Where there is Hope,There is a home.

People cannot physically settle inside the camps anymore and they’re settling outside at the edge of the camps in land that is totally unsuitable for them to settle in. Areas that is liable to flooding in the rainy season. Areas where it’s very difficult to provide services and safety for them, particularly women. There have been some instances of sexual violence against them.

Kambioos is five Kilometer a way from Hagadera Refugee camp one of the three camps that make up this complex. The Camp is one of the newly opened camps in Dadaab camps

The dadaabcamps.com Team visited Kambioos Camp early Tuesday morning on, 25^th-10-2011 to know live in the camp and how the new arrivals are feeling after they left their homeland (Somalia).

I was given lift by a minibus hired by L.W.F for sixteen Teachers from Hagadera to Kambioos. On my way to Kambioos, I got a chance to have some question with the teachers about the school in the camp. It was sad news to hear an estimate of four thousand students against sixteen Teachers out of these no female teacher. The classrooms are tents without seats, blackboards, water source and latrines let alone a feeding centre. I couldn’t believe all what the teacher was going to channel into my small ears.

We reach L.W.F newly constructed offices in Gadudey near the police station at around seven thirty to pick four to five teachers who were waiting the minibus there.

“We wait the remaining teachers because they can’t make to reach Kambioos” a teacher said

That is not the order I was given later than seven thirty I have to leave” the driver said starting up the minibus.

The road was not sandy as like Hagadera and the road was clear and straight. Because of the Dadaab Rainy season of last week all the trees were green and good for the eyes. My surprise was when I was informed that there is no escort with us. I wander how the security is not a big deal for the incentives or the refugee staffs imagine sixteen teachers without a single escort. “Our mission is to reach children out of school in Kambioos; we don’t have any insecurity so far on the road” spokes person for Teachers Ali Ahmed Aden (Ali Ato).

What a highway! A very constructed, wide highway leading to kambioos. The City of Tents with thorns fenced. We reached the camp safely, Alhamdulillah at around 8:00 am and we were dropped in the school. Faces of hope and new dawn were seen on the faces of the young children who were hungry for education. The school Parent Teachers Association (PTA) was ready in the school for the maintenances the classes and to make sure children are safe in the school before the teachers come because they are the people based in the camp and parents for the children.

 EDUCATION IN KAMBIOOS…………….

In the school I met with Shamso Yussuf ahmed a disable mother with Crutches Sticks bringing her daughter Ikran Mohamed Abdi eight years old.

“I always escort my daughter to the school to make sure she is safe in life, at the same time I have to came back before the lunch to bring her back to home with difficulties, you can see am aged and living with disabilities, I lost my second daughter in Somalia and I was shot on the right leg, now I don’t want to lose my remaining daughter IKRAN, wiping tears of sorrow”

How did you manage to get books and pens for your daughter?

The food we get is our bank. If she needs books or clothes I have to exchange the food with money, so that she feels happy in the world and look the future.

After the school assembly, I asked the acting head master to give me go ahead to have some questions with the students. I was given five minute to finish my interview before the teachers step into the class.

Wonders will never end. I have never ever dreamed to see a 20 years old seating with 4 years old in a class. Woe to those who fall my lovely government in my country and may the Mercy of God may not rest in their heart inshallah.

In standard Two A, I met with Isse Mohamed Noor 20 years Old from Sakow district the middle Jubba region of Somalia he was the oldest in the class.

“I come with my parents in Somalia the only learning we knew was Kur’an because we were pastoralists in Somalia and those who went to school end up on the streets of the towns looking jobs, how can you find a job a country where there is no government.

We left Somalia because of the violence and hunger. In kambioos I decided to attend class to learn without looking the past time. Seating with the children is my only highway to the future.

In standard one, three hundred students in an open tent class no blackboard the teachers use flipchart to write lessons. When you hear a flipchart don’t think this is a modern world where teachers don’t want the dust of the joke. Do you think the last student who seats behind the two hundred and night students can see what is written on the flipchart? And how do you think you can support these children to get a blackboard?

“I teach nine hundred students everyday and all of them are between the age bracket of 3-18. There are not enough teachers who can cover the needy, but inshallah we are expecting from the office to get more teachers soon so that every students to get the lesson as par required”.

After I finish my school I want to be a midwife because currently in our camp there is no midwives, if a mother is in pain she has to be taken five kilometers from our camp which can bring problems to her health and at the same time if she gave birth at the hospital in Hagadera how can we take food and closes to a distance of five kilometers” Fatuma Ibrahim 14 years old.

