Yesterday, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) announced its implementation of new strategies to improve services in the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya.
The Dadaab camps in northeastern Kenya were opened two decades ago, but a third of the 460,000 residents arrived only last year, driven from Somalia by violence and the threat of famine. Originally meant to hold only 90,000 as a temporary solution to the Somali refugee situation, the camp in its entirety is roughly the size of a Kenyan city.
Matthew Conway of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has called the situation “highly volatile.”
Among the UNHCR’s new measures are training and mentoring refugees in order to allow them to participate in the day-to-day operations of the camp.
Of course, refugees have already been involved in running of the camps to various extents. Refugees have been pitching in by manning health posts and hospitals, as well as by building safe latrines and managing waster disposal.
What’s new, however, is involving traditionally left-out groups such as elders, business communities and youth. By allowing these groups to participate—working with national and international partners—individuals requiring life-saving attention can be better identified and given the urgent support they need.
“Refugee staff are also getting refresher courses on management of sensitive cases of sexual or gender-based violence,” said UNHCR spokesperson, Andrej Mahecic, at a press conference in Geneva, yesterday.
Schools in the camp have also been kept open—thanks, in part, to the help of young teachers and community volunteers who have kept the school gates safe. So, despite the security conditions in the camp, refugee children sat the Kenyan National Exams.
The UNHCR has been working in other ways to help improve the security situation in Kenyan refugee camps.
Last January, the UNHCR Light Years Ahead program was launched. It aims to raise money to improve cooking and lighting materials for almost half a million refugees in Africa.
Among the UNHCR’s objectives in Kenya for 2012 is that “the risk of sexual and gender-based violence is reduced and the quality of the response to it is improved.” Measures such as those taken under the Light Years Ahead programme can help achieve these objectives.
It is hoped that a total of 450,000 people living in Chad, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, the Sudan and Uganda will benefit from the programme.
To date, the UNHCR has been able to purchase 200 solar-powered street lights, nearly 15,000 lanterns and more than 8,000 fuel-efficient stoves for the refugees.
These measures have greatly improved the safety and wellbeing of female refugees, whose security is jeopardized by inadequate conditions in cramped refugee quarters.
The darkness can give cover to sexual predators when women walk to latrines or washing stations. At the same time, the fuel-efficient stoves that use 80 per cent less fuel reduce the time girls and women forage for firewood—also in areas that put them at risk of rape and sexual assault.
At the same time, children without light to study their schoolwork are at a greater risk of dropping out. Girl-children also have more time to study when they don’t have to go out to gather firewood.