Welcome to RESPECT

The stated goals of RESPECT are:

1. To increase awareness of refugee issues among non-refugee students in participating countries.
2. To build bridges between non-refugee students and refugee students through pen-pal letter exchange.
3. To encourage students to act to raise awareness of refugee issues and to raise some funds for their refugee school.

As a teacher or student leader, your participation in RESPECT can consist of step 1, step 1 & 2, or you can work through all three steps. Perhaps you might decide to work on step one this year, step one and two next and all steps the year after that.

It is entirely up to you.

The following paragraphs will help to facilitate the progression through these steps. PLEASE feel free to ask any questions or make any comments.

REFUGEE EDUCATION

STEP ONE
BUILDING AWARENESS OF REFUGEE ISSUES
There are a great number of resources available out there to educators and laypeople free of charge for building awareness of refugee issues. We will be making some specific suggestions for you to order so you are able to receive some basic publications in a timely manner. While there are certainly others, International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are the two biggest publishers of refugee related material to our knowledge.

A list of resources can be found on our resources page.

SPONSORSHIP PROGRAM

STEP TWO
EXCHANGE WITH A REFUGEE SCHOOL
RESPECT is developing an every-growing list of contacts with refugee and internally displaced person (IDP) schools around the world. Countries include Azerbaijan, Cameroon, Guinea, and Uganda.

We would be very happy to introduce your class to a class of refugee students of similar age and academic level by pen pal letter exchange. While we may be able to give you some choice as to country, it would be best if you will accept what letters we have on hand, the refugee students can receive their letters in a timely fashion.

It has been our experience that participating students can be quite excited to initiate a letter correspondence with a boy or girl from exotic countries.

There can be no better way to build awareness & understanding of refugee life than through letter exchange.

Over the last year, we have learned a few things that are stated below:

1. Before distributing letters it is important to discuss with the students the possibility of disturbing content. The students who wrote these letters may well mention the loss of a parent or parents, they may write about the effects of war in their country of origin and life in the camp.It is your prerogative to screen letters before handing them out to ensure that even after preparing students only the most mature students receive the most mature letters.

   Please note that while SOME letters may be quite serious, others will just write about music they like, clothes and whatnot – kids are kids.

2. Students may well want to include some kind of gift in their reply letters.
   This is not recommended. Very simple things like a bookmark, sticker, or whatnot are fine tokens but any more will make other pen pals jealous and very possibly might be stolen from the letter package by postal workers.
3. Pen pals appreciate receiving photographs, postcards, cute stationary and so on.
4. Please post your letters within about two weeks of receiving them from us.
5. The first one or two exchanges should be sent as a group to save on postage and ensure delivery at the same time. Please include 2 or 3 international reply coupons with your package, so the refugee school can reply without incurring costs. (IRCs can be bought for about $3.50 at your local post office.)

To request refugee letters, please fill out the non-Refugee School Registration Form online. Include the number of students, grade level, range of ages you are willing to accept etc.. Please note that we will be sending you ORIGINAL copies of letters. If you do not post replies to those letters, none will be posted and those refugee children will be disappointed. (We recommend the teacher take care that each student receives a reply. This is easy if all students are in one class. If you are just having some interested students write, you can photocopy each letter, distribute the photocopies writing each student’s name on their original and then hand-over the original letter after the reply had been handed-in.)

ENHANCING COMMUNITIES TOGETHER

STEP THREE
FUNDRAISING FOR YOUR REFUGEE SCHOOL
Building awareness of world issues through videos and discussion and growing a personal connection between students here and refugee students there through letter exchange leads rather naturally to a desire to do something to help.

As stated before, if fundraising is not something you as a teacher or student leader are interested in facilitating this year – that is fine. You can only do what you are comfortable doing.

If you decide fundraising for your refugee school would be a good way for your students to feel like they are doing good for their neighbors far away, we have a few suggestions:

1. A bake sale – organize a bake sale either at student’s home or at school to raise funds.
2. A talent/variety show – plan a talent/variety show at school to invite everyone to come out to support the cause -large funds can be raised this way.
3. A garage sale – organize a garage sale either at home or at school – you can ask for donation of items from family and teachers.
4. A pancake breakfast – organize a pancake breakfast at school.
5. Collection jars
6. Raffle Funds can be anywhere from $10 to $1000.

Ten dollars may buy a small gift for your school – a poster for example, or it may pay for the postage for a number of used posters already around your school but not in use. With larger quantities of funds raised, you can send more stuff. We recommend you focus on sending larger quantities of used materials than to send one or two new things.

Recommended items include:
Used microscopes & slides, used school posters, quality student science projects, transistor radio, solar powered calculator, international reply coupons, and so on! Of course, there are many ideas about what kinds of items to send.

We would recommend you send items a whole class or a whole school could share, instead of pencils and whatnot that need to be distributed to specific students.

** RESPECT one day would like to try to send used textbooks and science equipment no longer in use in our schools to refugee schools abroad. Currently, this costs more than we can easily afford. If you have any ideas as to how we might practically accomplish this goal, or your school has a large quantity of items that could be donated in the future, please contact us.

