Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without borders) have been staging an event called, "A Refugee Camp in Your City" in different cities in Australia. Friends of ours went to the Brisbane event and gave us advance notice of the event in Canberra.
Part of Glebe Park was sectioned off and MSF had turned it into a replica of a Refugee Camp. We were led through each section of the camp on a guided tour. The lady who took us through had recently returned from Afghanistan, where she had been working in a clinic.
She told us so many areas in war-torn countries are covered in landmines. It is a grim reality.
We saw small tents and dwellings no bigger than our bathroom and were told that often families of 10 or more would sleep in that space.
The people in the camp are so resourceful, making toys. shoes and other things from whatever is at hand. Adam looked at the cars made from vegetable oil cans and said, "Those people are smart, Mummy. Look what they can make! I couldn’t do that."
One of the items that was highlighted was the making of sandals from the tyres of cars. A friend wrote on her blog that she found it humbling to see this. I couldn’t agree more. I certainly feel blessed to have what I do and the vast range of choices that confront me every day.
Interspersed with the tents and items directly used in Refugee Camps were some information posters. The ones below is entitled, "Where will I find food?" and has a picture of a lady, trying to put together a meal in rudimentary circumstances. These photos and the information about the harsh realities of life in other parts of the world brought one girl in our group to tears. Did it mean that the rest weren’t affected? I’m sure they were, though she chose to show it in this visible way.
The photo above shows the food ration that would probably be shared between two people for a whole day. Rice, legumes and other staples are provided by the World Food programme, which is under the auspices of the UN.
We spent a while talking about water. As the picture above shows, most water is collected by women and children in developing parts of the world. In the camps, every person is given a daily ration of 20 litres a day. It looks like quite a bit of water but then we were informed that the average Australian household goes through 282 litres per day per person and we were a bit shocked!!
A few of the children tried to pick up the 20 litre container and carry it. There’s a catalogue in the side bar.
Another part of the work is looking after the health of the refugees. If is all too common for people to arrive in the camps in a malnourished state. Babies are weighed (as you can see from the picture) and a measuring band is used on the upper arm to quickly ascertain whether a child is at risk. A few of our group tried the band and yes, they were all in the green zone.
So we came away with a deeper sense of just how much suffering there is in our world, the lives lived in stress and fractured environments, how blessed we are in our relative comfort and how we need to pray and support those who are reaching out to the needy.
We were given some information to take away with us. We’ll keep talking about this and going through some of the material in the weeks to come.
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