When Oxfam began its work in Kalma Camp, South Darfur, and began talking to the people living there, we realised that for many people, particularly the women, illiteracy was a major concern.
As we began to find volunteers to help with our public health promotion campaign (the majority of whom are women) a number of them told us they were worried that they would not be able to do their work well if they could not write, but more than that, they wanted to learn to read and write so that in the future they might have more choices. Some simply wanted to be able to write their own names.
In November 2004 Oxfam staff found a young student teacher living in the camp who agreed to teach reading and writing to other IDPs (Internally Displaced People). And so the ‘literacy program’ was launched in a small room made of grass mats in a corner of the Oxfam compound at Kalma camp.
Every day, for 2 hours a day, 19 women from across Darfur attend sessions in the little room. The women range in age from 19 to 45; most are mothers, some of eight children, all have escaped fighting, all having lost their homes and family members. Five of the twelve women that were present the day I visited told me their husbands were brutally murdered when their villages were attacked.
The women did not hesitate to tell me about their tragic stories of escape and their journey to Kalma. Some walked great distances to Kalma camp as no other camp existed then. One woman travelled six days on foot with eight children. Her husband was shot and killed during the attack on her village. She described how she attached the smallest children onto the backs of the older children and they walked and ran fearful for their lives. Another young woman described how the rebels burned her village, forcing families out of their homes, separating the men from the rest. One of her brothers escaped and one was killed in front of her.
Today these women are learning the alphabet. Their young teacher, a student herself when she was forced from her village, volunteers her afternoons to help these women. Although there were primary schools in their communities they were unable to attend because of the demand of their families. They tell me now they have the opportunity and the will to learn.
The classroom is sparsely furnished except for colourful posters on the wall and a large white board in the centre of the room with the 26 letters of the Arabic alphabet neatly printed. The women sit on mats in a circle on the floor dressed in their colourful toabs (similar to an Indian Sari) each with their own notebook and pencil.
I asked why men did not attend. They told me men were welcome, of course, but none had yet wanted to attend. However I sensed a feeling of mutual support and camaraderie among this group, that perhaps would not be possible if men attended. I asked them how their lives might change with the ability to read and write. One woman told me that learning to read and write her own name was a powerful experience for her. Others said they intend to teach their own children, that now they will be able to read instructions, messages and posters. Collectively they believe that becoming literate may make the difference in their chances of survival. They claim that it was the villagers that could read that led them to safety. They do not want themselves or their children to be this vulnerable again.
As I got up to leave each woman proudly wrote their names on a piece of paper in Arabic and squeezed it into my hand, asking me not to forget them.
“Animals are the livelihood of many refugees and of a great deal of the local host population.”
Animals are a form of life insurance for many refugees and their host families in Chad. Oxfam are carrying out a vaccination programme to help prevent any more animals dying.
Top: Donkeys are brought for vaccination
Bottom: A vet tries to vaccinate a donkey. Photos: Carmen Rodriquez/ Oxfam
Nias is very remote – 150km across the sea from the Sumatran mainland and three hours flying time from Oxfam International’s main tsunami relief base in Banda Aceh. As we fly in low we stare at the devastation. It’s like someone has stamped all over the town. On some of the rubble piles sit the huge conical roofs that are a Nias tradition, intact, looking like abandoned hats.
The office is pandemonium. There are now 25 local people working for Oxfam, and we’re sharing the three rooms with an Oxfam partner, the Indonesian agency YEU, who have a first aid clinic on the porch. There is a crowd of toddlers all with dressings on their faces or legs – most of their mothers have wounds too, all from the scramble out of collapsing buildings. Just outside the front door is a packed camp of people made homeless by the quake – 400 or so of them living under plastic awnings in a space hardly the size of a tennis court. On the steps of the half-ruined mosque that overlooks the site, is an Oxfam water bladder – a great flat yellow balloon holding 10,000 litres of water. A pipe from it runs to a tap-stand where the people of the camp can get water. The queue for water stretches out of the camp and into the main road.
In the evening, the different NGOs meet to swap information and coordinate plans. There’s an estimate of 75,000 homeless people, one in ten – Oxfam has 500 tents it can devote to this effort. World Food Programme says it has at last got in 200 tonnes of rice in – distribution will start by boat around the island in the morning. Everyone talks of frustration. Most roads, including the airport one, are unusable except by motorbike; the port is blocked by the crowds trying to leave the island. Lack of fuel limits helicopter operations. Among the islanders there is a rumour, repeated everywhere, that the island has started to sink. In fact, in some places the opposite is true: on the west side, the coastline has risen by as much as two metres, bringing the coral reef above sea level. This means the fishermen cannot get their boats out.
Up on the hill from which 10% of the town’s water once came, we find the system of tanks and ducts almost completely dry. Where’s the water gone? We poke around in the undergrowth – like a surgeon looking for a torn artery. Nigel Smith reckons the shakes have caused the spring to fall, literally, down through the hill. A flow of clay-laden water into the river below seems to confirm this. We discuss the problem with Ferdinand Mendrova, the head of the island’s water authority. He’s worked very hard with the Oxfam team for the last five days, even though his own house is destroyed and his family living in an IDP camp beside the water board’s office. Ferdinand and Nigel reckon that they can best solve this problem by setting up a plant to clean and pump the water straight from the river. Heavy Oxfam pumps and pipes are due to arrive on a flight from UK in the next day or so.
The boat arrives. She’s a traditional, wooden cargo boat, called Camar Laut or Seabird – she’s sailed round from northern Sumatra overnight. It seems a fitting end to a trip that started with a jet airplane out of the UK on Saturday. When she pulls into the dock Gareth Pryce Jones and translator Roos Afrida, who’s from Aceh, cheer. This is a good moment. Now we can get to work on the town’s mains water system. Then the team start the unloading.
