THE FUTURE FOR REFUGEES

The problem of refugees necessarily calls for analyses that take account of the immediate, intermediate and long-term perspectives in finding solutions. The article by a church refugee worker in Zambia, looks at the whole issue of long term integration of refugees, exploring some of the possibilities and difficulties. Francois Chanterie, S.J., analyses the situation in a refugee camp drawing upon his work experiences and particularly focusing on the importance of education.

LONG-TERM SOLUTIONS

Zambia currently hosts around 250,000 refugees, mainly coming from Angola, D.R. Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Somalia. As civil conflict seems to have become endemic in those countries, the stay of refugees among us can no longer be thought of as temporary asylum waiting for a quick repatriation.

Resettlement in a third country (characteristically a First World country in Europe or America) is not a realistic possibility, given the figures. The only remaining durable solution seems to be the integration of the long-term refugees into the Zambian society. In this article I will examine the current perspectives on integration and propose an alternative that could be more effective, more humane and more Christian.

LONG-TERM REFUGEES IN ZAMBIA

“Long term refugees” can be described as those who have resided in Zambia continuously for more than four years, the time that the Zambian Law requires for calling someone an "established (or permanent) resident". As residence is generally recognised in the Immigration Law of most countries after a period between two and five years of legal stay, the four years of the Zambian Law fit well into the international standards. Though the lack of accurate records makes it difficult to calculate how many of the refugees currently recognised in Zambia have been here for more than four years, some major groups can be easily identified.

In the first place, we find the Angolan refugees that began arriving in our country by the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970s. Since then, we have received an intermittent flow of refugees from Angola, with occasional peaks with each increase in the hostilities. Some of these peaks have just happened during the past year. The Angolan caseload is mainly composed of peasants.

When they came from areas in the border with Zambia, integration actually took place as a spontaneous process as the local chiefs allocated land for them on the base of tribal affinity or old trans-border relations. Smaller in number, a second important group entered in Zambia fleeing the Katanga-Kasai conflict in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo, or DRC) during the early 1990s. Almost simultaneously, the massacres in Rwanda and the eruption of civil war in Burundi pushed more refugees into Zambia.

In 1996 the war started in the eastern part of the DRC, where hundreds of thousands of refugees from Rwanda and from Burundi had sought asylum. The general turmoil and the military encounters of the war brought to Zambia not only Rwandan and Burundian but also Congolese from the different regions affected: eastern parts of the DRC, Kisangani and even Lubumbashi. The fall of Pweto to the Congolese rebels brought to Zambia tens of thousands refugees during last December.

A last relevant group is formed by the Somalis, who have been coming to Zambia in a small but continuous flow as a consequence of the political decomposition of their country. To all these groups we must add their children born in Zambia. These children are registered by the authorities as refugees with the same nationality of their parents. The caseload of refugees from the Great Lakes, either Rwandan, Burundian or Congolese, has the worst perspectives of repatriation. The ethnic character of the conflict and the terrible killings that occurred make it very difficult to foresee a future of safety and stability in the region for this generation.

If the process were to start today, the re-composition of the mutual trust required for peaceful life together would take at least one generation. The peace talks in Burundi, with partial agreements that do not seem able to stop the war, show how difficult the process may be. The repatriation of the Angolans is also difficult to imagine. The territorial division of the country between two armies seems to be giving way to a guerrilla war that can last for a very long time. But at least a political solution would be theoretically possible (as it can be in the general conflict of the DRC).

In the Great Lakes the wounds may be too deep to admit easily a political solution, while the populations involved in or affected by the ethnic cleansing are still alive. On the other hand, the caseloads from Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Somalia have different sociological characteristics from the Angolans. Among the former there are many who were urban dwellers in their countries of origin, including many qualified professionals.

SHORT TERM AND LONG TERM NEEDS

The refugee experience can be understood as a process in the time, where different human needs come up as the previous needs are fulfilled. The challenge is always to rebuild a normal life, so that the trauma of becoming a refugee may be coped with and the person no longer feels like a refugee.