YOUTH IN KAMBIOOS……………………… 

“Not All dreams come true most of them remain just a dream, may dream was to be a pilot after I finished form four I was planning to go to abroad for further studies. But everything was mass up by some guys who don’t think beyond the gun. When I come to Dadaab refugee camps I decided to look job vacancies and apply, so far I have applied community health program post which was advertised by International Rescue Committee, at the hospital of Kambioos, but my lucky was not there I miss it and now am waiting  another post which I have applied as Gender Based Violence community worker. I hope here is peaceful where all refugees have equal rights. One challenge youth face here is, you can’t go out at night to have some stories with your friends. Besides these, there is no electricity where you can charge your phone, no cinema to watch football or a film is just like a bush.” Said Abdikadir Mohamed 20 years .

I met Anab Abdi Mohamed and Kuresho Ahmed Noor 21 and 20 years old girls respectively at their home and asked to tell me more about the challenges girls are facing here in Kambioos.

Anab: we are just like the children we can’t go outside to look firewood for the family let alone going out at night time. The most challenge girls are facing here in the camp is the tent which has no door and again is a plastic, every night one of them has to be a wake the first half of the night so that she alerts the sleeping girls and she will sleep the remaining hours.

Here the classes are up to standard four. I was in standard eight when I was in my country so I can’t go back to standard four, my mother advice me to go to Hagadera every morning to continue learning but the security is not good, you can be raped on your way to The next camp, so I preferred the saver side.

Have you heard any rap cases in Kambioos since you came here?

“We heard but I have not seen the victim” said Anab.

Here kambioos there is no enough water, sometimes we go as far as Hagadera which is almost Five kilometer away from us to get water.

Kuresho: I won’t mention the issue Anab talk about but mine is all about the hygiene.

In kambioos seven families may be each family consist of 12 persons use one latrine and it is rainy season so you can imagine the problems that can emerge from there.

The NGOs were trying to do some changes in a good time but there were some obstacles.

 BUSINESS IN KAMBIOOS…………………

I heard the sound of knives being sharpened as I was passing near butchery. My attention was attracted to the business field to get a report and bring to you dear readers, what is happening as business in Kambioos.

“It is Kenyan shilling 240 a kilogram of meet, take it or leave it, I wonder this women you don’t even know the dollar crises in the world” the butchery owner shouting to her customers.

After she served the customers she gave us time to get some details before the next customer come to the window.

“in Kambioos there is no market yet in place but we do run such business which is daily based. We get the meet from Hagadera on a donkey cart. Our price is just like  that of  Hagadera thought there is dollar crises in every corner of the world even refugees know it”. Every morning we bring a half of camel meat is brought here and at the evening it is finished.

The challenges we are facing here is, we don’t have slaughter house and the government will not allow us to slaughter the camel or the goats here.

Abdirisack Abdullahi a shopkeeper told dadaabcamps.com that they are not allowed to get trees from the bush to construct a shop like by the government of Kenya and the local community, so they are using the same tent given by UNHCR as a shelter. He also mentioned that all refugees in Kambioos are facing challenges in shelter. It is rainy season on 24^th-octer-2011 we were given food by W.F.P,  but we don’t have a place to keep it from the rain.

 

 PERSONS LIVING WITH DISABILITIES IN KAMBIOOS…………………

“If you need therapy you have to walk a distance of five kilometers, to reach Handicap International Office in Hagadera that the bigger image you can know the challenges faced by us” said Mama Shamsa

We have bedridden parents at home we can’t avoid the buss fee to Hagadera , so we are requesting to get office in Kambioos so that we can have services at the door step.

“Here school is not intergraded persons like me who can’t see have no chance to attend class we don’t have materials to learn like Braille”. Said person living with disability who requested not to be mentioned his name.

Dadaab Rainy season started while refugees at the outskirt are under a tent which can’t prevent them the flooding water. Shelter is the song of the day every family was singing to get shelter and it was a clear picture that they need shelter. Imaging a blind and bedridden person who has no mattress in a flooding area. There is a fear of Water born diseases because children are not allowed to use the latrine because if seven families were told to use one latrine do you think children will get a chance to help them self.

Mohamed Bashir Sheik( Africa)

The voice of Dadaab Refugees.

dadabcamps@gmail.com