LHI Is There When the Headlines Have Moved On

by Brigid Rowlings, LHI Communications Director

LHI sends shipments of humanitarian aid from our warehouse in Utah to Bangladesh every year.

Have you noticed that Gaza, which is entering its fourth month of bombardment, or Ukraine, which is approaching its two-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion, are no longer as prominent in the news as they once were? Why? Even when humanitarian crises remain, the news cycle moves on.

This is one of the challenging aspects of humanitarian work. Media focus on events like the war in Ukraine, the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza catch our collective attention and prompt us to look for ways to help. But, when the news moves on, often, so do the donations to organizations like LHI. 

 LHI founder and director Hayley Smith visited a Rohingya refugee camp in Bangladesh in 2017.

Journalist Femi Oke recently spoke about this challenge on the NPR news show Here and Now. Her interviews with Rohingya refugees who’d lived in Bangladesh for 30 years revealed the fear of many long-term refugees: the world is forgetting about them. For people who depend almost entirely on humanitarian aid organizations and their donors for necessities like food, water, clothing and shelter, this thought is scary. But, with the global population of long-term refugees rising, the need for humanitarian assistance that leads to self-sufficiency is greater than ever.

While LHI is always poised to meet urgent needs, we have and continue to expand programs that facilitate increased stability and self-sufficiency for refugees along each stage of the refugee journey. These programs include: 

Women at the LHI Community Center in Serres, Greece learn to cut hair. This is a skill the women can use to support themselves and their families when their asylum cases are processed and they are resettled in a new country.

Workforce training and income opportunities

From the language classes and barber trainings that take place at our community center in Serres, Greece to the food-packaging business and aesthetician training happening at the LHI Shelter in Lviv, Ukraine, LHI facilitates programs that prepare refugees for employment in the communities they live in or will resettle in. Our livestock program gives milk goats to Syrian refugees in Jordan who are then able to support their families from the sale of milk and milk products. And, we have a new community center in Lviv, Ukraine that offers an entrepreneurial accelerator program to internally displaced women, most of whom are single mothers because their husbands have been deployed or they’ve been widowed by the war.

Teams of mobile psychologists visit de-occupied villages in Ukraine and lead group therapy sessions for children and adults.

Social-emotional supports

In our programs in Greece, Moldova, and Ukraine, teams provide social emotional support such as sessions with psychologists, yoga classes, and art therapy for people who have experienced the trauma of leaving home behind for an uncertain future. In emergency situations like the earthquakes that hit Turkey in February 2023 and the ongoing crisis in Gaza, we’ve provided mobile psychological support for survivors and aid workers. These programs help refugees begin to heal and have hope for the future.

LHI’s Welcome Program volunteers add special touches to the apartments they set up for refugee families resettling in Utah.

Community Integration

Our Welcome Program alleviates the strain that refugees resettled in Utah feel by providing all of the items on the US resettlement agency’s checklist for homes for new arrivals. This means that refugee families will not have to buy them with the small stipend they receive. But the LHI Welcome team doesn’t just stop at the basic requirements! Our volunteers make up beds with handmade quilts and blankets, bring school supplies, clothing and toys for children, and always leave warm messages of love, support and welcome for families. 

While LHI remains ready to help in emergency situations, helping refugees achieve self-sufficiency and “the good life” is one of LHI’s main priorities. We depend on the support of LHI2G, our team of recurring donors, for a reliable source of funding to keep these programs going. Consider joining the team! No recurring monthly donation is too small. Plus, you will get access to a special behind-the-scenes newsletter exclusively for LHI2G members. Visit our LHI2G page to learn more!

5 MAJOR THREATS ROHINGYA REFUGEE CHILDREN FACE IN BANGLADESH

I have been among the Rohingya for a week, and we have major work to do — especially to keep the children safe.

An estimated 340,000 Rohingya refugee children live in crowded and unsanitary refugee camps in Bangladesh. There are a handful of established child-friendly spaces, but there simply aren’t enough shelters to meet the needs of that many children. Nor are they evenly distributed throughout the sprawling camps. Some have to walk 45 minutes each way to the closest child-friendly space.

On top of that, the staff at these centers end up getting so distracted by emergency projects, such as sourcing safe drinking water and sanitation, that they simply don’t have the time or means to focus on maintaining a safe space and meaningful activities.

There needs to be more official and consistent services for children, who are already facing these threats:

1. SEPARATION FROM PARENTS
Children and parents are often separated, whether it be amidst the confusion of their village burning down in Myanmar, or a child taking the wrong turn in the massive refugee camps and becoming lost, sometimes indefinitely. One of the few services that reunite separated kids with their families is run by a refugee himself, armed only with a table and a loudspeaker. He saw the need wasn’t being met, and he took it upon himself to reunite families. The fact that a refugee had to take this on is an indicator that large orgs need to invest more in child safety and establish more centers throughout the camps.

2. KIDNAPPING/TRAFFICKING
The trafficking scene here is alive and well, and has been since the 1992 genocide saw 300,000 Rohingya flee from Myanmar to Bangladesh. This has given traffickers decades to establish their networks in the camps before this latest exodus of 600,000 Rohingya since August of this year. With no security at the camps, traffickers easily prey upon new arrivals. Literally anyone can just walk in. While there are no official figures on how many children have gone missing, 10,000 refugee children went missing in Europe over the last few years, so we can easily guess that the figure is in the thousands.

3. MALNOURISHMENT
By the time children make it to Bangladesh, they have spent weeks in hiding in the forests of Myanmar, often without any food. They arrive in Bangladesh starving, disorientated, emaciated, and thus more susceptible to disease. There are very few resources to educate families and children about basic sanitation, and even fewer that provide supplemental food until their body weight normalizes.

There are some projects that provide supplemental nutrition. For example, Neezo’s Kitchen is a grassroots project that provides 1,300 warm meals a day for children. 1,300 meals for 340,000 children is a staggering number. There are very few, if any, other projects like this.

4. TRAUMA
Rohingya children have been exposed to high levels of trauma, due to displacement, witnessing atrocities like murder, execution, torture, and rape. Without proper help, the trauma will fester and lead to chronic depression, anxiety, and in some cases, self-harm or suicide. According to Relief Web, “Safe spaces and schools are vital if huge numbers of children fleeing from violence in Myanmar are to recover from their toxic stress.”

5. LACK OF EDUCATION
While this may not seem like an immediate risk, education is one of the most sustainable solutions to trauma and preventable disease. Rohingya aren’t even allowed beyond army checkpoints just outside of the camps, let alone given the opportunity to attend school. The illiteracy rate amongst the Rohyinga is 80%. Most children have never attended school.

We need aid organizations to set up MANY MORE safe spaces for children in the camps, where staff aren't distracted by other projects and can focus on providing safety and education.

Thank you for spreading the word.

Photo credit: Shannon Ashton, who has generously donated her time and photography to the cause.

Sources:
Reuters: Amid the exodus, lone Rohingya children face dangers in camps. 
Time: Rohingya Refugee Children Are in Desperate Need of Aid, the U.N. Says
Reuters: Traffickers prey on lost refugee children in Bangladesh camps
ReliefWeb: Rohingya refugee children need urgent help to deal with their trauma