The first immediate need of a refugee is security and protection. Refugees come fleeing persecution or armed conflict. Their first requirement is a place where persecution cannot reach them and conflict does not threaten their tranquillity. This includes the security that they will not be forcibly sent back to the place where they fear for their lives.

All these needs for security are necessary preconditions for starting the process of rebuilding one’s life. If there is no security, as it happened in the then-Zaire in the mid-1990s, the result is a new exodus that multiplies the miseries experienced by the refugee.

Once security is ensured by acceptance in a peaceful country capable of keeping reasonably the rule of law, there are then immediate material needs to cover: food, shelter, water and sanitation, medical assistance, etc. Without these needs being met, the survival of the refugee is still threatened, for they have lost their basic means of living and often they arrive in a very precarious physical condition.

Protection and material assistance for survival is what first comes to our mind when we think of refugee situations. But this should only be in the short term of the refugee experience. The rebuilding of life is still to start. It would be a psycho-social disaster to have people simply living on assistance for years and even decades. Once protection and physical subsistence are secured, a third level of needs comes up: economic self-sustainability. Life in dignity requires refugees to be able to sustain their families out of the fruit of their own work.

This is the way that opens a real future for the refugee when repatriation in safety becomes more and more a remote possibility with the passage of time and the continuation of war. It is not an easy task, as the refugee characteristically has lost the social network that makes economic survival possible for African people in normal conditions.

Economic self-sufficiency is a medium-term need narrowly linked to the longer-term needs of refugees. We could summarise those long-term needs as the need for a future in stability. Trauma can only be left behind if there is something to pursue ahead, genuine possibilities for rebuilding life in a more or less normal fashion.

Some elements of that normality would include: social integration into a stable community, certainty regarding the legal protection of a State, a permanent legal status for you and a nationality for your children, right to own your means of production and the place you dwell in, freedom to develop legitimate activities anywhere in the territory of a nation, perspectives for education of your children and employment when they complete their education.

A set of possibilities of this kind is called a "durable solution" in refugee theory. As we mentioned above, for most refugees in Zambia neither repatriation nor resettlement in a third country are realistic durable solutions in the foreseeable future. Therefore integration into Zambia is the only realistic way to rebuild their lives after years in exile. But is that way actually open?

LIMITED CHANCES FOR INTEGRATION

Regarding the integration of long-term refugees, there are three characteristic situations in Zambia today:

� Refugees spontaneously accepted by the chiefs and integrated in local communities along the borders. These persons usually were living on the other side of the border and have strong traditional links with the host Zambian populations. In fact, they are the refugees that have and that give fewer problems, as they are already perfectly integrated.

� Refugees in settlements, where they can develop a rural life on plots allocated by the Government. Inside the settlement, the life of refugees can take place more or less in normal circumstances. But there are rules that limit drastically the freedom of movement and the freedom to engage in employment or business outside the settlement. These rules operate as an effective segregation mechanism.

� Refugees in town. The key document required for a refugee to reside legally in town is an employment or self-employment permit granted by the Immigration Department. These permits are temporary, highly conditioned and difficult to obtain.

STRINGENT CONDITIONS

The current general policy of the Zambian Government is to place refugees in settlements, no matter how long the duration of their stay in the country or even if they were actually born in Zambia of refugee parents. Authorisation to live in town is exceptional and linked to the proof of capacity to sustain oneself in the formal sector of the economy.

But in a continent like Africa, where most of the urban population survives in the informal economy, this condition poses an almost insurmountable difficulty for refugees, even if they possess the abilities to settle down in urban contexts in normal circumstances. Moreover, the temporary character of the work permits leaves even legal refugees in great insecurity regarding their future, which makes this possibility a solution less than durable. It does not provide the required stability for rebuilding life.

