ACT Special Feature

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), there were nearly 21 million uprooted people in 2005. This includes refugees living outside their native countries as well as internally displaced persons (IDPs) - people forced from their homes but still living in their country of origin.

This figure reached a 26-year low in 2005, but daily in places across the world, from Darfur to Colombia, from East Timor to Jordan, millions of people struggle with no place to call home. In many of these places, the global alliance Action by Churches Together (ACT) International is responding to their plight. Whether a conflict or natural disaster, from long-term, slow-onset civil wars to sudden earthquakes or floods, in the majority of emergencies, people are often affected by being forced from their homes. Many times this is the main reason ACT members respond to a crisis - when people lose their homes, belongings and many of the essential items they depend on in their daily lives. ACT assists by providing the critical items and services to keep people alive and healthy or accompanying them in their return home and re-settlement in a normal life.

Some examples of ACT's work in assisting displaced people and refugees:

Indonesia

From the December 26, 2004, tsunami to the recent volcanic eruptions that have beset the country, ACT members in Indonesia have been assisting thousands of people forced from their homes in a series of natural disasters. In the days since the powerful May 27 earthquake in the southern part of the island of Java, ACT members have distributed material aid to people whose homes were damaged or destroyed, including food, tents, blankets and hygiene kits and have provided critical medical care.

Pakistan & India

In Pakistan, where a major earthquake struck in October 2005, millions of people in mountainous areas in the northwestern part of the country were forced out of their villages and down the mountains into the valleys. The same held true for around 350,000 people across the border in India. Their homes had been destroyed, and in order to make it through the winter, which was quickly approaching after the quake, they made their way into organized and spontaneous camps where they received shelter and other living assistance. In Pakistan, ACT member Church World Service was heavily involved in several of the larger organized camps, ensuring that residents' hygiene, psychological and other needs were met. Two ACT members in India - Church's Auxiliary for Social Action and the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in India - also provided material assistance to people made homeless and brought medical care to remote villages through mobile clinics.

Northern Uganda

In one of the most under-reported emergencies today, as many as 2 million people have been forced from their homes by violence from the rebel Lord's Resistance Army. Many of the country's IDPs live in makeshift camps where their lives are characterized by their fear and poor conditions. Others have found places to live in existing villages with host families.

ACT members around the world have not forgotten the country’s many displaced people. Through its members in Uganda, the Lutheran World Federation and the Church of Uganda, ACT has assisted people with their basic needs – food staples, household items such as kitchen utensils and blankets, access to clean water, and the means to grow some of their own food. Some students have also received school supplies.

But nobody in this crisis is completely without resources. While ACT members can provide some material assistance, people care for each other, as in the case of Mariam Abdulai (at left in photo above), a resident of the village of Abirichaku. She is allowing a displaced family she did not know to use one of her houses. Her reason? She says the members of the displaced family are human beings just like her who deserve compassion and a basic human need which she can provide – shelter.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Almost four million Congolese have left their homes due to the country's protracted and complex conflict. Many of them have wandered, displaced, around the country and will ultimately have to settle down far away from their original home regions. They lack almost everything: food, shelter, plots to dig, clothing, pots and kettles, seeds and tools.

However, the return of uprooted people and reconstruction is beginning in many places in earnest. The ultimate success of the resettlement depends on how the returnees are being supported at this crucial stage.

Lush and green as they may look, war-ravaged places such as Batiambale in Eastern DRC have been devoid of almost any serious planting activities for years.

While people waited for the first proper harvest, widespread malnourishment still prevails in many areas. Children have received daily rations provided by feeding centers for returnees, supported by the Lutheran World Federation, a member of ACT, and run by the local church agencies. Children are also receiving vaccinations at a health post which was set up with LWF assistance.

Jordan & Iraq

Refugees of the Iraq conflict who were living in a so-called "no-man's land" in the desert areas of Jordan received warm outdoor clothing during a cold winter in early 2005. ACT member Middle East Council of Churches (MECC) distributed winter clothing to children in two refugee camps where it was working. Both camps housed refugees who fled Iraq because of the U.S.-led war on their country. Camp A, 75 kilometers inside Jordan, was hosting mostly Palestinian refugees who were living in Iraq. Camp B, in the no-man’s land on the Jordan-Iraq border, was hosting mostly Iranian Kurds.

MECC staff surprised the children in the camps, who had gathered in a large tent, with the distribution of winter clothing. “The smiles and excitement on their faces while lining up and receiving their new clothes and trying them on on the spot makes one’s heart fill with a mixture of happy and sad feelings,” Wafa F. Goussous, coordinator of the MECC Amman office, said. “They could not wait to go back to their tents to try the clothes on.”

With funding from an ACT appeal, MECC distributed the clothing to 450 children between the ages of one and 18. Each child received a jacket, winter underwear, a winter training suit, and a hat and gloves.

Colombia

Forty years of conflict and a recent economic downturn have led to the deterioration in basic living conditions for many Colombians. A World Food Program study conducted between December 2002 and April 2003 concluded that 80 percent of Colombians displaced by violence live in extreme poverty and lack access to sufficient food.

Among its various ways of responding to this ongoing crisis, ACT members in Colombia have provided children with psychosocial services. Children have not only had to deal with the impact of being forcibly displaced, but also the many consequences of displacement, which affected their social and psychological development, given the levels of violence often starting at home, but also endemic in the broader communities.

Some children in the municipality of Soacha in the sector of Ciudadela Sucre on the southern edge of Bogota, and in El Portal del Oasis, a neighbourhood of Ibague, have expressed their feelings and experiences in drawings and stories that were compiled into a booklet that was published by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Colombia (IELCO) and The Lutheran World Federation. See excerpts from the booklet below.

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