Gihembe Today

by Wendy Karr Johnson

There are numerous ways to think of Gihembe Refugee Camp in Rwanda, but I found the most helpful for me is to think of it as a small town. It is a small town made up of more than 17,000 people squeezed into an area about the size of a pro football stadium.

Imagine the difficulties associated with that set up. My first thought, being an American, was that there must be absolutely no privacy. Every one would know what every one else is doing. I’ll leave that to your imagination . . .

Some facts and figures:

• Of the 17,130 people in Gihembe as of March 2015, 14,798 were refugees and 2,332 were asylum seekers.
• 9% are Congolese originating from Masisi, Rutshuru and Kalehe in the North and South Kivu Provinces (as well as the Katanga and Orientale Provinces) of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
• As far as the refugees are concerned: 3,561 are girls between the ages of 0-17; 3,531 are boys in the same age range; there are 4,458 women age 18 and over; and 3,248 men in the same age range.
• Those age divisions are helpful because anyone under the age of 18 was probably born in the camp. The remainder are survivors of the massacre at the Mudende Refugee Camp in 1997—a little more than half of the refugees in the camp.
• The average family size in the camp is 5 people but it can vary from as little as 1 to as many as 14.
• Only 50% of the refugees have a basic primary education, 15% have a secondary education; and very few have a university or post-university education.
• 2,127 of the refugees are considered special needs cases, which will often get them resettled more quickly: 530 are considered women at risk, 418 are unaccompanied children or children that have been separated from family, 619 are single parents, and 560 have serious medical conditions.
• The major cause of death in infants is respiratory infections mostly due to conditions in the camp, which can be cold and damp because of the elevation at which it is located.

Because more than 93% of the refugees surveyed said (emphatically) that they were not willing to return to the DRC because they not only fear persecution but there are no guarantees they would get their land back (many of the refugees were subsistence farmers), Rwanda and the UNHCR are targeting 30,000 refugees for resettlement by 2018. Most of these refugees will end up in the United States with some being taken in by Finland and Denmark.

Unfortunately, unless you are a priority case (one of the special needs refugees), it may take as long as three years to reach your new country. And, that time frame can be affected by a number of things including the birth of child, marriage, health issues and more.

Fortunately, things are happening in the meantime to help sustain the level of hope as well as improve the lives of the refugees.

by Wendy Karr Johnson

Education

There are now education programs at Gihembe that cover primary education through the 6^th level and secondary education through the 3^rd level. Educating children in the camp will give them a head start once they reach their new homeland. In addition, nursery education was introduced to Gihembe in 2014.

Health and Nutrition

A health center was established to provide primary care to the refugees, and includes a maternity ward, laboratory, consultation rooms, a pharmacy and in-patient wards. There is also voluntary counseling and testing for HIV/AIDS. Raising awareness of HIV/AIDS, and particularly mother-to-child transmission has resulted in no children being born with HIV for more than two years. In 2014, 115 refugees were treated with anti-retroviral therapy. The camp’s nutrition center provided support to malnourished or vulnerable refugees, including 817 children between 6-23 months, 750 pregnant and lactating women, malnourished children under 5, and 26 refugees with chronic illness.

Empowerment and Self-Reliance

Where once food was distributed to refugees on a monthly basis, a cash and voucher system has now been implemented in which refugees can pay for food using cell phones they received as part of the program. They are given a monthly allowance and use mVisa on their phones to pay in order to make their own choices and diversify their diets. This also gives refugees a chance to shop in the local village where they get to know the local community.

by Wendy Karr Johnson

Cooperative Farming Project

A group of 50 HIV-positive women have started a cooperative farming project in which they grow mushrooms and passion fruit both to supplement their diets as well as to help provide them with a source of income in addition to their monthly allowance. Since the beginning of the project, 12 have been resettled and thanks to technology they are able to keep in touch with these women. The project may supplement diet and income, but more importantly, it offers some empowerment and a community of support within the camp.

English as a Second Language (ESL)

Refugees at Gihembe who have been approved for the resettlement process can now take an ESL course if they meet the qualifications. They must be between 18 and 65 years of age with some literacy in their native language (in this case Kinyarwanda). They then are enrolled in the class for 3 hours a day for 20 days. The refugees have about a 75 percent retention rate (on average) once they finish the course. Their ESL teachers are fellow refugees who were trained as teachers before ending up at Gihembe. So far, 213 students have completed the ESL program, with another 41 currently enrolled for a total of 254. And while it is only a fraction of the total population that is being considered for US resettlement, learning some English greatly improves a refugee’s ability to succeed once they reach America.