CONVENIENT SOLUTIONS

In summary, Zambia had found a convenient answer in the end of the 1960s for the question of long-staying refugees in the case of those coming from rural areas: converting the refugee camps into refugee settlements via the allocation of plots of land to the refugees. When the refugee caseload in the country was mainly formed of Angolan peasants, this solution worked well. While it was not yet a durable solution in the sense that segregation was the main underlying concept (as opposite to integration), nevertheless it certainly offered a humane solution to a refugee situation thought of as temporary while people were waiting for repatriation.

But this scheme has faced a serious crisis since the beginning of the 1990s. It was then that Zambia started receiving refugees from Zaire, Rwanda and Burundi, many of whom were urban dwellers in their countries of origin. For these persons, being forced to live in rural conditions negates all possibility of rebuilding their lives as a project of the future. Their project of future is an urban one: it includes the participation in the huge effort of incorporation to modernity that has taken millions of Africans from the countryside to the towns and cities.

Life in a rural settlement is experienced as a cultural retrogression by those who had already managed to incorporate themselves into urban life in their countries of origin. In many cases, for example the cases of single women with children or of young refugees born in towns, it is also almost an impossible task. Such people simply lack the basic conditions or abilities for developing life in the rural context of a settlement.

I am offering here the hypothesis that the crisis in the current scheme of treatment of long-term refugees is directly related to the presence of a large population of urban origin. This can be easily proved. Despite the fact that almost 80% of the refugee caseload in Zambia is Angolan, there are only a few hundreds of Angolan refugees now living in towns, most of them legally. Almost no Angolan refugees are found in detention because of breaking the residence and work rules.

As there are no major towns in the areas of Angola from where refugees can reach Zambia, the Angolan caseload is predominantly rural. Consequently, they can easily accept rural life in settlements. But the situation is completely different for Congolese, Rwandan, Burundian and Somalis. This is the problem for which no clear solution has yet been found. The result is the creation of thousands of cases of illegal residence of refugees in cities and towns. The initial tolerance that some might have experienced has given way more recently to very hard repression.

PUNISHMENT

When found by Immigration officers, refugees with no proper papers allowing their residence in town are imprisoned for months, along with common criminals and out of the control of the courts. This situation, even if it can be supported by some sections of the Immigration and Deportation Act, contradicts the position of Zambia as country of asylum responsible for the protection of refugees.

This tough situation occurs to such an extent that many persons who would have genuine claims to be refugees prefer not to present themselves to the authorities in order to avoid the placement in a rural settlement. Thus they fall into the category of "prohibited immigrants." They often try to move irregularly to other countries, like Zimbabwe, where refugees are generally allowed to live in towns.

The illegality generated by the current situation is compounded further by the lack of registration of some refugees and the use of fake documents and/or of the service of trans-border mafias in order to leave the country.

IS THERE A BETTER SOLUTION?

The current policy on Zambia is mainly based on concerns for security and social stability. The presence of hundreds of thousands of refugees moving out of control could certainly create a national security problem. The eventual movement of some more thousands of refugees to towns would worsen the situation of social marginality, could create tensions with the local population in the competition for scarce resources, and maybe would end up in public order problems.

Due to space constraints, I cannot analyse here in detail these very legitimate concerns. Another article could be devoted to this issue. But certainly, the current policy of strict rules and harsh repression to enforce them is not giving the hoped-for results. The number of refugees in towns is not decreasing. At most, the number of refugees legally in towns may be controlled through the numerous obstacles put to settling down in urban areas.

But the current rules are creating a considerable number of new situations of illegality, as they do not manage to account for the human situations of refugees from urban areas who have no realistic expectation of returning to their countries of origin. Surely it would be difficult to say that a policy that finally increases the number of persons in illegal situations of residence, status or documentation serves adequately the national security.

