Rohingya refugee children find new ways to connect beyond the camps

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Through both printed and digital child- led publications, Children on the Edge are working to ensure Rohingya refugee children have a voice.

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​“Nobody knows about us” has been a frequent remark coming from discussions with many of the 7,500 children we support in the Kutupalong camp, Bangladesh.

Background

Long described as the world's most persecuted minority, the UN Advisory Commission now say that the Rohingya people ‘constitute the single biggest stateless community in the world’. 

Over the past two decades, unrelenting persecution has forced more than a million Rohingya across the border into neighbouring Bangladesh. In August 2017 more than 745,000 people fled calculated, genocidal attacks by the Myanmar military, and now live in densely populated refugee camps along the border. 

With a current estimate of nearly 902,000 Rohingya people in this area, 55% of which are children, it is no surprise they feel they have no recognition in the sprawling miles of makeshift shelters. ​​

Children on the Edge had been working with Rohingya refugee children here for eight years before the current crisis escalated. Initially providing low-profile education for 2,700 children, then expanding to meet the needs of 7,500 children after the influx, they have always focussed their efforts on ensuring education is child-friendly, rights-based and community-led. 

Consequently, self expression for children is a high priority and is achieved partly through a curriculum which encourages expression through dance, song, poetry, art and learning about child rights. In addition to this, each of the 75 Learning Centres has a Child Council who meet regularly to express their opinions and represent the views of their friends. 
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CHILDREN'S NEWSLETTERS

Child Councils also pull together a child-led quarterly printed publication, bursting with drawings, poems, stories and thoughts from the children they represent.

​Children’s newsletters have been successfully facilitated for nine years by Children on the Edge and Mukti with slum dwelling children in neighbouring Cox’s Bazar, but this year has seen the first ever publication in the Kutupalong camp. 

​“The newsletter has generated a great deal of excitement within the camp and has encouraged the children’s creativity and feeling of ownership of the schools”.

S.M Tanvir  - Mukti Project Officer 

​Children from across all the Centres submit their drawings, poems and stories, then pieces are selected by the Child Councils. Once compiled and designed, the newsletter is published and distributed on a quarterly basis throughout the camps, local networks and government departments. ​​​

DIGITAL NEWS

Building on this concept and going beyond the limits of print, Children on the Edge are working towards the pioneering of a digitally-based system of education and content production in the classrooms. This serves not only to deliver the curriculum in a creative way, but uses technology to enable the children to create their own video newsletters to share both across the camp schools and to children attending sister schools in Cox’s Bazar slums and Doharazi Rohingya enclaves. ​

Rohingya children creating a news report from their area of the camp.

“The initial response of the students to the introduction of digital content has been overwhelmingly positive, and children have already started experimenting with producing their own videos. It’s an entirely new way for them to learn, have a voice and connect with the world outside of the refugee camps and slums”.

​John Littleton 
Asia Regional Manager 

The hope is that these methods will be expanded to the other projects in Cox’s Bazar and Doharazi over the next year, so that videos can be exchanged between all children across the schools.

​John describes how the programme will “allow children from both communities to share their ideas, thoughts, and creative endeavours. With greater time and investment, children in these communities will be able to exchange digital content they produce with other children facing challenges across the globe”.

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