I am doing PhD from India. My research is on Sri Lankan Tamil refugees in India.
I am looking for funding to carry out data collection. Please let me know if there are any funding opportunities.
Thanks & Regards,
Bharath Kumar
Category Archives: Blogs
4 New Documentaries by Refugee Youth from Kakuma and Filmaid International
Kakuma Refugees from Filmaid Internationals Participatory Video Project (PVP) Club have just released four documentaries they completed in August 2010.
These documentaries are the result of an intensive workshop that brought together youth from a variety of cultures and backgrounds. Thirty youth were selected from the camp to participate. After completing an extensive training program, the youth ventured into the camp to capture elements of camp life that are usually obscured from global attention.
The resulting four documentaries highlight issues of:
- Survival sex work,
- Disparities in girl child education,
- Illegal brewing,
- Entrepreneurship in the camp
These videos provide a powerful and intimate look into the daily lives of refugees in the Kakuma Refugee Camp, in north-west Kenya.
These documentaries and more can be found at Filmaid International’s Youtube Channel
STRESSED FOR HIS DEAR SISTER
A stressed who knows solution needs help.
Solomon Seyoum is an Eritrean who served as an Eritrean soldier before he parted with his family fifteen years ago. He left his family in Adisababa where he finished his Secondary Education. After he became a refugee in Kakuma, his parents were deported to Eritrea. This man is stressed to an extent of not knowing how to help himself only to put hope into getting his sister’s contact. “My sister Rozina Seyoum is in Holland,” he said. “She doesn’t know how I suffer.” He complained urging me to tell it that he needs her bitterly or his nierce whom he said grew up in his family, by the name; Nigistilougi. His sister went to Holland ten years ago leaving a child in Nairobi. However, she was married to a man he doesn’t know. Had he been himself he would have rescued the child abandoned. This fifteen years of anxiety were spent begging on roads by him and selling his ration to get only two hundred Kenyan shillings he waste on bread and tap water which he sometimes pay. He claims to be under insecurity because some men go about looking to kill him because he was their rival as a soldier. He said he spends nights in different places of the camp so that his place won’t be known. His appearance even if he can be qualified will even let any organization not allow him work. I peered on his card exchange slip today, second of November while interviewing him to find that he had lost the card thus was given that slip on first to cover only a single round of receiving ration before he could be given a new ration card. Not surprising that he cannot tell how he lost it. “I am stressed,” he said.” Have you ever seen me begging on the road?” He said he gets coins from friends to live it. Even where to eat he may not know. “God will decide on what to eat,” he humbled himself. He is bitterly looking for a way to get his sisters or mother if his life may change. He said,” I will be glad if my sister gives me her contact.” He has set his own goals. If you hear him speaking English, you will rather cry. He’s perfect like you can be surprised. The main assistance he needs is to find his sisters and brothers he could not tell or mother. Mainly phone numbers of Rozina in Holland and Nigistilougi in U.S.A as he said and their addresses. He has put his hope into this article to let him get his sisters. “I will use land line to call them,” he confided. “When do we meet,Tomorrow…..?” he asked. He wanted me to let the meeting be tomorrow to see if he would be glad by getting any of these people he needs. Fifteen years under no care of his own, God must be having a purpose him, I suppose and for this I have to sacrifice to tell his story.
K-A-K-U-M-A-
Kakuma’s uncountable threats
Alive amidst dreads
Killings for money and honey
Unbearable wind knocks heads, a day
Malnutrition, babies cry foul
Absurd_dismay
Khanga covers heads, a day
Any veil, cap or eye glass
Keeping dust not accumulated in ears, under eye balls
Ugly Tarach vomits
Many luggage and buildings lost
Antipathy_repugnance
Kicks and a run, donkeys enjoy themselves
Active cold, night unfolds
Kakuma home of jackals and parrots it should be
Useful pens oh! under oppressive sun
May comes, rains I can’t tell
Aversion_distaste
Child Labour
“The bitter tears”
Under this shade
Heat is showered
Only in the forest not a living place
I wish my parents emerge here
Am no good to walk with my peer
If I will ever have minutes of rest
To sleep with rats
Must I return at long last
For the left overs
Rats will spend night on me
Biting my thumbs and feet
Then emptying the plates
The eloquent public speech
Turns to oppression
Child, sufuria and clothes
All for me to observe
School is behind the kitchen
No short cut unless that tedious road
Breakfast before I brush and wash
I wash crockery
Day scholars dot for their lessons
The brush and washing before breakfast usually
Before taking breakfast I do
This sleeping maniac throws basket
That’s the lunch beginning
Big words thrown on me
My friends get rid of the breakfast
On my walk to the market
Lunch will be ready
And I must be sent somewhere in a while
On my return supper should be prepared
By the time I see those uniforms I admire
Along the road
I will be busy in my bedroom
Stirring competing with darkness
They later go to dinner me dressing beds
God you have seen all these
Sweet daddy you left me here
Mummy with you as well
Whom shall I call next?
Oh doves you are said to be kind!
