Self-Help Initiative for Sustainable Development

SHIFSD educators, Buduburam leaders and former child soldiers have all recently benefited from a series of conflict resolution workshops conducted by SHIFSD volunteer and graduate student Lisa Abregu.

Lisa is a graduate student from the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, studying International Studies with a focus in conflict resolution. Her workshops employ frontal lectures, discussions and role-play exercises to analyze conflict and the ways in which it can be understood, managed and transformed.

Three workshops have been conducted thus far, for SHIFSD staff members, Buduburam NGO leaders from “One Society,” and members of the Veteran Child Soldiers Association of Liberia (VECSAOL). She has two more workshops in her future at Buduburam – one for the participants of SHIFSD’s Adult Literacy program, and the last for Women of Glory, a women’s vocational school.

Lisa came to work in Buduburam upon the recommendation of former SHIFSD volunteer Rebecca O’Donnell, who she met while traveling in New Zealand. Upon arrival, it became immediately clear how crucial her role here is. Regarding the need for refugees to deal with conflict, Lisa says, “They have grown up in a conflict, they are here because of conflict, they can’t go back because of conflict. Everything in their lives is entrenched in conflict.”

High rates of domestic abuse, drug and alcohol abuse and depression are major signs of internalized conflict that go unaddressed at Buduburam, because no counseling whatsoever is available to the refugee population, which has been battered by more than 15 years of brutal civil war. A sense of victimization and defeatism also plagues the community, Lisa points out, which creates a form of inner conflict that prevents many Buduburam refugees from working to release themselves from cycles of poverty - both material and emotional.

This realization caused Lisa to readjust her workshop to address internal conflict as well as external, and the success has been resounding. Participants across the demographic spectrum have left the workshops visibly invigorated. Word of the conflict has spread, and additional groups have come forth asking her to demonstrate the same lessons to them. Even unattached bystanders to any organization found themselves learning. One gentleman named Boyd wandered into one of the workshops out of mere curiosity – and ended up staying for the full seven hours. Upon leaving, his one complaint was that it was too short.

Lisa’s eyes light up when she recounts the thanks she has been given from the participants. “People have been really really pleased to have an outlet to express themselves, happy to have someone explain all the facets of conflict, and excited to learn how to listen and be listened to… I never expected to have people tell me that I changed their lives,” she says.

The success of the workshops has traveled all the way to the United Nations. A UN employee who works with an NGO on camp, has asked Lisa to hold off on returning to Australia in order to help solve some conflicts within that NGO. She has agreed. And with a bit of luck, some new conflicts will come her way and keep her here longer.

In an effort to improve student performance and encourage enrollment, SHIFSD is launching its new School Lunch Program, with the generous assistance of Africa Aid-USA. The primary beneficiaries of this exciting and sustainable program will be the schoolchildren in SHIFSD’s Accelerated Learning Program (ALP), the only completely free primary school on Buduburam Refugee Settlement.

ALP schoolchildren, as a whole, come from extremely needy refugee families, many of which cannot afford to feed their children regularly or adequately. As a result, the performance of the children in school suffers, as does their attendance rate. The ALP functions to provide primary education within three years instead of six, to support the integration of its graduates into a formal school system. Students who regularly cut classes due to inattention stemming from hunger risk their entire academic future.

Both SHIFSD and Africa Aid will closely monitor the School Lunch Program for effectiveness and nutritional benefits. Balanced meals will be prioritized, in an effort to contribute to the general fitness of the children and, more specifically, to the ALP’s student retention and attendance rates.

The food will be prepared in SHIFSD’s own kitchen, which is being constructed specifically for the project. The organization initially considered teaming with a neighbor school to provide lunch for its students. However, upon further consideration, both SHIFSD and Africa Aid came to the conclusion that it would be more valuable to increase the capacity and sustainability of SHIFSD and the ALP with its own kitchen. In this manner, greater control over the nutritional value of the meals will be exercised. Additionally, SHIFSD will hire mothers of ALP children (including participants of its own Adult Literacy Program) to work as cooks and servers, thereby providing them much-needed employment, while contributing to a greater sense of community.

The primary purpose of the School Lunch Program is simple: to feed ALP children. However, the program has been designed to maximize sustainability on all fronts. The ALP as a whole will benefit by becoming a more optimal learning environment. With its own kitchen, SHIFSD can monitor the program more effectively and increase its capacity for future programs. And no less significant is the role of the mothers in providing the food, thereby generating their own income while offering a hand in the education of their children.

