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Three years in the past this week, that’s precisely what a whole lot of 1000’s of traumatized Rohingya needed to do.
I bear in mind watching with horror
photos of Rohingya households fleeing Myanmar, trudging barefoot via rice fields, their lives on their backs, abandoning their houses, their livelihoods, their useless, the associates and family members too previous, too weak, or too overwhelmed, to observe. They reached the border exhausted, injured, traumatized, and in want of pressing care.
Yet at the same time as I write this, I’m conscious that too many refugee tales concentrate on trauma and escape. Too usually in the public consciousness, a refugee is a susceptible, helpless particular person fleeing violence and in determined want of rescue. That is an incomplete telling of the story and additional injustice to its protagonists. While refugees do in actual fact want safety, they’re outlined far much less by their standing as beneficiaries of care than by their unfathomable braveness, resilience, and need for self-reliance.
This is true of each refugee group I’ve visited, be it Syrians or Afghans or South Sudanese, and it’s definitely true of the Rohingya. The Rohingya are a Muslim minority in Myanmar, who regardless of dwelling in the nation for generations, haven’t been afforded the similar rights as its residents and who’ve been
pressured to flee persecution quite a few instances over the years.
From the outset, Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh took essential management roles in the humanitarian response to their very own struggling. With assist from UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and NGO companions, they fashioned a
community-based safety mannequin, giving fellow refugees the alternative to have a measure of management over their very own lives and study new abilities. The mannequin gave company to all members of the Rohingya group.
That was earlier than the coronavirus pandemic struck. The outbreak of Covid-19 has seen an
80% discount of humanitarian staff in the camps. The position of the Rohingya refugee group volunteers has subsequently develop into much more important. As a former doctor, I’m in awe of the refugee group well being staff who’ve rolled up their sleeves and volunteered to satisfy the wants of their group. They have labored collectively to cut back the threat of viral transmission and, given the circumstances, it’s nothing quick of inspiring.
Take 19-year-old Salma, as an example. She is a group well being volunteer in the overcrowded
Kutupalong refugee camp in Bangladesh. More than 600,000 folks dwell in an space of simply 13 sq. kilometers, 5 sq. miles; infrastructure and providers are stretched to their limits.
Before the pandemic, she took half in a cross-generational volunteer program –half of which is comprised of ladies and women- to offer well being assist, together with pre- and post-natal care for ladies and infants in the camp. But in latest months, she has shifted her obligations to the Covid-19 response. Joined by greater than 1,400 others, Salma now promotes hand washing and hygiene. She educates the group on how the virus spreads, find out how to acknowledge signs and search care, in addition to guaranteeing that those that present signs are examined.
Despite the challenges of dwelling in a densely populated refugee camp, Salma and fellow volunteers have made
a lifesaving distinction of their group. By the finish of July, there have been fewer than 100 confirmed Covid-19 instances amongst the Rohingya refugee inhabitants of about 860,000. I discover this very poignant, as a result of it would not take a lot of a leap to see how Salma’s work, midway round the world, is in actual fact essential to the wellbeing and security of my circle of relatives right here in America. For one factor we now have all discovered on this pandemic is that no person is secure from this virus till all of us are.
I’m moved and impressed by the resilience of the Rohingya refugees. They are survivors. They escaped unspeakable horrors, made the lengthy, painful journey to Bangladesh, and overcame the many hardships of life in the camps. They proceed to point out power in sustaining hope and a dedication to going dwelling once more, in opposition to all odds. And now, every day, beneath the shadow of a pandemic, they’re working, main, therapeutic, and difficult our thought of “who a refugee is.”
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