilmAid International and United Nations World Food Programme - WFP) and Somali refugees, and aimed to present an intersection between the two.

11. "Don't Forget Us": The Education and Gender-Based Violence Protection Needs of Adolescent Girls from Darfur in Chad

The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children visited 10 refugee camps in eastern Chad in January 2005 as part of a 3-week mission to examine the protection of adolescent girls, with a particular focus on education and reproductive health in the camps. This document is a report of their findings and includes recommendations for action. Some of the recommendations to improve the situation include the need to encourage girls and young women to take part in decision-making in camp management, youth committees, women's groups, and in schools. The document also recommends that organisations working on the ground should have a gender specialist and should implement projects with a gender perspective.

MATERIALS

12. Reach Out Speak Out [Comic book]

by United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees

This comic book about youth, HIV/AIDS and xenophobia is a joint publication of the United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees (UNHCR) and the Roll Back Xenophobia Campaign of the South Africa Human Rights Commission. The comic aims to stimulate discussion, promote tolerance and acceptance of refugees among South African youth.

13. HIV and AIDS: Human Rights for Everyone [Comic book]

by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

This comic book deals with the need to ensure a welcoming and discrimination-free environment for refugees and returnees. The cartoon tells the story of a young boy named Fatou whose father is an African refugee who has been sick for several months. Because other refugees and the local community suspect that the father is infected with HIV, children refuse to play with Fatou.

14. The Education of Rights Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Migrants in South Africa

by Brian Ramadiro and Salim Vally

This material, published by the Education Rights Project (ERP), was used during an awareness campaign in South African schools. The publication discusses the rights of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants who come and live in South Africa. It states that, all too often, the suffering of many of these people before they come to South Africa, and while they are there, is not always understood. They are falsely blamed, harassed and attacked for the problems that exist in South Africa such as unemployment and crime.

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The Soul 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 Soul Beat to the Editor - Anja Venth aventh@comminit.com