Frank Logue used the Waterlogued app on these photos

 

Gihembe: Some Background

Tags

#ShareTheJourney, EMM, Refugees

 

Some of the mass graves at the Rwandan Genocide Memorial in Kigali

Called, somewhat fondly I might add, the “land of 1,000 hills” by its natives, Rwanda lies snuggled between Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

The well-manicured terrain (at least what I saw in Kigali and along the road to Byumba) belie the fact that this country was witness to the massacre of more than 800,000 people in a 100 days—people who happened to belong to the wrong tribe or sympathized with the wrong tribe. In the following years, in excess of another 200,000 were killed, more often than not, mercilessly.

But that’s not where the story of Gihembe Refugee Camp begins. It began in 1937 when the Belgians “imported” about 175,000 Rwandans into North Kivu in order to farm the land they had appropriated from Hunde and Nyanga communities who lived there and who had refused to farm the land for them. The majority of these Rwandans were Hutu, but that would change in 1959 when Rwanda (and other African nations) began to seek its independence.

Between 1959 and 1964, the formerly elite Tutsi were forced to flee Rwanda as the Hutu took over the power. By 1964, more than 100,000 Tutsi refugees found their way to the Congo, also settling mostly in the region around Lake Kivu. By 1990, nearly half a million Rwandans and their descendants were living in North Kivu.

The influx of these Rwandans grated on the native Hunde community who had lived there for centuries, but as long as Mobutu was in power, the tensions just simmered. In 1971, Mobutu granted blanket citizenship to all the Rwandans who had lived there since 1960. And, when he expropriated all foreign businesses in 1973, it was the Tutsi that benefited. As long as Mobutu was in power, all was well. That is, until 1981 when he reversed the citizenship law and required individual applications for citizenship for those who could proved their ancestry in the Congo back to 1895.

The Hutu and Tutsi were stripped of their citizenship and land. By 1993, tensions had reached a boiling point and Hunde and Nyanga mobs began to attack the Hutu and Tutsi, who in turn fought back with the help of the national army because they were still favored by Mobutu despite the loss of citizenship. Three years later, things got really complicated as the nation descended into war.

And it was the Tutsi, once again, who were forced to flee, this time back to Rwanda. The refugees fled to a camp on the DRC-Rwandan border created by the UNHCR in 1996 near a small village called Mudende. Between August and December of that year or perhaps the next (1997), the Rwandan Interahamwe, the group responsible for the Tutsi genocide, massacred an estimated 3,000 or more refugees in the camp.

The government of Rwanda and the UNHCR needed to do something before more people were massacred. By December of the year in which it occurred (refugees claim 1996, UNHCR, 1997), they moved the camp away from the border with the DRC and closer to the capital of Kigali in Rwanda.

Gihembe Camp by Wendy Karr Johnson

Now, nearly 20 years later, more than 14,000 people still call Gihembe home, 99 percent of whom survived the massacres at Mudende. Most of these, 93 percent, find returning to the DRC impossible. Meanwhile, the United States, Finland and Denmark, the main resettlement countries for Gihembe, work toward welcoming as many Gihembe refugees as possible. In 2014, for example, 1,984 refugees departed for resettlement.

Unfortunately, the resettlement process is both complicated and extended, often taking up to three years to complete. While various agencies continue to work on improving these statistics all around, the people of Gihembe wait with varying degrees of hope.

Next week: Gihembe today.

For more information about what the refugees experienced at Mudende, an excellent academic article by Emily Lynch can be found here: Mudende 

Photos “waterlogued” by Frank Logue

 

The Pilgrimage Begins

Tags

#ShareTheJourney, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Refugees

A twiga (giraffe) with the Nairobi skyline in the background.

Our pilgrimage to Kenya and Rwanda, to learn and share about the resettlement process for Congolese refugees, begins today with a short flight to New York City. Monday afternoon, we will fly to Nairobi by way of Amsterdam.

And while the bulk of our time will be spent learning about this process in both Nairobi, Kenya and Kigali, Rwanda, we will also get to see a giraffe feeding center and an elephant orphanage (thus the above photo/I couldn’t resist).

The trip will encompass visits to: the Resettlement Support Center (RSC) in Nairobi, Gihembe Refugee Camp in Rwanda, the Rwanda Genocide Memorial Centre, and the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) branch office in Kenya, among a number of other places.