Contact Information

• RESPECT INTERNATIONAL
• • 935 WARSAW AVENUE
  • WINNIPEG  MB   R3M 1B9
  • CANADA
• +1 204 284 1919
• Email: respect@respectrefugees.org

RESPECT Uganda is working towards the achievement of the objectives of RESPECT through following ways:

1. Identifying the various refugee communities existing in Uganda.
2. Making sure people in Uganda understand RESPECT.
3. Widen membership of the RESPECT community in Uganda.
4. Encourage the spirit of teamwork and hard work among RESPECT members.
5. Ensure RESPECT benefits are realized to develop refugee communities.
6. Encourage refugees to express their views so they can be channeled through RESPECT.
7. Encourage the spirit of volunteerism among members to help refugees.
8. To create links with RESPECT branches worldwide.

In order to achieve these goals, RESPECT Uganda is open to the world community for new people with new ideas that will help RESPECT move forward.

RESPECT ACDA
(Agoro Community Development Association, Kitgum, Uganda)

Children’s Welfare Primary School

This school was established in 1998.  During this time war in Sierra Leone meant that many children had their homes burned down and their parents killed.  The school has branches in Freetown and in the Provinces: one at Rokel in Kambia district and the other at Sanda Magbolothoh in post Loko district.  In total there are 870 pupils.  we offer classes 1-6 the following subjects: math, language arts, physical health education, social studies, religions moral education, science, agricultural science, creative practical arts, poetry, literature and drama, home economics. Students attended the national primary school examnation (N.P.S.E) 2002, and 2003 school year and have done very well.

Request:

• Our request is (1) building structure, sitting accomodation, teaching aids and learning materials such as text and exercise books, chalks, rulers, pen/pencils, erasers, used clothes, shoes, food, school van, vehicle for the school going childern, football kits, and computers. Incentives for teachers as these schools have a total of 15 teachers and they are all volunteer teachers.

Oru Refugee Camp. Oru, Ogun State, Nigeria.  2008 figures show that over 3000 people live in Oru Refugee Camp.  These people are originally from many countries on Africa: Liberia, Sierra Leone, Central Africa Republic, Congo, Erytrea, Côte-d’Ivoire, Togo, and more.

Some of these people have lived there for twenty years, children born in this time have known no other home.  integration into Nigerian society has proved difficult leaving the refugees feeling ostracised and persecuted.

The camp clinic closed in 2005 and since then health in the camp has dramatically deteriorated.  Without contraception HIV/AIDS has spread and many more children are born into the abject poverty.  Without a regular income many daughters are forced into prostitution to bring home money for food for their parents and siblings.

Education and training is a fundamental need to allow the refugees to make choices about their future and let them earn an independent living.  This is why the work of RESPECT International is so crucial in this and many other refugee camps.  These camps are supposed to be temporary homes for refugees and offer little or no facilities for people.  But if given no other alternative the people are stuck there and the camps will only get bigger thereby increasing the scale of an already serious problem.

“Children live in slums here because their parents or guardians have little to no money for education, clothing, shoes, housing, medicine and food. They are surrounded by so many hardships, frustrations, and a lack of basic care because their loved ones have died, were lost in the war or have contracted AIDS,” Oscar Benjamin.

Growing up and experiencing the trouble in Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) Oscar Benjamin, at seven years old, had a dream of helping the children affected by the violence.  That dream became reality in 2006 in the form of Eye to Eye Child Care (EECC): a community based, child welfare organization that helps children in Uvira and Fizi in the DR Congo get off the streets, out of the slums, and into school.  EECC is a childrens home which provides shelter, protection, food and education.

“One thousand children live on the streets in these two towns alone (Uvira and Fizi). They make a living doing odd jobs and they are promised money for school and then forced into labor or sex and taken out of the country to Burundi, and Rwanda,” he said.

EECC is also working with the government DR Congo to find ways of taking the children off the streets and into a place of safety and back into education.  More importantly they are working towards campaigns which protect children from being taken advantage of.  It is common for adults to promise to feed street children or pay for education but instead the children then become victims of sexual and physical abuse.  Children are also taken away to Burundi or Rwanda, for example, and used for child labour.  In addition to this, drug and alcohol are ever present dangers on the streets hich the children use as escape mechanisms.

One of the important jobs when moving forward is for the EECC to give the children hope for the future.  One of the ways in which he is achieving this is through RESPECT International’s Global Letter Exchange Program.  Refugee students, under the age of 18, write letters to non-refugee students.  “This gives the children the feeling that an opportunity lies ahead of them. It gives them something to look forward to,” he said.  More than 30 children from the EECC will participate in the program.

“I am surrounded by children who have reached a point of vulnerability where they can’t handle life anymore. Children like myself who had dreams, ambitions and goals but who are surrounded by so many hardships, frustrations, and a lack of basic care because their loved ones have died, are lost in war or have contracted AIDS,” Benjamin said.  The Letter Exchange gives the children something to look forward to and Benjamin said it might give the children of the EECC “a feeling of being valued somewhere in someone else’s life.”

http://www.respectrefugees.org/

Read more in our ezine.