Persons reduced to illegality when trying to find a durable solution to their human problems will always pose a greater security challenge than people whose legitimate aspirations for rebuilding life are taken into account under the law of the land. There could indeed be a better solution, able to answer at the same time (1) to the legitimate aspirations of refugees coming from urban areas and (2) to the national security concerns of the authorities and the Zambian people. This can be summarised in the expression "progressive integration.”

It would consist in broadening progressively the field in which a refugee family can move and develop economic activities, as they stay longer in the country and show ability to participate positively in the life of the Zambian community. Let us suppose that a family has just arrived as refugees from an urban area and is not able to fulfil the current strict conditions for residence in Zambian towns. They could be initially placed in a rural settlement, according to the general policy of the Government.

After a couple of years, the head of the family could be allowed to go out of the settlement for working in urban areas inside the same Province. Two years later, the whole family could be allowed to settle down in any town of the Province. And two years afterwards, the family could gain freedom of movement and employment in the whole country.

After some time in this scheme, let us say the four years stipulated in the Zambian Law, they would be granted the status of permanent residents and they would thus no longer be refugees. All limitations to their lives would have been eliminated in a progressive process of ten years.

RESULTS OF INTEGRATION

The passage from one stage to another would be conditioned upon an excellent civic behaviour, including the fulfilment of the residence and work rules applicable in each stage. Following this way of progressive integration would achieve the following results:

� A horizon of a future in normal living circumstances would have been opened to long-term refugees. They would be able to rebuild their lives in dignity, leaving behind the wounds of the past and removing the uncertainties with regard to the possibility of a stable future.

� This open horizon would encourage them to fulfil the residence and work rules in each stage, as the punishment for violating them would not be imprisonment as it is now, but coming back to the beginning and losing the acquired advantages. The hopes for the future would give refugees a good reason to support temporary bad conditions.

� Long-term needs of refugees would be met by a long-term policy, eliminating the source of the current tensions, which do benefit neither the refugees nor the Zambian society.

� The goodwill of refugees wanting to integrate themselves would be proved enough along ten years. The Zambian society would be sure that permanent residence is being granted to families that have behaved well since they entered the country.

� The security of the Zambian population would be better served by the progressive integration of refugees than by their permanent segregation, since that tends to make refugees an alien body to the Zambian society.

� The professional and entrepreneurial abilities of refugees coming from urban areas would be incorporated into the development of Zambia in a realistic way, different from imposing very strict conditions that very few Africans can fulfil.

� The integrated refugees would not be an additional burden on the public services, as they would be involved with the creation of wealth that pays for the services via the taxes.

� Zambia would increase its prestige in front of the international community as a host country for refugees. The current protection difficulties caused by actions of the State would disappear; the number of refugees passing illegally to other countries and the pressures on UNHCR for resettlement would diminish. Zambia would be able to use this additional prestige in its negotiations for development aid with the donor countries.

THE POSITION OF THE CHURCH

The Catholic Church in Zambia has not yet expressed an official position on the problem of long-term refugee situations. Many pastoral agents contribute to the humanitarian support of refugees, to the defence of their human rights, to their pastoral and psychosocial care. Some Bishops have repeatedly expressed their sympathy towards the plight of refugees in Zambia.

But the image that tends to capture our imagination is the one of recently-arrived refugees with their first humanitarian needs. Outside the groups dealing directly with refugees in urban areas, there is little awareness of the long-term needs of refugees and the deep impact on their lives of the lack of any hopes for future integration. In fact we have in Zambia a permanent population that cannot fulfil such fundamental aspirations as being free to move in the territory of a State, to engage in legitimate economic activities according to their abilities, or to own a house or a piece of land.

Never mind how long they have been in Zambia or how impossible another alternative may be. The same restrictions are applied to them the first day they arrive into Zambia and twenty years later. The same restrictions apply even if the person was born in Zambia of refugee parents and has known no other country in his or her whole life. These facts cannot be completely indifferent to the Christian conscience. If a better possible solution for all parties can be conceived, then it is an obligation of the Church to examine it and to take a position that can be proposed to the Zambian society as a whole.

