CARE Emergency Media Relations Officer Niki Clark describes the situation in Dadaab refugee camp, northern Kenya, where nearly 1,500 people are arriving each day.
Blog #3: Insight into the personal sacrifices of CARE refugee workers in Dadaab
Blog #2: CARE invests in the longterm future of Dadaab refugees
Blog #1: Arriving in Dadaab
Blog #3: Insight into the personal sacrifices of CARE refugee workers in Dadaab
When I told my family and friends that I was leaving for six weeks to work with CARE on temporary assignment in Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp, I was immediately bombarded with Facebook messages, emails and calls along the lines of “I’m so proud of you. You’re going to save the world!” and “You’re making such a difference!”
To be honest, besides being a bit exaggerated, it makes me a bit uncomfortable. Now, don’t get me wrong, I cannot emphasize how much I appreciate the good wishes and thoughts of my loved ones. Their support has allowed me to take this journey. But as I experienced during my trip to Kenya in November, and as I am once again experiencing here in Dadaab, nothing—absolutely nothing—compares with the dedication and passion of CARE’s employees in the field. And to even be put in the same category as these colleagues seems more than a bit ludicrous.
This past weekend, for example, I partook in my first real Dadaab celebration—complete with grilled goat (a rather tasty treat, if you’re curious)—a send off for long-time CARE employee Julius. Julius is leaving Dadaab for a new CARE post in Nairobi after nearly 19 years in Dadaab. Nineteen years! That’s the equivalent of 133 years in a normal career, as I’m convinced Dadaab years should be counted like dog ones. He joined CARE when the refugee population was around 35,000. Today, nearly 400,000 additional people have since been added to that number.
For nineteen years he has lived here, away from his family. He has most likely shared a room, used a communal bathroom and shower. Because space is at a premium, when staff go on leave, people exchange rooms, some moving every few weeks. There are no hanging photographs, no personal mementos. In many ways, the staff are unsettled as the new arrivals. They are nomads without a home. They work for hours on end in the unforgiveable combination of heat and dust.
I am here for six weeks, and even in that relatively brief time I have succumbed to heartache and homesickness. I assumed that unlike me, the devoted staff in Dadaab must have solitary lives, free of the commitment of relationships. Until I met Maureen, a new coworker who casually mentioned her three-year-old son and husband back in Nairobi. Or another colleague who mentioned how he was planning some quality time with his wife during his next break. CARE staff work eight weeks on, two weeks off. Because of limited resources, sometimes even those brief breaks get shortened. But I have yet to hear a complaint. I have yet to see a frown. There is a Jewish proverb that says, “I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders.” CARE staff in Dadaab are star athletes in that regard.
In addition to the tough environments in which they work, the actual work they do is difficult. Imagine feeding 427,000 people. Getting clean water to them. Educating them. Training them. These jobs are difficult no matter the circumstances, but in these conditions, accomplishment is an amazing feat. Many that have made the long trek from Somalia have experienced personal violence or loss, each tale of tragedy and horror more unfathomable than the one before. CARE’s sexual and gender-based violence officers have the colossal task of helping the survivors heal, start their lives anew. Day after day after day.
I have just started my third week in Dadaab. From day one I have been completely in awe of the dedication and commitment in which CARE staff serve. I asked a colleague why staff that work so hard, so tirelessly. And why are the people that CARE serves, people who have been through the most of trying of times, always smiling? Why despite everything that surrounds them, do they always greet me with a handshake, with a sense of joy? He answered, “Because we are Africans. We have been through so much and we survive. We have hope now.”
No individual is saving the world. But here among CARE’s dedicated staff, I have met a lot of people who are doing their part.
Blog #2: CARE invests in the longterm future of Dadaab refugees
I’ve been in Dadaab for nearly two weeks now. I have seen mothers and daughters, fathers and sons. They have been old and weak, young and weak, their faces lined with struggle. I have seen the faces of children who have eaten their first meal in weeks and the resulting transformation back to childhood, full of giggles and smiles and impromptu games of tag. When people think of Dadaab – now with its three camps considered the third largest city in Kenya – they think crisis. They think emergency. Humanitarian efforts and funding tend to focus on the immediate, looking ahead no more than a year. As soon as another emergency hits, the spotlight will move on. But, as they have for the past 20 years, the refugees of Dadaab will remain.