21,500 refugees are currently living in Guinea (UNHCR statistics).  Civil wars in neighbouring Liberia and Sierra Leone have caused tens of thousands of people to flee their homes and seek safety in Guinea.  However, political uncertainty and a recent past of martial law have left Guinea unstable.  Raising food prices and the decline of basic services have increased resentment in the counrty and therefore increase the chance of violence.

After the voluntaty repatriation programs allowing people to return to their counrties of origin an empasis in now being place on local integration.  Those unwilling or unable to return to their countries of origin, integration is the most sustainable solution.  On a voluntary basis refugees will be given the option to leave the camps and move to the neighbouring comminuities where communtiy based projects will help to integrate them.  These programs are also aimed at areas where there are thought to be as many as 50,000 unregistered refugees.   The environments around the refugee camps will also be regenerated.

The needs now are aimed at increasing the rights of the refugees.  Freedom of movement,  access to education, jobs,  public services,  health facilities, the right to buy and sell property, travel and identity documents, permanent residence and, ultimately, citizenship.

Alexandria Elementary School in Guinea, West Africa is just one of the schools in the country dedicated to providing refugee students with an education.  Established by the UNHCR and the International Rescue Committee in September 2001.  The school is currently attended by 557 students.  They have three buildings, consisting of twelve classrooms and provide lessons from ABC through to class six.  The subjects taught include English, French, Maths, Science, Social Studies and Health.

RESPECT International is working with this and other refugee schools in Guinea to make education available to as many refugee students as possible.  To ensure, despite the disruption to their lives, that they have aspirations for the future and the means to persue them.

Also, the Letter Exchange Program seeks to educate non-refugee students about refugee issues by one-to-one correspondence with refugee students.  This lets people in countries such as Canada, USA, Spain and UK understand what life is like as a refugee.  Also, it allows refugees to learn what life is like in these countries and gives them hope for the future.  In fact the Letter Exchange Program has encouraged a number of refugees to further their education at colleges and universities in countries like USA.

Alexandria Elementary School provides a vital service to the refugee community in Guinea and with international links that organisations such as RESPECT provide them with they can offer great opportunities to children whose lives have been disrupted by violence and war.

Ghana has the largest refugee and asylum seeker population of any country in west Africa with over 31,000.  Many of these refugees are from Liberia and are staying in the Buduburam settlement near Accra.  This camp has existed for over twenty years and hosts 40,000 refugees from the Liberian civil war.  In 2008 the governments of both Ghana and Liberia along with UNHCR reinitiated a voluntary repartiation program to allow Liberians to return to their counrty of origin.  Half the Liberian refugee population in Ghana were offered the chance to return to Liberia and the UNHCR has helped thousands to return by air whilst many more are returning of their own accord.

25,000 people living in the camp are formar Liberian child soldiers.  Children who from as young as nine were taught to hate and kill one another but who now live together in the camp.

Part of allowing these children to recover from their traumatic experiences in education.  This lets them know that they have not been forgotten and gives them some hope for a brighter future.  RESPECT International is dedicated to providing free education to as many refugee students in Ghana as possible.

To find out how you can help please visit our website.

The Mike Immaculate Group of Schools, consisting of nursery, primary, secondary schools and a computer college in Nigeria’s capital Lagos want to enter into a partnership with RESPECT International.

“I want to partner with your reputable organisation because I want a group of organisations encouraging communication between young people across the world,” says proprietor Ademola Ogunyebi.

The group of schools educates 36 refugee students and approximately 280 non-refugee students. Through school projects and RESPECTs Letter Exchange Program and student exchanges the group of schools aim to raise awareness and educate refugees. They also wish to get awareness on some of the schools’ educative projects.

In Nigeria education is free but not compulsory. There, a formal education consists of six years of primary school, three years of junior secondary school and three years of senior secondary school, in addition to four years of university or college education.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there are approximately 11,800 refugees in Nigeria mostly from Chad, Liberia, the Republic of Congo and Sudan. Half live in refugee camps and half are urban refugees.

Please visit our website.
Or for our ezine click here.

Artists for Humanity will celebrate its 10th anniversary from December 19 to 25, 2009.

Begun December 19, 1999, in Kinshasa the capital of the Democratic Republic Congo by Amisi Mutambala, the Artists for Humanity initiative (ArtHum) mainly worked in the eastern part of the country with a regionally integrated vision.

Conferences, debates, concerts and cultural and arts-based displays on education, peace, human rights, HIV/AIDS will all take place over seven days in Uvira and Fizi territories (South Kivu province in DR Congo) as part of the anniversary celebrations.

Rewards of recognition will be given to actors both local and international who have distinguished themselves as ArtHum volunteers and work with communities in disaster.

Non-profit associations, foundations, enterprises, state institutions, religious structures as well as individuals who are interested are invited to join the event.

For further information, contact Amisi Mutambala at:

• Dieudonné AMISI MUTAMBALA
• Director & Founder
• Artists for Humanity, ArtHum
• Telephone: +243810343785; +25779979121
• Email: arthum_direction@yahoo.fr

Please visit our website.
Or for our ezine click here.