By hearing a clear voice from their Church on this matter, the Catholic faithful would avoid sharing automatically in the xenophobic points of view that float around the issue of refugees in urban areas. Xenophobia is not only an uncivilised attitude that can lead to considerable violence. It is also a serious sin of injustice that characterises a society separating itself from the Word of God.

Not in vain the Legislator wrote: "There shall be one law, the same for the alien and the native, for I am Yahweh, your God" (Leviticus 24:22). And with power even for today the Prophet commanded:

"You are to share out this land among yourselves, between the tribes of Israel. You are to divide it into inheritances for yourselves and the aliens settled among you who have had children among you, since you are to treat them as citizens of Israel. They are to draw lots with you for their inheritance, with the tribes of Israel. You must give the alien his inheritance in the tribe in which he is living -- it is Yahweh who speaks." (Ezekial 47: 21-23).

Church Refugee Worker

Lusaka

THE POWER OF EDUCATION

This essay is admittedly not exhaustive and many important issues are not even touched on. There is the Geneva Convention (1952) and its regulations regarding the provision of education for refugees that was elaborated by and for the rich western countries during the Cold War. Albeit revised by other conventions, it is still much in evidence in the field in African refugee camps.

Another item for discussion might also be the not always neutral role of the UNHCR in its task of protecting refugees. The policy of UNICEF regarding primary schools for refugee children and the organization of pre-schools in the camps also deserves attention. An accurate analysis of these issues is very difficult for two reasons mainly: the large numbers and great variety of refugees and also the rapidly changing situation in a refugee camp.In spite of these difficulties, an analysis can nevertheless be useful for fieldworkers who want to improve the quality of their work. The following thoughts aim to offer a small contribution.

EDUCATION EXPERIENCES

An experienced educationalist once told me that for many refugees the camp situation offered a real opportunity to study in much better conditions than they had at home. I was surprised by his statement. Considering the tough living conditions in the camp, the lack of any future and the despair of so many refugees such an opinion sounded to me rather cynical and at least questionable.

But after about eight years working with the JRS in different camps for refugees in southern Africa, I fully subscribe to his opinion. It is not cynical at all!

I had the opportunity to organize and monitor the MOLU program (Mozambican Open Learning Unit) in the camps for Mozambican refugees in Malawi during a period of three years. After the return of the Mozambican refugees to their homeland (1995), I was invited by UNESCO to implement the TEP or ''Teachers Emergency Programme'' for the Rwandan refugees in the region of the Great Lakes. This turned into monitoring for the organisation of their secondary schools for one and a half years.

I have spent the last three years in Angola. During the first two years, I organized a whole school network for adolescents and children in the Cazombo region (see JCTR Bulletin No. 45). Later on I was in Luanda setting up primary schools for internally displaced persons and one school for Katangese refugees.

REALITY OF CAMP LIFE

One has to look a little more closely at the socio-economic reality of camp life to understand why formal education for refugees is not only of great importance, but is also a real answer to their needs. It is no obstacle to their eventual return to their country

Once the emergency situation and the massive arrival of thousands and thousands of refugees are over, the camp assumes a sociological identity with its own patterns and rules. This new social configuration modifies the behaviour and the psychology of refugees. It causes a lot of problems for the refugees who are not immediately aware of what has happened and is happening to them.

Camps are huge areas where normally 70,000 people or more are living in tents or huts. Refugees coming from villages and rural sites are not used to living in urban-like agglomerations. Living in anonymity is something new. It takes months before refugees find their place and friends and orientate themselves.

Principally the older people feel lost and many isolate themselves. Many of them become almost apathetic. The tents or huts are merely a shelter against the rain or the sun and are built very close to one another. It becomes difficult to have space to yourself and privacy. In Viana (Angola) each tent was shared by two families. Promiscuity and conflicts are understandable.