This thought particularly struck me during a visit to the reception center, the first place where refugees find help after a long and arduous journey. Here they receive medical assistance, and aid workers identify the most vulnerable for immediate attention. A chorus of wails echoes from the vaccination room: the occasional child slipping from the grips of the nurse, running to the dirt yard in tears. Each family collects a 21-day ration of food and supplies (cooking pots, mats, a tarp, soap, jerry cans) to tide them over until they can register. Today, I see a young mother waiting for her high energy B-5 biscuits, a box of which is given out to new arrivals. Tucked under her garbasaar – a traditional shawl – a set of tiny toes poked out into the sunlight. I approached her gently, and she pulled back her wrap so I could see his miniature features. He is 10 days old, she tells me with a smile. She gave birth to him halfway through her journey to Dadaab. Most likely, I thought to myself, he will become part of the second generation that has spent their entire lives within this camp.
CARE has worked in Dadaab since 1991. Refugees who were educated as children here are now teaching refugee children themselves. That’s why the long-term investment that CARE is doing is so critical. It’s not just an investment in immediate needs, although we’re doing that too. On an average day of food distribution, CARE distributes 389 metric tons of food to 45,000 people. And every single day, CARE pumps and distributes approximately 7.5 million litres of water, enough to provide over 446,000 people with 15 litres of water per day.
But we’re also working toward long-term solutions. We’re investing in people. In Dadaab there is a thriving economy – butchers and bakers and yes, probably candlestick makers. They own restaurants and bookstores and barber shops. They are being trained by CARE in dressmaking and tailoring, in computer technology. CARE directly employs 1600 refugees, who serve as counselors, food distributors, chefs, teachers and drivers. They grow up in Dadaab and are educated in Dadaab and work in Dadaab.
After the “emergency” has passed, hundreds of thousands of people will remain in the Dadaab camps. As my colleague told me today, they need more than food, water and shelter. They need a future. CARE is committed to helping them prepare for tomorrow, whether they continue to build their lives here, or, one day, return home to start anew.
Blog #1: Arriving in Dadaab
Here I sit, 7,500 miles away from home. I’m a week in. Over the course of just a few days, my life has completely changed. On a Monday I reported to work at CARE’s Washington, D.C. office. By Thursday I was on a plane bound for Nairobi where my final destination would be Dadaab Refugee Camp, the world’s largest. I will spend the next six weeks here as CARE’s emergency media officer. It is a position that both thrills and terrifies me. As an employee of one of the most prominent global humanitarian agencies, there is always an excitement that surrounds “going to the field.” But this is different.
Unlike my colleagues who have preceded me in this position, and most likely the ones that will follow, I have not been in a humanitarian emergency crisis situation before. I haven’t seen the devastation of a Haiti or a Pakistan. The closest I’ve come was the fall of 2005, when my grandmother came and lived with us after Hurricane Katrina. Her Biloxi home had been destroyed. But even then, I witnessed the situation only through my constant refreshing of CNN.com, and through my grandmother’s stories, not firsthand. And Dadaab is unlike other emergency situations. It is established. There are second generation refugees that have grown up in the camps. I’m not quite sure what to expect. Or how what I experience, the people I meet, will forever impact me.
CARE has worked in Dadaab since 1991, as the main implementing partner for the distribution of food and water and as well as a lead provider of education and psychosocial support and rights education for sexual and gender-based violence survivors. We’ve been here for decades. But with the recent declaration of famine in five regions of southern Somalia, coupled with ongoing conflict and instability, a surge of new arrivals have flocked to the camp, and a global spotlight has been shone on the region, particularly on Dadaab. Dadaab’s population stood at 423,361 as of August 28th. Every single day, it grows by 1,200.
As we landed—my colleague Michael Adams, the Senior Sector Manager for the Refugee Assistance Program in Dadaab, and I flew in on a small UNHCR humanitarian aid plane—the pilot circled around towards the gravel airstrip. A bird’s eye view of Dadaab and its three main camps became visible below me. It was a breathtaking site, a massive settlement that’s now effectively Kenya’s third largest city. It’s hard to fathom until you’ve seen it. And even then, when it’s right in front of you, and you’re face to face with women and children and families that have traveled 80 kilometers or more to get here, there’s still something surreal about it all. Something that makes putting it into words seem a sort of insurmountable task.
But that’s what I’m here to do. To share the lives of the people I meet, people up against incredible odds, some who have thrived and some who are struggling to survive. To share the stories of the unwaveringly committed CARE staff whose dedication to the people they serve is first and foremost. To share the successes of CARE’s programming, and its far reaching impact. I’m not sure if I’m up to the challenge; if I can accurately portray the scale and struggles or the unexpected hopes and triumphs. But I do know one thing. I’m going to do my best. There are too many lives at stake not to.