Seeking Refuge
Emily MacIsaac // October 11, 2011
Picture this: living in a cozy house with decorated walls, cupboards full of food, a computer in the office, and a flat screen TV sitting in the living room. Waking up each morning and taking a hot shower, choosing what to eat for each meal. Buying materials at your leisure for school, work, or pleasure. This is so common that many of us don’t put much thought into it. It’s the way we live here in Canada.
However, there are 43 million people around the world living in tent communities–also known as “camps”. To these 43 million people, the tents become “home”, the “camps” their new neighbourhoods. Why, you might ask? For the most part they are fleeing conflict and persecution in their countries. Of the 43 million, approximately 15.2 million are classified as refugees, individuals who have fled their home country for safety in neighbouring places. The other 21.1 million are known as internally displaced persons (IDPs) – individuals seeking refuge within the boundaries of their own country.
What is being done to help?
Many of you may know the organization Doctors without Borders or Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF). MSF recently ran a campaign throughout Canada called “Refugee Camp in the Heart of the City” to help Canadians understand the reality of life in a refugee camp. In 1995 this campaign was launched in France, and soon after extended around the world. From September 8 to October 3, 2011, this 720 m2 interactive exhibit visited St. John’s, Moncton, Quebec City, and our very own Halifax, staying in each city four days at a time.
MSF was established in 1971 by a group of French doctors. This not-for-profit organization strives to provide essential services to those in dire need in war-torn regions and developing countries. MSF has helped and continues to help with the set-up of temporary villages through the deployment of key medical and technical personnel to ensure people’s basic needs are fulfilled. Although the tents are set up as temporary refuge, many of these formations remain tent villages today.
Though many MSF employees are nurses, doctors, and engineers, the organization also employs technical logisticians, and other non-medical personnel. Working in over 60 countries MSF is organized, efficient, and has a cohesive personnel that work under extremely strenuous conditions.
The concept of a virtual refugee camp exhibit was rather timely given the recent famine and internal conflicts wreaking havoc in the horn of Africa. These particular events have led to an influx of people fleeing into the already strained Dadaab refugee camp. The issue had gained in severity and continues to (depending on the news outlets) with some international coverage, peaking the interest of many Haligonians.
For this particular campaign, MSF has been using a two-pronged approach to encourage more involvement from the international community. The 40-60 minute interactive tour by MSF facilitators educates the public and possible donors about the organization and its goals. The tour is also a tool to inform MSF’s publics of the importance of this global issue while actively recruiting potential volunteers and employees.
Throughout the tour, one can easily put himself or herself in the position of a refugee or IDP and emotionally connect with the experience. The guide fills silent, pensive moments with informative descriptions of what a patient or client might experience while living in the camp. They explained in graphic detail the type of working conditions MSF staff deal with and how they make each station in a camp efficient and effective. Combined with the props and visuals, the guide’s testimonies created a reality like no other, drawing the audience in one word and one picture at a time.
The MSF facilitators at the Halifax demonstration highlighted many crucial points, the most prevalent being that, in the camps, life’s necessities are rationed. There are limited supplies of water, salt, sugar, rice, and beans for each and every individual. MSF organizes the camps into groups which receive their rations on specified days of the week. However, those receiving rations, many of them children, still have to wait in lines for hours to receive only very small portions of food and water. Some of the children carry the rations for their entire family back to their shelter all by themselves. To prove how difficult a task this is, the MSF facilitators had children in the audience attempt to carry a family-sized portion of rations a short distance. Needless to say, the task required effort unfit for a child.
The guides also described that people, especially children, sometimes arrive at the camps so malnourished they are given smaller-than-a-postcard packets that require no cooking, no refrigeration, and no liquids to be added. MSF facilitators handed the substance around for participants to taste. Its nutty flavour and crumbly consistency make it edible, but far from gourmet. However, the packets provide immediate, much-needed nutrients to anyone in dire need of them. Malnutrition is prevalent in many of the camps as a result of inadequate daily nutritional intake and prior improper sanitary conditions. This often causes diseases and illnesses such as malaria, cholera, diphtheria, measles, pneumonia, and diarrhea.
The Halifax audience had the opportunity to interact with MSF’s knowledgeable staff that have experienced and witnessed life in a refugee camp. The interactive exhibit filled with props, fact driven posters, along with other emotionally charged visual aids tugged at the heart strings of the audience if nothing else. The exhibit brought each individual to the human level where they could clearly envision the differences between a Canadian way of life and other less fortunate regions of the world.
MSF was looking to raise awareness about the plight of 43 million people around the world, and show the audience how the workers strive to provide the best access to food, water, shelter, and medical services, and they did just that. MSF expected the event to draw a whopping 15,000 attendees on the Garrison Grounds here in Halifax. The interactive refugee camp, positioned strategically in downtown, allowed MSF to reach a large audience and get their message out loud and clear.
You can help MSF by providing financial support, volunteering here (in Canada), or in the field where you will gain first-hand experience in a refugee camp. As a volunteer, you have the opportunity to make a positive impact on a refugee or IDP’s life.
If you would like to learn more about the MSF or get involved visit: http://www.msf.ca/
