As
The Gambia joined the global community on 20 June in commemorating World
Refugee Day, it is important to highlight the plight of about 8,000 refugees
living in the country.
Refugees
are not just illegal or ordinary migrants; they are people who fled their
countries of birth or residence due to war, persecution and violence. No one becomes a refugee by choice; in
essence it was circumstance that led these people to leave their countries and
sought refuge here some years ago.
The
majority of these refugees are faced with enormous challenges ranging from
livelihood, health, social protection and so forth after departing their
countries of origin in emergency situations.
Therefore,
as WRD 2017 is commemorated on the theme ‘We stand together #WithRefugees’, it
is important for us to reaffirm our support and renew our commitment to the
welfare of refugees by offering them a safe haven, and welcome them in our
schools, our workplaces and open our societies in general to them.
It
is important that they are provided with humanitarian assistance in order to
reduce their vulnerability and improve their socio-economic status as they
continue to live in The Gambia.
Their
host communities need to be provided with some form of supporters geared
towards redressing some of the possible stress placed on the available social
amenities partly due to influx of refugees in these communities.
It
is crucial to fashion out a sort of self-reliance and livelihood strategy that
is refugee-host driven based on their needs. But such strategy should recognise the self-reliance and dignity of the
refugees.
The
refugees and the host communities need support to be able to embark on
improvement of education facilities for host and refugee children residing in
the rural areas; provision of water supply for both domestic and vegetable
garden; agricultural and horticultural input support; cash vouchers, startup
kits and vocational assistance to support livelihood activities to enhance
economic empowerment and self-reliance, and sexual and gender-based violence
and human rights training and sensitisation activities.
These
would help the refugees to live a dignified life and be self-reliant to take
care of their needs and those of their other family member’s while they
continue to stay in our country.
As
we stand together #WithRefugees, we hereby urge stakeholders to ensure that
every refugee child gets an education, ensure that every refugee family has
somewhere safe to live, and ensure that every refugee can work or learn new
skills to support their families.
“It
is important that they are provided with humanitarian assistance in order to
reduce their vulnerability and improve their socio-economic status .”
The
Point
