[afro-nets] Health Needs at Buduburam Refugee Camp

[Jennifer Staple <Jennifer.Staple@aya.yale.edu>]

Health Needs at Buduburam Refugee Camp
--------------------------------------

Hi all,

Thank you very much for all of your great suggestions for Inter-
national Literacy Organizations. Please read below details about
urgent health and education needs at Buduburam Refugee Camp in
Ghana. We hope that many of you will be interested in volunteer-
ing your expertise.

I will start with part of an e-mail received by Julie Harris, a
current Unite For Sight volunteer at Buduburam Refugee Camp:

"For those of you who saw Hotel Rwanda, do you remember the
scene where the journalist is talking to Don Cheadle, saying
that he thinks people will watch the tragic events in Rwanda on
their televisions, and way how awful it is, and then go back to
eating their dinner? Help is needed here, desperately - if you
know how to inspire action, PLEASE help. If you work for a pub-
licity organization, help me to get the stories here out....
Don't assume that if it were major enough, you'd have heard of
it. Please help me to tell people about it. If you work for any
organizations that want to donate people or supplies, or you
want to donate yourself for a week or more, PLEASE help. The
needs here vastly exceed the capability of the volunteers pre-
sent. I hope I can convey in this e-mail how dire these circum-
stances truly are."

As background, I am writing on behalf of Unite For Sight, a
501(c)3 non-profit organization that empowers communities world-
wide to improve eye health and eliminate preventable blindness.
Since January 1st, our volunteer teams have been providing eye
care at Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana. Our teams are incredi-
bly impressed by the people at the refugee camp, especially
their local NGO called SHIFSD (Self-Help Initiatives for Sus-
tainable Development). SHIFSD is an inspiring story, borne out
of the removal of the UN from the camp in 2000, which forced the
refugees to fend for themselves. The goal of SHIFSD is to imple-
ment programs and make changes that will better lives as well as
prepare people for the eventual return to Liberia.

In addition to the eye care being provided by Unite For Sight,
Buduburam Refugee Camp also has many other urgent health and
education needs, and we are hoping that many of you may be in-
terested in volunteering your expertise and time, whether at
Buduburam or from your own home

The urgent health and education needs include:

1) HIV/AIDS education and a sustainable source of condoms
2) Psychologists to assist with war-induced and camp-induced
    psychological trauma
3) Education: sponsorship of children to receive an education.

There are many schools at Buduburam, all refugee-run, but many
people cannot afford school (about $100/student/year). Given the
choice between food and sending kids to school, some families do
choose school. However, their child then goes to school hungry,
is fatigued and can't learn, so the $100/year is wasted.
4) Volunteer teachers for 1 month or more (preferably 1 year or
    more) to educate the children at Buduburam
5) Books for a library that we are hoping to create
6) Volunteers for a literacy program to teach the mothers how to
    read so that they can help teach their children. Teaching the
    women is key to teaching the rest of the population.
7) Computer donations, volunteers to teach IT
8) Volunteers to help refugees create small businesses
9) Volunteers to teach agriculture skills
10) If you're thinking of throwing away that old computer or ac-
    cessories, please ship it to Buduburam
11)Volunteers to provide eye care as Unite For Sight volunteers
12)Do you have connections to publicity organizations that can
    alert people to the urgent needs at Buduburam Refugee Camp?

Unite For Sight's volunteer Julie Harris is working on eye
health, HIV education, teacher education (biology, basic math,
chemistry, eye health education), microenterprise, polio vacci-
nation campaign, measles vaccination campaign, literacy, clini-
cal work, you name it. However, Julie needs help from others who
can assist with all of these needs since there are only 24 hours
in a day. The people at Buduburam Refugee Camp are incredibly
grateful for any support and volunteers. Our Volunteer Teams
can't stop raving about the incredible people, and 2 of our vol-
unteers who just returned back to North America are already
booking flights to return to Buduburam within 5 weeks! I hope
that many of you will be interested in helping, too.

Please forward this e-mail around. You never know who knows
someone who can help.

I'll end with a story written by Julie about Ali, a man she has
befriended:

Ali, the first patient, is a very shy, quiet man with a square
face. He always looks at his feet when he speaks, and he speaks
so quietly that it's difficult to hear him. He shuffles his feet
in the dust when he walks, probably because he cannot see well.
He has nystagmus, a condition that makes his eyes jump around
when he tries to focus, but when he is looking at nothing in
particular, they stay in place. Unrelated to the nystagmus, he
has very low visual acuity ­ he can count fingers that I hold up
at 1 meter away, maximum. He's married and has 4 kids of his
own, plus his brothers' 3 children. I went to interview Ali to-
day, because his story touched me (and to be honest, I'm in the
first phase here. I'm still wide-eyed, and I know it. But I
can't ignore stories like this, and I hope you can't either).