Twenty-five Liberian refugee-run groups on Buduburam Refugee Settlement have joined together to form “One Society,” a coalition of community-based organizations and non-governmental organizations.

One Society came together in the face of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) continuous severance of aid to Liberian refugees. By pooling together resources and minds, community leaders believed, they could combat widening gaps in camp services, caused by UNHCR’s gradual withdrawal.

The organization emerged from three years of discussion among Children’s Better Way (CBW), SHIFSD and the Movement for the Promotion of Gender Equality in Liberia (MOPGEL). The idea came to fruition in late 2006 when a Canadian university announced its intention to construct a resource center for organizations on camp.

With the encouragement of the Camp Manager, a Ghanaian government representative, the project was launched, with CBW Executive Director Semeh Roberts serving as the head, and SHIFSD Director Jeremiah Burgess working as his deputy. The seven-member secretariat meets on a weekly basis, and the entire body monthly.

One Society members will work together to enhance capacity-building ventures, leadership training workshops, volunteer placement and fundraising. By centralizing these efforts, the broader Buduburam community will benefit from each organization’s achievements, “in fulfillment of the quest for sustainable development, social justice and organizational support,” reads the coalition’s Memorandum of Understanding.

With organizations clamoring to join the new effort, membership criteria will need to be streamlined, to maximize the credibility of the coalition. According to a preliminary draft of the coalition’s aims, “One Society’s aim primarily is to serve as a channel to strengthen the capacity of member organizations as well as to monitor activities, uphold accountability, honesty and transparency within the network for the benefit of target beneficiaries.” constitution is currently being drafted to set guidelines for membership.

SHIFSD’s efforts do not exist in a vacuum, and must be examined against the backdrop of current regional developments. These circumstances greatly impact Liberian refugees - SHIFSD’s core constituency - and SHIFSD must carve a relevant role for itself in relation to these forces of change.

Much attention has recently been given to reconstruction efforts in Liberia. Beginning in 2004, the UNHCR launched a rigorous effort to promote the voluntary repatriation of the approximately 250,000 Liberian refugees scattered across the region. However, only 70,000 refugees have returned to Liberia under the Voluntary Repatriation Scheme. In an effort to understand the factors preventing refugees from returning home, the Foundation for Security and Development in Africa (FOSDA) conducted two focus group discussions in March 2006 at Buduburam Refugee Settlement, home to more than 40,000 Liberian refugees.

The participants in the focus group raised a number of concerns regarding repatriation. The UNHCR claims unequivocally that Liberia is safe and that employment opportunities abound. However, 85% of the Liberian population is unemployed, and that number is growing. Figures indicate that levels of extreme poverty and hunger continue to rise.

Security and infrastructure are also major concerns among a population that escaped from more than 15 years of brutal fighting. Refugees have received word of violent incidents and looming tension around the country. There also exist doubts regarding the inability of Liberian infrastructure to absorb returning refugees, particularly as it pertains to education, safe drinking water and health care.

While life as a refugee on Buduburam is rife with poverty and hardships, many of the residents have lived here since the early 1990s. Some hardly remember Liberia, others were born here and many have no relatives or homes to return to. They have invested in schools, churches and small businesses, and there is access to health care, albeit inadequate. The repatriation scheme does not include compensation for those investments.

While refugees are aware that UNHCR has indicated that it will step up its gradual withdrawal of services in June 2007, the Buduburam community is here to stay, certainly for the foreseeable future. Many refugees have indicated their intention to stay in Ghana and others have too many reservations to do so under the current repatriation scheme.

To that end, SHIFSD firmly believes in strengthening the refugees in Buduburam to increase self-sufficiency among those who will continue to live in Ghana and those who wish to return but feel ill-equipped to do so. According to the FOSDA study, “the bad experiences of the war make it almost impossible for some of [the refugees] to contemplate returning home without training, a place to lay their heads, financial resources and other necessities. Providing education and training will result in a community of individuals that can be integrated into whichever society they choose to call home. More poignantly, they can return to Liberia able to offer a hand in reconstruction efforts, instead of exacerbating a population of idle, impoverished and unemployed citizens. SHIFSD designs its programs to benefit not only the individuals in question, but also the future and stability of Liberia and the entire region.

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