Helping refugees forge a future

African refugees of Kala camp in Zambia, where eight UCLA
students will be volunteering this summer, are the product of a
country divided by violence and are trapped between their uncertain
futures and stolen pasts.

Zambia, a country which has been relatively peaceful, has been
the destination for thousands of people displaced by wars in
neighboring countries, namely the Congo, which has been mired in a
five-year civil war as well as conflict with its neighbors. The war
has resulted in four million deaths and displaced another five
million.

Many refugees are living in overcrowded camps in rows of
identical straw-roofed clay huts with nothing to do but accept the
permanence of their poverty, said Diana Essex, a fourth-year
international development studies student.

Essex also said the refugees in the Zambian camps are unable to
get jobs because the bureaucratic system in the country makes it
difficult for them to secure employment or to move away from their
camps.

This summer UCLA will be sending its own eight-person team of
student volunteers to spend eight weeks in Kala, volunteering with
the Facilitating Opportunities for Refugee Growth and Empowerment
program.

Essex is a volunteer and the campaign co-director for the FORGE
program and has experienced the refugee camp conditions
firsthand.

FORGE is a non-profit organization which works domestically and
internationally, allowing students to volunteer at African refugee
camps by designing individual innovative projects to improve camp
conditions and individual refugee lives.

Two years ago, Essex organized a music program at one of the
refugee camps in Zambia. She was able to raise more than $10,000
and delivered a piano to one of the camps. She now manages piano
instructors there as well through her involvement as a project
facilitator of FORGE.

FORGE is a branch of the United Nations refugee agency and was
created three years ago with the mission of creating a long-term
impact on the lives of individuals at refugee camps in Africa.

The UCLA team will help further FORGE’s mission to improve
the lives of the refugees by designing projects that will suit
their needs.

The selected students will be project facilitators for Refugee
Camp Kala in Zambia where they will partner with refugees and work
for eight weeks implementing their self-designed micro-projects in
the summer of 2007.

Past facilitators have had projects ranging from agricultural
development, to sports programs for students to health care
clinics.

Essex describes the conditions at the camps as very different
from what most UCLA students are familiar with.

“It will force you to confront your world views,”
she said.

Those who attend will be living in close quarters with about ten
people. Cell phones will be out of range except for on a giant ant
hill at a slight distance from camp, Essex said. It is about a
five-minute climb up and if you hold your phone in the air while
standing on the ant hill your cell phone will have reception.
Satellite phones are available for emergencies.

Internet use is also a limited luxury and encounters with
spiders and snakes are the norm.

Essex went to Kala for the first time after her second year at
UCLA and said it was a phenomenal, life-changing experience, but
that it requires dedication and readiness.

“When you have a big spider crawling on your mosquito net
at night you learn to deal with it,” said Essex with a
smile.

Each project must provide the refugees with domestic long-term
skills, preferably wage based, that will aid them in
re-establishing their lives when they are able to return to their
homes.

Before departure, the team will undergo six months of training,
research and fundraising for their individual projects.

“This is not a program you get into and someone holds your
hand through it,” Essex said during the final informational
FORGE meeting to 25 attendees. “Success is dependent on
you.”

FORGE was created by Kjerstin Erickson, a Stanford University
student, in 2003. Since then, some projects completed by former
facilitators include the construction of a library with 20,000
books, a computer center with a women’s health center and
various educational workshops at Camp Meheba in Zambia.

Lotte Goede, a fourth-year international development studies
student, is an alumna FORGE facilitator and was a project
facilitator in Zambia last summer.

She organized educational workshops for women, teaching them
about agriculture and business with the goal of providing them with
a sense of responsibility and independence.

There were 25 women involved in her program and each was
provided with a small stretch of land where they were taught to
tend and grow their own fruits and vegetables.

“Through hand-in-hand cooperation between me and the
refugees, we completely changed the lives of 25 women and their
families,” Goede said. “Don’t underestimate the
abilities of the refugees.”

Goede said her project had long-term success as it provided
about 200 people with both food and a small business to bring in a
small income.

Goede said the project is ongoing and the women are currently
harvesting their first crops and replanting.

Though the projects are on a small scale, connecting on the
individual level is what makes all the difference, Goede said.

FORGE’s goal is to bring an innovative approach and to
break the stereotypes that people and their individual efforts are
powerless. In order to forge stronger connections between the
American public and the individuals at the refugee camps, FORGE is
launching a Domestic Advocacy Campaign next fall and will be
recruiting here for committee members.

The advocacy campaign will be dealing with two main projects
selected by the refugees themselves for the 2006-2007 academic
year. The projects are health care and policy reform, the two major
issues refugees are facing.

The first humanitarian health care event, temporarily called
“One cold night for one warm blanket,” will be launched
in April. It will be a national fundraiser to obtain new blankets
for 70,000 people in three different Zambian refugee camps.

The policy project will work to implement freedom of movement
for refugees who are in many ways stuck in their camps.

“Statistics are no longer effective because people are
desensitized,” third-year world literature and French student
and FORGE’s Los Angeles regional coordinator Debbie Fry said.
“People need to be connected to issues more
directly.”

To apply for the FORGE international or domestic advocacy
program, contact [email protected] for an application by Nov.
8.