Ali was born in 1965 in Monrovia, Liberia. In Liberia, very poor
families will often send their children to be sponsored by a
wealthy family, and the child will live with and work for that
family in exchange for school tuition. The child takes on the
name of the sponsor, which is how Ali acquired his name (I don't
know his old name). Many people in the camp were subject to this
same arrangement. Ali finished school and became a math teacher
in Liberia, and taught until January of 1990, when fighting in
Liberia forced he and his wife Elizabeth and their baby daughter
Grace to flee. The rest of Ali's family stayed behind.

Liberia is divided into 16 tribes that are often at odds. When
the war started, Ali's father, a popular local businessman, was
removed from his house early one morning in June 1990, arrested,
and jailed on the premise that he was selling rice to rebels; he
was actually being targeted for his tribal affiliation and eth-
nicity. Local supporters came to the jail to make appeals on his
behalf; to discourage such appeals, they took his father out of
the jail and shot him in front of everyone.

Ali fled Liberia in January of 1990, prior to his father's
death. His brother John, who now also lives at Buduburam with
another brother and one sister - 3 other brothers and 1 sister
were also killed in the Liberian war - told me the story of his
father and that he watched his father die. Ali fled to the Ivory
Coast, as did most of the refugees that are now here. In the
Ivory Coast, he began teaching math, unaware of what had hap-
pened to his family. Eventually, someone brought his brothers'
children to him (3) and he had 3 more of his own. He assumed the
position of Director of the Frontline Education Project in the
Ivory Coast, and worked there until 2002. On September 20th,
2002, the Ivory Coast erupted in war, the president was over-
thrown (double-check this - I had trouble understanding him at
this point). Liberian refugees, who had inundated the Ivory
Coast, were targeted for persecution by rebel forces as they at-
tempted to aid the current government. The women and girls were
raped and the men were killed. Ali was beaten and tortured until
his eyes filled with blood.

In late 2002, Ali came to Buduburam, and reunited with 2 broth-
ers and one sister, where he found out about his father and sib-
lings being killed in the war. I went to interview Ali today at
his house and found that he had moved. His son, who was sewing
outside the house, took me to his brother's house, where Ali is
now living. There are 13 people - Ali, Elizabeth, their 7 chil-
dren, and his brother, his brother's wife, and 2 children - liv-
ing in a room that is approximately 8 x 10. I asked them to show
me how they sleep, and they closed the door and showed me. I
have a picture of a bunch of refugees curled up on the floor. I
swear to you that it is tragic. Ali is an educated, intelligent
man who lived a regular, normal life as a math teacher prior to
coming to Buduburam.

Ali came to our eye clinic on Wednesday, and on Friday I took
Ali and his wife to Tema to see if they could operate and help
him ­ he was suspect for bilateral cataract. Long story short,
he has retinitis pigmentosa ­ his retina is, through the oph-
thalmoscope, speckled with yellows and blacks and reds (my best
descriptive medical terminology). It's an untreatable genetic
condition, and his vision will not improve. Like everyone, Ali
wanted surgery, but there is no treatment for his condition at
all ­ not here, and not in the US. Dr. Addy, the clinic doctor,
explained the situation to me, and I explained it to Ali. He was
devastated. He asked if he could talk to me privately. We went
outside. Still looking down, he quietly explained his family
situation to me (which inspired me to return to him and find out
more), and he whispered how could he study if he won't be able
to see? I can't remember ever feeling so helpless. I wanted to
cry for him.

I do have a few other bilaterally blind patients, but some have
family who can send them money and help. Ali does not. We are
trying to set up a micro enterprise program with him and his
wife, and are also trying to get him a magnifying glass and
strong magnifier glasses so that he can read ­ they cost about
$10, a relative fortune here, and anyway are almost impossible
to get a hold of here. I think the next volunteer, Farhad, is
bringing them next week when he comes. Jennifer suggested that
we set up a micro enterprise system for him, and today I asked
him what sort of work he thought would be appropriate. He can't
sew, he can't teach - there are few things a blind man can do
here. He can, however, sell water. What is needed, in rough
terms, are a Deep Freeze (about $150-350 US, depending on the
size), current (about 40$ US to register, and then about $11 per
month to have 24-hour service), and input to buy water (Not very
much money). I asked his wife about sewing, but she does not
know how and it would take some time to learn. A sewing machine
here runs about $100, or you can rent for about $11 per month.
Anyway, it's a story I wanted to share, and contributing to this
particular micro enterprise (or a general micro enterprise fund)
can easily be done, and if you're interested, you can email me
to find out how to do it.


Sincerely,

Jennifer Staple
Founder, President & CEO
Unite For Sight
mailto:Jennifer.Staple@aya.yale.edu
http://www.uniteforsight.org