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Note from Saylac Reporter
at Somali refugee camp in South Africa
Jun,12,2008
Capetown(Saylac.com)-This has been a hard week
at the Trauma Centre. Monday started off with
reports of mass Somalis suicides at one of the
camps. The media at one point stated that 50
people ran into the water to drown in order to
bring international attention to the situation.
Later reports brought the number down to five,
but no bodies were found so it seems to have
been a publicity stunt. Regardless, it was
unclear for a time and the concept is horrific
enough-reality or no.
This event occurred at Soetwater, the place I
visited the Monday before. I believe I mentioned
that it is on the ocean at what is a public
beach during the summer. There are high hills
right next to the water, besides this small
beach of course, keeping the place very
isolated. Some co-workers and I were discussing
the situation: These displaced people, who have
come to this country to seek refuge, are now
being pushed to the edge- the edge of the
community, of society, of the greater Cape Town
area, and basically, to the edge of the
continent. This thought alone was quite
overwhelming.
You would think that working to ease the
situation, the tension and the trauma, if you
will, would give a sense of purpose to the
situation-making it less crushing to hear.
However, beyond the possible mass suicides, the
community of displaced persons, predominately
the Somalis, have closed Soetwater and were not
allowing any volunteers into the site. So all
the efforts we had made to send volunteer mental
health workers to the site became null in a
moment. This added to the sense of overwhelming
emotions as well as frustration – what on earth
were we doing? So it was a bit of a blue start
to the week.
But there is hope.
There is always hope and something to try. So
efforts became focused on the more local
community sites and perhaps a third or so of the
briefed volunteers (I’d guess 20ish) have been
sent out to other locations or have the
information from us to go out. (All the
volunteers must be briefed in a manner conducive
to the Trauma Centre goals-such as talking about
hope and tip of the iceberg stuff, rather than
deeply rooted past traumas that will take more
than a few visits from volunteers to properly
address.) Considering that we are still unsure
where people are moving too as all those at
Soetwater will be moved to other sites to
relieve the tension, such as Bluewaters or
Harmony Park, I think we are on the right path.
(I find the names ironic as they sound soothing
and are hosting a not so gentle situation.)
Today at work we had a morning meeting which was
a yoga session. It was mostly breathing and
relaxing work in the crowded conference room,
but it was sure a nice way to start the day. The
centre takes very good care of its own. This
reminds me of an interesting concept we are also
working on. It was new to me-but sounds so
obvious. It is called “care for caretakers”
where we focus sessions on the volunteers at the
camps handing out the food, cleaning,
security-everything and anything. The people who
see the hard stuff up front need help to in
order to stay in good mental health to keep
working closely with those in need. So obvious,
right? I find all these mental health basics
very interesting and new.
Besides the internship we have all been busy
paper writing (or finding the best ways to avoid
writing papers). Also, many are getting sick
with consuming colds. I’m trying to stay away
from the sickos, but we are all coughing so I
feel it’s too late. Feeling ok so far, but I’m
sure my day will come.
Somalis in SA refugee camps
Brynne.bannister is Social worker at Somali
Refugee Camp in SA, USA State Department
personal and Saylac.com contributer. |
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