A better home in the camp for Jannatul
Four-year-old Jannatul naps soundly in her mother’s lap, her small face serene, carefree.
“I’m thankful that she doesn’t have nightmares after all she has seen,” says Salima, 25, Jannatul’s mother. “She doesn’t talk about it, but I know she remembers.”
This young mother and daughter only have each other now. Salima’s husband, Mohammed, and two of the couple’s children were murdered last September in Myanmar as wide-spread violence erupted following clashes between the military and insurgents.
"The shooting started at night. Our homes were set on fire and burned to the ground. People were running everywhere," recalls Salima, her dark eyes downcast. “Jannatul was with me, but I didn’t know what had happened to my husband and my children. Later I saw them dead.” Mohamed, 30, was shot; their son, Hafej, 2, and one-year-old daughter, Kalima, stabbed to death.
Clinging to Jannatul, Salima hid by a riverbank. At dawn, they joined thousands of fellow villagers fleeing to safety in neighbouring Bangladesh.
“We walked for a week in the rain, and for three days we didn’t eat,” says Salima. “Jannatul was about to die when another family shared some rice with us. We were thankful. We saw so many people dying or dead on the roadside.”
Crossing the Naf River, Salima and Jannatul landed in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh—now home to what has become the world’s largest, most densely populated refugee camp. Today, an estimated 915,000 people subsist in squalid, overcrowded conditions in this sprawling makeshift city.
Life is harsh for Salima and Jannatul, who have lived in the camp for nine months. As a young widow, Salima worries about protecting herself and her daughter. Lack of access to basic services and self-reliance opportunities exposes refugees—especially women and adolescent girls—to the protection and potentially harmful coping mechanisms such as trafficking, exploitation, survival sex, child marriage, and drug abuse.
“I have no one to protect us so I cannot let myself feel afraid. It’s like the world has fallen in on my head,” says Salima, fighting back tears. “I feel helpless. I pass the days with my grief.”
World Vision began working in the camps last year even as refugees poured across the border. Today, we are providing life-saving assistance to families like Salima and Jannatul, including access to clean water, supplementary food, and much needed daily hygiene items. We also run nine child-friendly spaces where children can play, learn and begin to recover together.
Jannatul recently started attending a child-friendly space near her home in Camp 13. Some 45,000 people live in this camp, which is coordinated by World Vision working alongside other NGOs and UN agencies.
Up to 2,000 children on average attend World Vision’s child-friendly spaces each week. At the centre, Jannatul enjoys looking at picture books and drawing. “At home, we ate mangoes and jackfruit. I miss those,” she says timidly.
Salima appreciates that her daughter has a safe place to play. “I just want a stable place for Jannatul to be. Sometimes I am afraid to let her out of my sight. She is my only hope for the future.”
Salima and Jannatul survived what international governments are calling an ethnic genocide. But now they face an impending catastrophe as Bangladesh’s monsoon and cyclone season approaches.
More than 200,000 refugees in the camps face direct danger from landslides, floods and intense winds that may collapse their homes. Children will be particularly at risk of injury and water-borne diseases such as diarrhea and cholera.
Heavy rains have already begun this month, and World Vision is racing against the clock to help mitigate disaster. To help families reinforce their makeshift, dilapidated shelters, World Vision has distributed upgrade kits (60 bamboo poles, tarps, rope and tools) to 49,200 refugees, including Salima and Jannatul.
In addition to the shelter kit materials, each group of 10 refugee families receive construction training from skilled carpenters provided by World Vision. The tradesmen also repair the shelters of households headed by single mothers.
“Our house was in very bad shape before,” says Salima, “I covered the roof with the cloth to try and keep the rain out. During one storm, I was afraid it was going to fly off. It’s so much better now.” She points out the tin roof and battened down with ropes to a sturdy bamboo frame insulated with plastic tarp.
Jannatul helps her mother sweep the concrete floor of their two-room, newly-renovated shelter. It’s far from the farm and the family they lost in Myanmar, but for now, it’s a place to call home.
“In Myanmar, we had a garden and cattle,” says Salima wistfully. “I spent my days caring for them. Here I have nothing to do except cook for my daughter and queue up for supplies from NGOs. We would happily go back if we could be sure there would be peace.”
Story by: Kari Costanza
Photos by: Himaloy Joseph Mree, Communications Officer
FAST FACTS: MONSOON PREPARATION
World Vision has done extensive work to help prepare the 10, 280 households in Camp 13 for coming storms, and families in other areas as well.
Cash-for-work Construction
• Teams for refugees are hired in weekly rotations for construction projects, providing them with much-needed income. Bamboo bridges across the camp have been reinforced and sandbag staircases on the steep slippery hillsides bolstered. Kilometres of the road has been paved with bricks to enable food and other supplies to access the camps during the rains.
Shelter
• 9,840 families (49,200 people) received shelter upgrade kits.
Water, Sanitation and Hygiene
• The 54 deep-tube wells installed by World Vision have been inspected to make sure that contaminated flood water will not seep into them, and that families will have continued access to clean water.
• World Vision’s 1,300 latrines are being cleaned and de-sludged (or decommissioned as required) to prevent overflowing during the rains.
• 99,000 packages of chlorine tablets have been distributed.
• 5,000 hygiene kits have been distributed.
Child Protection
• Children attending child-friendly spaces have learned about safety measures during landslides and floods.
• Children in World Vision child-friendly spaces will receive waterproof tracking bracelets with their name, age and families’ location in the camp to help ensure that lost or unaccompanied children are quickly reunited with family during the monsoons.
• 36 CFS facilitators were trained in mental health and psycho-social care for children.
Food Security
• In partnership with the World Food Programme, World Vision will provide blanket supplementary and therapeutic feeding to prevent and treat moderate acute malnutrition, benefitting more than 14,000 children and 4,500 pregnant and lactating women.
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