a year of standing together for humanity -...

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A year of standing together for humanity


Learning from the ground

People displaced from their homes crave familiarity. Initiatives which take culture and heritage into account give people a sense of self-esteem, pride and dignity. Children in our child friendly spaces were spontaneously reciting ‘kabbiya’ (traditional Rohingya rhymes) and playing unique games. We conducted extensive research into both and dedicated time for them every day. We also co-designed the longer-term facilities with communities, and asked them to name them. The women-friendly spaces are now known as ‘shanti khana’.



Everyone must to be ready for anything. Staff need to be problem-solvers who are able to meet rapidly changing needs. Facilities must be multi-purpose. Camps are informal and temporary, so what happens in them is unpredictable. Diseases like diphtheria appear overnight and suddenly everyone is working to contain a potential epidemic. Extreme weather causes extensive infrastructure damage and flooding, shelters and facilities need to be relocated and other facilities need to provide temporary accommodation and services.



People who have experienced trauma do not neccesarily seek services at designated places. All staff need basic training in psychosocial support.Our child friendly spaces turned into places where family members could open up to staff, so we trained staff to deliver psychosocial support sessions. This quickly happened in our women friendly spaces and community centres as well, and eventually almost all of our facilities. Not everyone who opened up required services, they often just needed to be listened to.



Quality and speed are both crucial elements of a response, but the importance of quality needs to be relatively measured in an emergency where the long-term consequences could be far-reaching. Half a million people arriving in the space of a few weeks into an area with no facilities meant widespread open defecation. 500 emergency latrines were installed per day and a potentially deadly disease outbreak was narrowly avoided. These latrines were later replaced by a comprehensive system which included high-quality latrines, faecal sludge management plants and septic tanks.



The speed and depth at which government and local NGOs can operate cannot be matched by international staff on short-term placements. Language and cultural barriers regularly become the biggest challenges in a response, and engaging the local community and the displaced community (particularly women) is critical.Govenrment, local NGOs, host communities and displaced communities understand the context. Ensuring that they play key roles allows organisations to draw on their insights and skills, and it also gives those groups a crucial sense of control over what is happening. Engaging female staff is essential, as women and children often make up the majority of displaced communities, and women generally prefer to accept services from other women.



Systems, not just facilities, must be developed. People who have been displaced have often had their rights denied for a long time and do not have health-seeking behaviour. Developing strong community outreach and referral networks is often more important than building more facilities.Our health system has three tiers; a small number of primary facilities, a larger number of community facilities and an extensive, all-female network of community health workers who go to doorsteps. This has resulted in us conducting over a million consultations in the facilities, and reaching those who need our services the most.



You cannot manage what you cannot measure. Feedback mechanisms, monitoring and research need to be invested in from the start, and a system must be put in place to ensure that these result in continuous service improvement.800 community mobilisation volunteers deliver life-saving messages to the doorsteps of 40,000 homes daily. This all-female workforce provides critical real time information to service providers, and carry out crucial tasks such as finding vulnerable households and locating damaged infrastructure. Strong monitoring systems and research support this, allowing us to dig deeper into information gathered, make data-driven decisions and forecast trends.



Everyone must have the same access, but everyone has different needs. Also, displacement can bring out new vulnerabilities. People who usually would not be identified as vulnerable in peaceful times can become vulnerable when removed from their usual settings.Access to water, hygiene and sanitation was one of the first areas we worked in, and this quickly included installing bathing cubicles specifically for women. Young men and boys emerged as a new vulnerable group. Not only did they witness violence, but many felt responsible for not being able to protect the women around them, and they were less likely than women to speak about their experiences.



Regaining stability for children as early as possible supports everyone to recover. Children often lose all the elements of stability in their lives in the struggle to navigate a new space, and parents are not able to watch them as closely as they would normally - so they can quickly get into dangerous situations. Child friendly spaces keep children safe, allowing parents can focus on critical tasks such as collecting food relief and building shelters. Daily schedules bring stability back into children’s lives, and bonding with other children and consistency in activities brings a sense of continuity and peace.



Livelihood opportunities are essential so people are productively engaged. Employment and volunteering opportunities must be encouraged as early as possible so people can start to regain a sense of independence.Informal market mechanisms, Cash 4 Work and volunteer programmes foster a sense of confidence and self-worth, as well as practically improving the economic situations of individuals. Two observations we had about involving the community, whether it was in building infrastructure, teaching children or supplying healthcare, was that people are incredibly resilient, and also incredibly positive.



Host communities play crucial roles in initially responding and in supporting longer-term initiatives such as livelihoods. They need to be accounted for in service delivery planning, feel as if their struggles and efforts are recognised, and believe that the new people can contribute to improving the state of their lives. Host communities were the first to respond, and provided the most critical support before organisations stepped in. Now they make up over half of our staff profile and play a significant role in planning and service delivery. This has allowed us to benefit from their local knowledge, and them to have buy-in to our initiatives.



Norms can be changed, but it takes time. People will not immediately accept new habits, even if they are beneficial to them and/or they understand the need for them. One of the first fixtures every family ensured in their shelter was an oven. Burning wood in a small, enclosed space with poor ventilation three times every day quickly became a health and environmental hazard. We built LPG-equipped community kitchens which have now turned into lively community spaces where hundreds of families cook in every day.


#SpaceOnEarth

Last year nearly a million Rohingya were forced to flee their homes and seek refuge in Bangladesh. Among them are 500,000 children. They now live in the biggest refugee camp in the world. We helped them send a message to you - that in a world as big as ours there must surely be a safe place that they can call home. Please watch the short film “Space on earth” included in the pen drive.

These children urgently need your help for immediate short term needs whilst the global community works on a long term solution.

a year of standing together for humanity -...

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