I am looking forward to all that I will learn about this very important ministry and look forward to sharing my experiences. The intention is to both blog while there as well as upon my return.

Refugee Resettlement Webinar

Tags

#ShareTheJourney, Episcopal, Refugees

Background

Over the next 4-5 years, the United States expects to welcome tens of thousands of refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), scene of some of the world’s worst ongoing violence and human rights abuses. According to UNHCR, approximately 430,000 refugees from the DRC have sought protection in neighboring countries, including Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania. In addition, there are some 2.7 million internally displaced people (IDPs) within the country itself.

Of the 5,155 refugees resettled last year by Episcopal Migration Ministries and its network of affiliate organizations, 420 were Congolese and that number is expected to grow in 2015.

How can your faith community support and advocate for the plight of Congolese refugees? How can your congregation prepare to welcome these new Americans into your community?

February 19 Educational Webinar

Please join Kurt Bonz, Program Manager for Episcopal Migration Ministries; Allison Duvall, Episcopal Migration Ministries’ Church Relations Manager; and Katie Conway, Policy Analyst for Immigration and Refugees in the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society’s Office of Government Relations, in a church wide webinar on Thursday, February 19 at 7:00 pm EST.

Participation is via registration here: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/6141019095904459265

Allison, Katie and Kurt will: provide an overview of the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), update the current status of Congolese refugees, and suggest what you can do in your community to continue to welcome Congolese refugees as they arrive in our country seeking safety, peace, and a chance to begin their lives again.

Questions are welcomed and encouraged and can be submitted via the webinar chat room or on social media using #ShareTheJourney.

Resources

The webinar content is ideal for Sunday forums, discussion groups, adult formation classes, youth groups, and formation classes.  A discussion guide is available here: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/files/documents/congolese_refugees_webinar_guide.pdf

#ShareTheJourney

Tags

#ShareTheJourny, Episcopal, Kenya, Refugees, Rwanda

On March 2, Frank and I will be among a group of thirteen traveling to Kenya and Rwanda as part of the #ShareTheJourney Pilgrimage.

According to the media release:

#ShareTheJourney is designed to raise awareness of ways in which the Missionary Society, through Episcopal Migration Ministries (EMM), works to facilitate refugee resettlement work throughout The Episcopal Church. The pilgrimage is funded through a Constable Fund grant awarded last year by the Episcopal Church Executive Council. The Constable Fund provides grants to fund mission initiatives that were not provided for within the budget of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society passed by the General Convention.

“Through the #ShareTheJourney pilgrimage, we are bringing awareness to the plight of Congolese refugees and the ministry of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society in resettling refugees from Congo and other conflict areas,” explained Deborah Stein, EMM director. “Through real-time social media, our participants will serve as the eyes of the church as they witness conditions where refugees are currently living, and the responses we offer through resettlement.”

Through the #ShareTheJourney pilgrimage from March 2-13, stories of refugees and their resettlement in the United States will be highlighted through traditional and social media. During the pilgrimage, participants will share their experiences through blogs and posts  here. [http://www.episcopalchurch.org/emm]

The pilgrims will travel to Nairobi, Kenya and Kigali, Rwanda. Among the planned visits are the Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre and the Gihembe Refugee Camp in Rwanda as well as operations supported by Church World Service’s Resettlement Support Center (RSC)-Africa, and the UN refugee agency UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees).

How can you participate?

Through #ShareTheJourney on Facebook or Twitter through @EMMRefugees and #ShareTheJourney.

Participate through interactions, retweets and posting a photo of yourself holding a hand-written sign indicating: #ShareTheJourney with @EMMRefugees.

Episcopal Migration Ministries is the refugee resettlement service of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society. Each year this ministry works in partnership with its affiliate network, along with dioceses, faith communities and volunteers, to welcome refugees from conflict zones across the globe.

#ShareTheJourney as the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society celebrates 75 years of resettling refugees in the United States. #ShareTheJourney is a multi-media effort to educate, form, and equip Episcopalians to engage in loving service with resettled refugees and to become prophetic witnesses and advocates on behalf of refugees, asylees, migrants, and displaced persons throughout the world.

Check out the website  here [http://www.episcopalchurch.org/emm] and  here.  [http://www.episcopalchurch.org/sharethejourney]

Learn more EMM’s history and how to participate in local refugee settlement  here. [http://www.episcopalmigrationministries.org]