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The Edge in Lebanon

31/1/2018

 
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​As Syria enters its ninth year of war, half the population remains displaced. UNHCR statistics show there are 5.6 million registered refugees in the region, with children and youth making up half of these numbers.
​

While official registered figures of Syrian refugees in Lebanon dropped to around 995,000 as of January 2018, the Lebanese government and many NGOs have said that the number is closer to 1.5 million.
 ​With a population of just 4 million themselves, the Lebanese have the highest per capita concentration of refugees in the world, and have been struggling to accommodate this flood of arrivals.
Around a third of refugees (around 360,000) are located in the Bekaa Valley, often living in small makeshift or unofficial camps. Large camps are not permitted by the Lebanese government and as a result, informal settlements of 50-100 families have become commonplace. Across the country, refugees in the Bekaa Valley (and Akkar) face the most poverty, with parents often forced to take their children out of school and into full time work to earn a living. Many of the camps are still without basic services for children, including education.

The Lebanese Government has been working with the UN to provide education for all. The main policy has been to enrol refugees into the existing public education system, creating a 2nd shift provision for refugees and encouraging integration.

This has not been without its problems. In many areas, refugees vastly outnumber the Lebanese students and there is not the capacity to provide for everyone who needs it. Within the rural Bekaa Valley, public schools are sporadically placed, meaning that access is difficult, and it is estimated that there are more than 250,000 refugee children out of school.

There have also been reports of safety issues, harassment, violence and discrimination, which has led to a high dropout rate. Refugee children that do continue to attend struggle with the new and different curricula, language barriers and lack of appropriate infrastructure. There is low teacher capacity, overcrowding, lack of adequate sanitation facilities and limited catch up programmes.

​All of these factors, faced by children who are also coming to terms with their own trauma and distress, are continuing to create barriers to education. Consequently there is a need for the provision of informal education for children living within the camps.  ​
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‘We sleep in the rubbish’ - Children are leading the way, identifying needs in Katooke slum

22/1/2018

 
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After our pilot ‘Child Protection Team’ model saw the transformation of their community in Masese II slum, Uganda, we have scaled up the work to three new communities in Jinja area. Over the last few years, these new teams have made great progress in creating a safe environment for children, through workshops, training, small business loans and support of families.

Children on the Edge exists for those children who live on the edge of their societies. We continually search out those children who are forgotten, those who are surviving without support in extreme circumstances. For this reason we are expanding again in Uganda this year, sharing our successful Child Protection Model in more slum areas around Jinja, and further afield.

Katooke slum is a small slum community of just over 1,200 people. It is situated next to the football stadium in Kampala, and the main income of its residents comes from picking and selling scrap from the huge rubbish site that dominates the area.

We were asked to get involved here, due to reports of a high number of abandoned children. The Chairperson, who recently arranged a televised documentary about the area said “People here have lost hope and they no longer care about life. This affects how they care for their children”.

Our team in Uganda (Children on the Edge Africa) have begun assessing the needs in Katooke, starting out with talking to the children. We put children at the heart of all we do, and see them not as passive recipients of aid, but as agents of change in their own futures. It is essential that when we begin work in a new area, it is the children themselves who tell us about any problems they are facing.

​Last week, we organised a needs assessment with a large group of children from Katooke. We split them into two groups according to age, with 25 participants in the younger group (age 8-12) and 30 in the older group (age 13-15).
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Younger group drawing out their local area using local materials to identify key places.
The younger group drew out their local area using materials such as grass, stones, sticks and plastic tins to identify key places.

​The older group collected sticks, stones and rubbish from the area and created a circle on the ground to represent the community. Both groups were identifying areas they felt were safe or unsafe, and describing why.

What we thought was a case of 50 abandoned children, turned out to be a lot more complex. Many of the children are here voluntarily, although they have often run away from home because of abuse.

​Around 20 of the older boys described how they actually sleep in the rubbish, and with no affordable school and no health centre, children here are very much left to fend for themselves.

Sleeping outside makes children feel fearful, and they are prone to mosquito bites and malaria, with no nets to protect them. Most of the children (aged between 7-17) have to pick rubbish in order to eat, and most eat only once a day.

There are no latrines, and very poor drainage systems. As the community is on a steep hill, those living at the bottom of the hill are flooded by water that is severely contaminated with faeces, causing widespread illness.

The rubbish pit where the children work is full of broken plastic, wood and other sharp materials that they cut themselves on. All these objects are obviously dirty, so many fall sick as a result of the work.

Sarah Ndlovu our Grants Officer is currently in Uganda, developing our Monitoring and Evaluation, she said “We saw children as young as three picking scrap and weighing it to sell (1 kilo of rubbish, gets only 800 shillings – about 17p). Child abuse levels are also very high with 45% of adults admitting to beating their children”

Over the next few months, the Children on the Edge Africa team will be building relationships and trust in the Katooke community, and looking to work with the existing Child Protection Committee to ensure that the very best services are given to children.

​Our social worker, Babra, will also be delivering a series of child protection workshops. Click the buttons below to find out more about our work and keep in touch with all that’s going on.
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An uncertain future for Syrian refugees in Lebanon

17/1/2018

 
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Our International Director, Rachel Bentley has just returned from visiting our partners in Lebanon. In  the Bekaa Valley, we support five schools for Syrian refugee children. One is based in a Community Centre in Beirut, and the others are situated throughout a number of informal tented settlements.

Rachel said “This is the best I’ve seen the schools running. The team out there are brilliant and the children are progressing really well. The services at the Beirut Centre for refugees are expertly done, the clothes distribution there is not only efficient; catering for hundreds of families, but it ensures care and dignity. It’s more like a boutique than a handout”.

Despite the schools running so well, the future is looking bleak for the refugee population here. There has been a huge drop in international funding over the last year, and the outlook is uncertain for humanitarian support in 2018.

“I could see the impact of this funding crisis first hand”, said Rachel “There has been a long running psychosocial programme here for traumatised refugee children, it is based out of the Centre in Beirut. The work is funded and implemented by larger international organisations, but while I was there, our partners were told that the funding had been cut. They were only given one day’s notice. This is a dire situation for these children, who are especially in need of consistent care”.


UNCHR stated just last week that Syrian refugees in Lebanon are more vulnerable than ever, with more than half living in extreme poverty and over three quarters living below the poverty line.

Whilst there has been a marginal move amongst the population to return to Syria, this will be a long process, and life there is far from safe at present. Just last week there was a serious explosion in one of the Internally Displaced Camps across the border. “This place was regarded as a safe area” describes Rachel, “People have always been desperate to go home, but events like this are not encouraging any immediate, large scale return”.

Children on the Edge are continuing to support the refugee schools in Lebanon, and have had inspiring feedback from the parents, children and teachers involved. If you’d like to find out more or get involved, just click the buttons below.
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  • DONATE
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