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Published: November 25th 2010
Kwaheri to Zambia!
I sit and write this final blog sitting back home in Sydney Australia, and it is a very strange feeling indeed. The past few months in particular have absolutely flown by, with the refugee camp closing, and the land being handed back to the Zambian government. In the end all members of the office worked extremely hard to meet the deadline, with many nights, weekends and holidays spent either working with the refugees in the camp, or escorting repatriation convoys back to the DRC.
During the past few months I have helped the office in registering refugees for repatriation; I have undertaken verification and protection screening for refugees with registration issues or protection concerns; I have conducted numerous Best Interest interviews and drafted reports for children who are potentially at risk; I have passed on all my files on those children to my UNHCR colleagues in whatever location the respective children have gone to; I have attended formalized Child Protection training; and I have worked in the Lusaka office for 2 weeks, assisting them with numerous tasks and getting a feel for what it is like to work in a larger UNHCR office.
As I
now look back on my time with UNHCR, I feel I have undoubtedly met my aims, exceeded my expectations and learnt a lot. Whilst I undoubtedly made my share of mistakes along the way, as Benjamin Franklin said:
“The man who achieves makes many mistakes, but he never makes the biggest mistake of all - doing nothing”
In the end, I was really fortunate to be able to concentrate most of my work in one area – being child protection, which means that I was able to make the area my own, taking responsibility for it, ensuring everything got done. My work in the area of child protection, whilst sometimes emotionally draining, has more importantly been both satisfying and rewarding on many levels, to the extent that it is now an area I would love to work in one day.
I spent the past 10 days travelling with my father around Zambia, which was a perfect way to end my time there. It was really great to see Dad, and show him what Africa and particular Zambia is really like. We saw lions and leopards on Safari at Sth Luangwa, we faced off with elephants, and we had
hippos chewing grass literally 2 metres from our tents; we ate Nshima and Ifisachi, we went white water rafting on the mighty Zambezi, we swam in ‘devil’s pool’ right on the ledge of Victoria Falls and one of us bungeed 111 metres off the vic falls bridge. And of course, we met many typically lovely Zambians along the way. An amazing time, and I will put the photos up on facebook in the next few days for those who are interested.
Zambia was definitely an interesting country to live in. At the outset of my internship, I was advised not to write a blog, as a volunteer in 2009 had actually been deported by the Zambian government for writing a blog which was critical of the government’s refugee policies. In the end, I obviously decided to still do a blog, but I was careful to not be political or critical of the government in any way. Now I am back in Australia, I guess I now have the freedom to say what I think, and give a proper impression about the country.
As you know, I come from a highly developed, wealthy country, with a decent democratic system,
relatively speaking. Whilst I believe strongly in the principle of democracy, I also realize that it has not been an especially successful political system in the African context. I do not know why this is so, and I do not intend to even speculate on the subject. I do not want to be another westerner sitting on his high horse criticizing an African country for what I think are its economic and democratic failings. As a result, I will provide you with what are some of the facts.
As I have previously said, Zambia is a very peaceful country, full of many lovely, hard-working people who are working their butts off to provide for their families. It is a very religious country, in fact I cannot remember talking to one person who did not go to a Christian church at least once a week. It is also a very poor country. The UN has ranked it 150th out of 168 countries in terms of its level of development – see
this link . It is estimated that around 70%!o(MISSING)f people live below the poverty line. The International Labour Organization states that of the 6,184,000 people in the labour force in
Zambia, only about 700,000 are formally employed, and the remainder of the workforce is either engaged in the informal economy or unemployed. That means that only 11% of the population (a bit over 1 in 10 people) is in formalized employment. The minimum wage is just 268,000 kwacha per month, which is around $15 a week. HIV and AIDS prevalence is estimated at about 15.6% of the population between the ages of 15-49 years.
Aside from those facts, the media is almost totally controlled by the government. The only television station is owned by the government, and the nightly news is basically just a reading of the government’s press releases for the day. There is one independent newspaper, called the post, which is highly critical of the government. When I was in Zambia the newspaper’s editor was arrested on what some called spurious charges. Despite this control of the media, most people I spoke about politics said they felt it was time for a change, and it appears questionable as to whether the government will hold onto power after the elections in 2011. This is not a foregone conclusion however, because the government can use government funds (as opposed
to the parties) for election advertising and campaigning, which gives it a significant advantage. Regardless, whether this means any real change for the people of Zambia is a totally different question.
In terms of living, on the most part, the Zambians I met were not political, and hardly ever spoke about it. They were just getting on with living, and doing their best to earn a living, whether it be selling home-grown vegetables in the market, pushing a wheelbarrow all day, driving an unofficial taxi, house cleaning, you name it – people were just doing whatever they can to get by. There did seem to a permeating view that corruption was still a problem with the government. I also found it significant that despite the low levels of employment and the rampant poverty in Zambia, politicians were paid around the same, if not more, than politicians in Australia. To me this is just crazy, and it indeed may serve to attract individuals looking to cling to power to make money, rather than those interested in serving for the public good. I think I just broke my previous rule in terms of my opinions, so I will leave it there.
Overall, I liked living in Zambia. The people are what make it, it has many natural resources and some beautiful natural features (national parks, rivers, waterfalls), and if the young people I met take an active role in their countries future and development, then I am sure they will be headed in the right direction.
So yeah, I guess that is it. Overall, I feel extremely privileged and lucky to have been provided with the opportunity to go to Zambia and work with UNHCR. I found working with refugees, and refugee children in particular, witnessing their enormous inner strength, courage and indestructible hope, to be a humbling experience on a daily basis. This, when combined with my other experiences, and what I have learnt, have ensured that during the past 6 months I have grown tremendously not only as a professional with a desire and passion to work in the humanitarian sector, but also (and more importantly) as a person.
I thank the many friendly Zambians I met for making my experience, and my fellow UNHCR colleagues, especially at Kawambwa, who made me feel so welcome, endured my ramblings, pointed me in the right direction, and helped
make the weekends in the village always interesting!
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, and I hope it achieved the intended purpose of providing an insight into Africa and the refugee situation there.
As many of you will recall, before I set out on this internship, with the assistance of many, a number of fundraisers were held. In total, around $10,000 was raised. As I sit and write this, I am please to inform those who so generously contributed that the money was donated in the following manner:
- $5000 was donated to UNHCR Zambia, with the money specifically earmarked to assist those refugee children living in the remaining camps with their education (both with materials, tuition fees and private English language lessons – as the schooling is now in English, which most do not speak), and also general assistance to those children living without their parents (separated children and unaccompanied minors).
- $2500 was donated to UNHCR Kenya, which currently hosts many hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees, fleeing the mess that is the former Somalia. Specifically, this money was donated to provide shelter and other assistance to Somali refugees living
in Dadaab refugee camp, which is currently hosting almost 400,000 refugees. If you wish to donate more, go to
this link . In addition to refugees, Somalia also has millions of internally displaced people – a good article on the subject is here -
this link - $2500 was donated to Kawambwa orphanage, which has around 35 children, and is the only orphanage in Luapula province. The sisters at the orphanage drafted a project proposal on how the money will be used, which included toys and education materials for the children, and also to construct a chicken coop, and purchase chickens. The sisters will then sell eggs at the market, which will enable to orphanage to have an ongoing, sustainable source of income.
Thanks again, and Kwaheri!
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aaron
non-member comment
Welcome back!
has been great to follow your escapades on this blog Joe, hope you're settling back in alright and enjoying telling a few more rambling tales. Guessing i'll catch you round the regular traps over a (over priced) beer soon.