The public facilities are designed for common use and are mostly very limited in number so that they become very unpleasant. In Goma (DRC), many adults waited for sunset before taking a shower if there were enough water available.

DEPENDENCE ON OTHERS

Refugees depend totally for food (rice or maize), cooking oil, soap, blankets and clothes on the distribution organized by the UNHCR and its implementing partners in the field such as Care, Concern, Caritas Internationalis, Goal, etc. One can see people with younger children flocking to the distribution points where they have to queue for hours to get their monthly or weekly ration.

Firewood is also a problem, not only for the family but because the huge consumption of firewood has serious ecological repercussions. In Sud Kivu many hectares of forest disappeared in only a few months. Tensions with the local people are inevitable.

Water is not immediately available and its scarcity causes deterioration in hygiene. The total dependency for basic needs over many years risks to affect the psychology and behaviour of the refugees. It threatens their sense of responsibility and many stop thinking and tend to rely completely on others for solving their problems.

The quality of medical care and of the hospital depends on the quality of the NGOs which are organizing it. It is not unusual for drugs not to be available in the hospital. They disappear before reaching their destination and are sold on the “black market”.

BREAKDOWN OF FAMILY PATTERNS

Because of the poor medical care, babies and pregnant women are the most vulnerable group in the camp.

Adolescents are in a vulnerable category too, but for other reasons. For those who come from villages and rural sites the camp experience is very exciting. They have never seen so many people living together. They can meet a lot of new companions, many of the opposite sex.

For adolescents, the camp is like a city and most of them already had a dream of leaving their village for the city. Here they have no occupation and nothing to do but hang around and hope eventually to move out of the camp into the capital or the nearest city of the host country. They are the first to notice and to learn that the traditional family patterns are no longer valid, that the once so safe and stable social configuration of the village does not exist anymore.

In the villages it is the women who are responsible for the food and the firewood. But in the camp it is the man who is registered as the head of the family and who has to go with his ration card to look for food and firewood. The traditional role of the mother is greatly affected. Most of the women are loosing control over what happens in the family and they feel useless and devaluated. Because of what has happened and is happening currently, many of them become depressed.

The fathers are also changing their behaviour. They no longer meet their colleagues in the respectable django but in the bar. Many of them feel threatened by the breakdown of the former strict social control of the village. They are hanging around in the camp without anything to do and without any hope for the future. Alcoholism among adult men is a real problem. That is what the adolescent sees and experiences. In such a situation the principal question and aim for everyone becomes: survival.

WHY PROMOTE EDUCATION IN CAMP?

I have touched briefly on the major problems in the living conditions of a camp to show that the period of exile is a very difficult one, even, at times, a dehumanising one. But it is not unfavourable environment towards learning.

People become sedentary, and do not have a wide choice of activities. In spite of all their difficulties, the camp is a place of relative rest and security. Besides their basic needs of food, shelter and health care, people have three other needs: a need for work or trade, for togetherness, and for a structured life

Different religious groups will meet the need of togetherness; small income generating projects will create opportunities of work and trade; but a school meets these three needs. A school offers work. Not only for tutors, but also for students, it becomes a real workshop for learning. A school that functions well is a place for togetherness. Those who participate organize after-school activities such as football, dances, games, contests etc., according to their own dynamics.

Through its schedule and activities, the school gives a structure to the day as well as to the life of the participants. Hours of work alternate with hours of being together; there are work days and holidays. The school inspires teachers and students and the most important question is no longer how to survive but how to live.

An English course, a tailoring session, an electricity workshop can also occupy people, create an occasion for meeting and being together. But these courses have no power to offer a future. A course generally is a short-term provision.A school means much more. Because of its long-term character, it offers and opens opportunities for the future. Teachers and students begin automatically to speak of and to think about the future.