Bear mercy on me
I am twenty years, young
I can’t weigh the beauty I possess
Boys see me and walk on all fours
Admiring me in my daily dress
My bare feet and smile broadly
I can’t write a single letter of love
You love me I get it
But I admire sufuria more than you
For I am used to it
That’s why I always turn my face aside
Then you beckon on my back
I will marry knowledge
Worse I still fear
That in a day or two
I’ll get good clothes and shoes
Heading for a villager’s home
Before getting my dreams true
I’ll rather marry rats if not a Penn
Violation of Human Rights of Disadvantaged and Vulnerable Refugees – Victims of Xenophobic Attacks in South Africa
Abstract:
This paper published in the OIDA International Journal of Sustainable Development, Vol. 01, No. 05, pp. 67-83, 2010 discusses violations of the civil and political, social and economic, and cultural rights of refugees and asylum seekers in South Africa during and after the xenophobic violence of May 2008 and analyzes the response of the South African government in light of its obligations under national and international law. This paper focuses primarily on the impact of the violence and its aftermath on refugees and asylum seekers in and around Cape Town, particularly those housed in the Youngsfield and Blue Waters safety sites established in response to the xenophobic attacks and finally evacuated in April and May 2010.
Scalabrini Centre – Executive Summary
The Scalabrini Centre operates from the Cape Town’s central business district offering welfare, development and advocacy programmes for refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and local South Africans since 2002. The Scalabrini Centre runs under the leadership of director, Miranda Madikane who reports to a board of 9 Trustees (IT2746/2006) chaired by Scalabrini Father Mario Tessarotto and mentored by Bishop Lawrence Henry. The centre is registered as a non-profit organisation with the South African Department of Social Development (021-079 NPO), and as a Public Benefit Organisation with the South African Revenue Services (PBO930012808).
Since opening in 2002, the Scalabrini Centre has offered welfare and development assistance to an estimated 48,000 refugees or migrants. It is our mission is to strive to both alleviate poverty by promoting development in the Western Cape and by offering assistance to refugees and their children. The ultimate aim is that of fostering integration between local communities and refugees / migrants and thereby breaking down xenophobia. We do this through a variety of programmes which we have slowly developed over the past 7 years these include:
· The Welfare Desk (2002),a project offering the expertise of 2 full time staff members who control the distribution of a very small emergency grant system, blankets, clothes and dry foods while offering referrals and assistance on access to disability grants, documentation, schooling, shelter and medical care. The desk also advocates for human and refugee and labour rights on a case-to-case basis and through a new project that tracks, monitors and where possible responds to allegations of hate crimes;
· Lawrence House (2005), a children’s home dedicated to offering 22 abandoned and orphaned foreign children with a stable home environment where they can attend school and heal the trauma of separation from their families with the ultimate aim of ensuring safe family reunification;
· The Migration Research Project (2005) which offers awareness raising workshops around issues of human, refugee and workers rights and promotes knowledge sharing between partner organisations and other Stakeholders through the compilation and distribution of publications, papers or reports focussed around topics such as the intersection of the labour market and migration or root causes of xenophobia.
· Skills Trainings (2006), a subsidized Digital Literacy programme (accredited with ICDL) runs from the centre, a free English Language school offers 4 levels of language training, a free monthly Financial Literacy workshop, a free Introduction to the Hospitality Industry workshop and a free Life Skills programme teaches basic skills needed to finding and keeping a job in South Africa.
· The Employment Help Desk (2007), which offers information on ways to access casual and part-time work, newspapers, websites and communications with labour brokers are publicized. Free fax, telephone, internet and CV drafting is available each morning and advice with legal referral and /or preparation for CCMA hearings around labour disputes is offered. A special internship programme at local schools for 60 foreign educators is also managed from this project.
· The Health Project (2009) includes free HIV/Aids testing, VCT counselling and HIV/ AIDS support groups to those who need to manage their health, fresh produce for those receiving anti-retroviral therapy and Acupuncture/Acupressure treatment by registered doctors. Our counsellors also offer individual trauma counselling and run Art Therapy sessions. Our soup kitchen cooks hot meals twice a week offering nutrition to weakened bodies;
· The Scalabrini Centre offers conference facilities to other organisations to support the sector’s network and infrastructural support to smaller refugee based organisation (DRCASA, Global African News, UTRS) and houses a tailors’ cooperative.
Currently the Centre receives some 1000 people through our programmes each month. As an organisation, the Centre works to assess itself by speaking to our clients, though a suggestion box and through written evaluation forms (used for our training programmes and workshops) and adjusting our work and designing new programmes to their stated needs. Additionally, our staff attends monthly team-building sessions with a specific focus on sharing information to ensure that our team of 26 employees, 8 full-time volunteers and about 22 part-time volunteers are all aware of the latest matters of concerns, focus areas and new services or workshops.
English Communicative Skills
Summer infant baby monitor for new mothers
Vacation season or summer season is termed as family season. Commonly families and relatives go for day out and few go at seashore. Spending holidays with your school, colleges and universities along with their families is a great fun to enjoy.
Misfortune unexpectedly happens with every person . Some families with small babies who are at the point of crawling or loves to run and walk freely then this situation is known for you that your baby walks away somewhere and you are rushing every where to find your baby.
But now many families have adopted an advance technology and bring a beautiful safe device for their babies called baby monitor.
Summer <a href=’http://www.safebabymonitors.info’>infant baby monitor</a> is cheap and best for all those mothers who can’t afford baby sitter or they are responsible to manage their homes and for this they go out with their babies and began to shop necessary goods like provisions and groceries and sometime their cloths.
If you have a problem that your child walks away every time or your schedule is so busy that taking care of you baby becomes difficult then digital baby monitor is best for you. You just need to fit on the clothes of your baby. It contains a camera which transmits result on another device on your hand and has a clear bright monitor and from this you can easily locate your child.
Summer infant baby monitor is safe for your kids and user friendly. It came with variety of designs. For a quick review, you can search online or visit <a href=’http://www.safebabymonitors.info’>www.safebabymonitors.info</a> for latest designs and models.