A Toolkit for Addressing Refugee Crises
Clowns Without Borders is an organization aimed to bring laughter to refugee camps, combat zones, and disaster zones, particularly to children. According to the United Nations, there are 27.1 million refugees, 4.6 million asylum seekers, and 53.2 million internally displaced people worldwide, and these numbers continue to rise.
Timeline: Refugee Crisis Situations
Clowns Without Borders volunteers in a variety of locations around the world, so I believed this toolbox would be most beneficial to discuss various refugee crisis situations more widely. As a result, I produced the timeline below showing the largest refugee crises since 1991. It’s also worth noting that this list excludes internally displaced people or those who are forced to escape their homes but remain inside the borders of their nation.
and also write a paragraph to briefly summarize these key events and why they are important in the context of the community
Mental Health Intervention Mapping
For the sake of mental health intervention mapping, I examined a location where Clowns Without Borders recently has travelled to. Clowns Without Borders traveled to Iranian Kurdish camps in Iraqi Kurdistan in March.
I looked for mental health facilities in the Kurdish-populated region of northern Iraq based on the location. In Google, I searched “ mental health clinics in Kurdistan” and the top result described how neither the government nor international groups provide enough support for mental health in Kurdistan. Within my map search, I found few options, with little to no information or websites.
Two of the locations were physical rehabilitations centers or hospitals, but most of the results came up in the city of Erbil, which is the capital, as well as the most populated city in the Kurdistan Region.
Within Erbil, there is the Jiyan Foundation for Human Rights. On their website, it states they promote basic freedoms and support democratic principles worldwide. Since 2005, the Jiyan Foundation has helped nearly 100,000 trauma, terror, domestic abuse, and human rights violation survivors. They have 9 different treatment facilities and mobile teams within Kurdistan-Iraq, Iraq, and Syria.
There is also the Green Desert Organization. They are an organization that helps traumatized individuals through psychotherapy, education, psychosocial assistance, and child protection. Their aim is to help refugees, the displaced, and the host community by responding immediately to their needs.
After doing some more research, I also found the SEED Foundation, which is an Erbil-based nonprofit. SEED was founded to promote Kurdistan’s sustainable development, humanitarian needs, and social issues by focusing on raising awareness, money, and offering help to refugees and internally displaced persons in Kurdistan. Although I couldn’t find a location for the SEED Foundation on the map, the website states that it is a local charity in Kurdistan, Iraq.
First-Hand Account: The Stigma of Being Labelled a Refugee
Jeanette, a mother of 5, fled Burundi with her family due to rising insecurity. Since June 2015, they have lived at the Mahama refugee camp in Rwanda.
This video, created by The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, gave voice to Jeanette’s experience of being labeled as a refugee:
“When you are a refugee, you have no dignity, you’re considered nothing more than that. You remember that you fled and left all your property behind. This is why the life we lead here is not one to rejoice in. It’s not pleasant. Our life in Burundi was one in which we did not lack anything essential. Children were going to school. We had enough food. We led an ordinary and comfortable life like many other people. The thoughts we have of the conflict is how it affected our lives. We lost peace and it now seems like our lives have come to an end. We feel like there is no destination for us, and that life cannot move on. Our lives are now in the camp. How we eat or sleep, we are becoming used to it.”
After seeing this , I created a word cloud using the phrases Jeanette used to describe her experiences:
Stigma of Mental Health in Refugee Children
“Exploring stigma and its effect on access to mental health services in unaccompanied refugee children,” a journal article by Pallab Majumder, examined refugee children’s experiences, beliefs, and attitudes about mental illness. They examined this through thematically analyzing interviews of 15 refugee children and 15 carers.
Majumder found that 3 themes emerge through these interviews: negative perceptions of the concept of mental illness, anticipated social implication of suffering from mental illness, and the denial of mental illness. Here are some excerpts of the interviews within these topics:
Theme 1: Negative perceptions of the concept of mental illness
‘The mental is like people like, you know, crazy or mad and their mind doesn’t work, and some people drink a lot, they go in mental hospital.’ Young person 13‘Then I told this lady I’m not crazy, I’m not like these, these, you know…I tell her look my hair, look my clothes, I’m not crazy.’ Young person 15.
Theme 2: Anticipated social implication of suffering from mental illness
‘He was always thinking that, you know, he might end up in a mental hospital.’ Carer 9.
‘…For them it was mad, they are mad. So they should be put in mad asylums.’ Carer 16.
Theme 3: Denial of Mental Illness
‘Um, first of all, I don’t have any, I don’t know, uh, I mean, I’m not, um, mental problem. I got, I saw the bad dream, I didn’t sleep then, sometimes. Uh, maybe that thing, I don’t know, maybe, that’s why…’ Young person 6.
Creative Writing to Communicate Stories
Through my research, I came across Freedom from Torture, a charity that advocates for change and raises awareness about the consequences of torture. On their website, I found a refugee-writing group on located in the United Kingdom. Write to Life is an organization that helps individuals in communicating their stories through creative writing and performance.
Within the Write to Life, I found a poem written by Senait Hagose. Senait shared their experience of finding strenght and comfort, and how they’ve been able to move forward. They shared their admiration for Freedom of Torture, and how the organization really understood their pain and problems.
I discovered Senait Hagose’s in the Write to Life. Senait spoke about how they found strength and comfort within Freedom of Torture, and how because of their understanding, they were able to move forward after not seeing a future before.