And that is of an incredible importance, because “future” has to do with the sense of life, with aims and purpose in life, even with sexuality. The school gives structure to daily life and gives young people an occupation so that the question about the length of exile is put aside. Therefore a formal school education is of great importance for refugees.

A simple course often results in many students dropping out along the line. The character of courses is too informal, and as such offers no future. This does not mean that the organization of courses is not useful or that a good course has no positive value.

But it is at this level that there is a significant difference between the organization of a course and the organization of a school. The organization of a course is at the level of temporary aid, while the organization of a school is at the level of structural help and includes dynamics of the future.

EFFECTS OF A ''SCHOOL''

What is of great importance is the motivation of the students. The school organization corresponds to a dream of both teachers and students as well. Teachers want status. Students want to be taken seriously in their willingness to study. Both students and teachers want a real school, with desks and chairs, with pointers and blackboards for the teachers, and with pencil cases and exercise books for the students.

Perhaps war has destroyed their lives to a certain extent, but now by attending school, they show that they are not defeated. They can create the school about which they had dreamed for so long. Many refugees are very aware that they would never have been able to attend a secondary school in their home country. But here in the refugee camps, these sons and daughters of peasants receive the chance to organize the school themselves!

The dream of going to school becomes a reality here in the refugee camp. The quality of the school will improve if students and teachers, given their motivation, have the opportunity to organize the school themselves. A school also has some significant side effects. The poorest of the poor are discovered. One is able to really find out why some students no longer come to school. The real truth can be illness or lack of adequate clothing.

Those in charge can assist these students. The school can distribute medicine for malaria and diarrhoea or treatment for worms. The centre can do some preventive health care. Education for girls can be promoted. Part of the curriculum can be devoted to peace and reconciliation.

WHY ''OPEN LEARNING''?

Camps as I have described them are large conglomerations of people artificially concentrated in a limited space. Therefore they have a specific or even an artificial population pyramid, the basis of which is exceptionally broad. Statistics show that the number of primary school leavers is extremely high. Given the circumstances in which the refugees are living and the very high numbers of children, it is absolutely impossible to provide a conventional secondary education in a traditional setting.

Who would be able to acquire funding for a school the population of which is increasing by 100% each year? Who would be able to build in time and finance properly the infrastructure of a school the population of which is increasing each year on a geometrical scale? Where does someone find the skilled teachers? Who will pay the salaries?

For this reason, it is good to opt for a type of education based on the principles of Distance Education and Open Learning. Such a type of training is at the same time self-directed and assisted with a minimum of infrastructure and teachers but accompanied by the support needed to facilitate a real and efficient manner of learning, this is the best answer in the given circumstances. Naturally the teaching of languages and the practical sessions of sciences have to be given through direct teaching.

The number of teachers can be limited to three or four in each centre: one for sciences, one for maths and one for languages, history and geography. The infrastructure can be limited. It takes almost a month for the community to build three or four classrooms. Three classrooms for group work, a room as a library and a teacher’s room are sufficient, even when about 1000 students are enrolled.

THE FORMAT

A stable chair has four legs, so does a good functioning school have four pillars. There is first of all the community. The community is responsible for the education of its youngsters. The Learning Centre has a community-based character. It is the community that has built the school. The community chooses the teachers. The community leaders monitor on the way the school and teachers function.

The second pillar is the student. Students come to the centre according to their needs and available time, in order to meet the teacher, to receive instructional materials, to consult, if they wish, the mini-library, to study individually or with a group and to take a test when they feel ready. A student can also participate in cultural or sporting activities offered by the centre. The teachers constitute the third pillar. They are enrolled in a programme of on-going training.

The fourth pillar is the education desk of the NGO (in my case the JRS) that organizes training courses and seminars for the teachers, gives an allowance to the teachers, provides the school with didactical materials and administers the testing. The central office corrects the tests and keeps the administration on track, designs a timetable with the schedule of tests and with the lessons to be studied.

