#ShareTheJourney – Covering the Cracks in the System
In a dangerous world, some people are at the very limits of safety. No matter how well intentioned all of those working with refugees, some who flee persecution at home, find themselves still in truly perilous living conditions where survival is an hour by hour consideration.
Sasha Chanoff co-founded RefugePoint (and serves as its executive director) specifically to have the freedom to continually work creatively only with those at the very limits of vulnerability. Sasha had worked extensively Sudanese Lost Boys, Somali Bantus, Congolese Tutsis-at-risk, Liberians, Sierra Leonians and other groups. After two decades in refugee rescue, relief and resettlement operations in Africa and the United States, he found that there were always some people outside the bounds of solutions being offered by traditional means. He started the non-profit to not just identify and protect refugees who have fallen through the cracks of humanitarian assistance, but to move them as quickly as possible to stabilization and self-sufficiency. They offer counseling sessions as well as a medical clinic as part of the work of stabilization.
Aiming for Self Reliance
For the majority of clients, the goal is to assist them in working toward earning enough money to care for their basic needs while providing for increased safety. This means offering a food program that provides 75% of calories they need (more for children 5 and under in the family) and grants which assist with housing that start at 100%, back down to 50% after a few months and then go away. Non-food items such as mattresses and a simple stove and pots, and similar items help establish a new household. All children eligible start primary school, which is free in Kenya for all kids resident in the country no matter their status. RefugePoint assist with uniforms and books to make this education open to all in their program.
The emphasis is always the client’s goals so that social workers assist clients in creating their own case plans. To assist in this, home visits are always a part of intake of cases to determine the real needs. As refugees have social systems which are broken down, counseling is done in groups sharing the same language and culture. Trauma counseling is the main issue and the sessions give refugees room to talk while learning stress and anger management techniques. This work happening with those from their own culture assists clients in creating their own networks of support with others in the program.
“When it is dark, you do not know when the light is coming.”
-Zewditu
Two Amazing Women
Visiting RefugePoint’s Nairobi office this week, we met two women who exemplify the work of the innovative team Sasha has gathered for the work—Zewditu and Kaltun.
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Now she is a successful small business woman whose children are now in school with improved prospects. Marveling at the reversal of fortune, she said, “My kids can even take a taxi to school and I never dreamed of this.”
Kaltun (pictured at left) is a diminutive Somali who doesn’t look old enough to have lived as a refugee in Nairobi for 24 years. Yet she shoulders an important work load as one of three Community Health Volunteers who go door to door where western aid workers rightfully fear to tread. Her work takes her into the homes of the urban refugees in the dangerous Easterly neighborhood. There her fellow Somalis face routine round up and threat of arrest from police, usually getting out of the system through bribes. They also face shake downs from the gang Superpower, among others. They prey on the at risk people in the community. Into this dangerous terrain, Kaltun takes medical services including education on diabetes, delivery of prescriptions to those who can’t afford losing a day of work to negotiate Nairobi’s infamous traffic to pick them up in person. Beyond this, she can be the eyes and ears of RefugePoint to discover new needs in her community.
The Most Vulnerable
This glimpse into their Urban Refugee Protection Program including stories of just how life-saving their interventions have been for the most vulnerable urban refugees. Most amazing is how the team works to quickly stabilize at risk persons as they work not toward dependence on aid from the outside, but a concrete plan towards true self-reliance.
To read a few more brief examples of their inspiring work, visit www.refugepoint.org/stories/.
You can also hear Sasha tell the story of what led to the founding of RefugePoint at themoth.org
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