DEEPER MEANING

The work in a refugee camp often demands not only a great flexibility but is also stressful because of its unsteadiness. Suddenly, when someone thinks that the aid is well organized and work is running on cross speed, external unpredictable events such as the invasion of troops, bombings or the outbreak of a cholera epidemic oblige to modify, shift or stop the whole work. Does work in such temporary and unsteady situation make any sense or what can be its meaning?

That question is not only often asked by outsiders or friends but arises sometimes among those who are dealing with hopelessness, corruption and suffering which is on the daily menu of a refugee. There are many ways to answer that question. But it can never be answered by sweeping statements.

First of all this remark: I can’t remember that someone asked that question when A. Malraux, E. Hemingway and so many others went to Spain in the 1930s and joined the Popular Liberation Front. Solidarity with oppressed people and active participation in history has a certain sense and relative meaning regardless of its success or failure.

The presence of the JRS will not change the valley of sadness and tears into places of living springs. It surely has its limits. But it can nevertheless have a signal function and can be the expression of faith and hope. Many times I have reflected on Biblical verses: "I have observed the misery of my people ... I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings...” (Exodus 3:7)

The work with refugees does not receive its full meaning if it would be limited to humanitarian aid. The misery of the refugees is so immense that it cannot be wiped out even with the tremendous financial inputs of UNHCR. The meaning of the presence of JRS in a refugee camp goes beyond the offering of social services, advocacy, education and pastoral care. Without discounting the value of these services, something much more important is going on.

Solidarity and brotherhood/sisterhood are not capable of giving a full sense to someone’s engagement. But because human existence is always an existence in encounter, always a “being-with” along with others, the sense of the work has to be sought on this level.

DIALOGUE

Dialogue in Faith is the only way, not only in the vital questions of the political order, but also in all the expressions of our being. Only by virtue of faith does dialogue have power and meaning: by faith in people and in their possibilities. The presence of the JRS is essentially characterized by its dialogical structure. The dialogue is situated on two levels. There is first of all the structural level: the dialogue with institutions to set up a structure for someone’s needs. And there is the dialogue on the personnel level.

An authentic dialogue starts at the moment that someone shows their confidence in the power of growth latent in each person, in their capacity to exercise freedom and act responsibly. A dialogue is the place where the other receives freedom and opportunity to be themselves and is encouraged to express their doubts, sadness, hope and dreams. In an authentic dialogue, there is space and place for protest and anger, for asking questions and for trying to answer them.

The purpose of an authentic dialogue is that the other discovers who they really are and what they want. They become conscious of their value in such a way that he or she discovers or rediscovers the meaning in their own life.

An authentic dialogue fosters self-confidence, self-realization and self-achievement. If someone receives the chance or has the courage to enter that kind of dialogue they recognise that there is a kind of covenant between themselves and the others. Such a dialogue not only institutes a horizontal relationship of empathy. But it also nourishes the small seeds of faith, hope and love left in the hearts of so many traumatized people.

COVENANT

For people who believe in God, this Covenant refers to another greater Covenant, the Covenant of God with humans. The dialogical relationship can create a space where the reality of God's love can come to word and sometimes perhaps can really be celebrated, regardless of whether the refugees are Muslims, Buddhists, Hindu or Christians.

I cannot say that in the different situations I lived in, such a dialogue has always been possible. But there where it happened, it was revealing for me the sense and meaning of the JRS presence among the refugees. The dialogue was revealing that it does not really matter to live in a desperate situation that is sometimes very hard to accept and of which nothing is to be expected. But the more important point is that life is expecting something from us. The mutual dialogue reveals both: the despair and the hope as well. It helps us to start thinking about what can be our contribution to life in a very concrete way, in spite of all the nonsense around us.

And suddenly the material aid, the organization of a school, the literacy course, the distribution of a cup of water or an anti-worm pill, become symbols and expressions of our covenant hope and faith.

Fran�ois Chanterie, S.J.

Arrupe College

Harare

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