Interests match for local, refugee children in the west

Greater attention needs to be paid to children's issues, especially investment in and development of educational opportunities, the fight against HIV/AIDS and malnutrition, and the protection of children's rights, according to children in western Tanzania. Tanzanian children from the district of Kibondo and their Burundian counterparts from five refugee camps in the area came together on Sunday 16 June not only to celebrate the Day of the African Child but also to air their views on the main issues hampering children's development and how these should be tackled. The children's barazas (Kiswahili for fora) were intended to give children an opportunity to discuss their welfare and, while the celebrations were colourful and flamboyant - with dancing, drumming and singing - the message was strong: not enough people were listening to children to hear what their real problems were, nor were enough serious efforts being made to resolve these problems. Samuel Miherugwa, chairman of the children's council of 50 representatives in the border village of Mugunzu, told Kibondo local representatives, parents and aid workers that the children of the area were suffering as a result of HIV/AIDS, alcoholism, lack of investment in and commitment to education, and poor access to health facilities. While calling on the Tanzanian government, development organisations and the international community to act on these issues, the children also explained how they could play their part in improving their lot. "We will try and contribute to our development through good behaviour, maintaining our schools as much as we can and helping spread the message about problems such as HIV/AIDS in the villages, where there is little knowledge of the disease," Miherugwa told the crowd. Similar issues and concerns were echoed by the children's councils from the camps for Burundian refugees in Kibondo. However, the primary focus of children in the camps was very much on the quest for peace in their country - as was the case in Nduta refugee camp, where there are some 12,000 children attending primary school. "We need peace, because this war has killed many innocent children," said Leadre Nimbona, a 16-year-old Burundian living in Nduta camp. "Despite not having done anything wrong, many of us that were born here in the camps have never been able to go home. We call on the leaders to make an effort to resolve this problem so we can go home." In Tanzania as a whole, some 56 percent of the 510,000 refugees of concern to the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (there are also some 170,00 "old caseload" refugees in Tanzania whom it does not assist) are under 18 years of age, according to the refugee agency's statistics. This gives some indication of the scale of children's issues to be addressed among the refugee population alone. In the four camps in Kibondo - 1,400 km northwest of Tanzania's main urban centre, Dar es Salaam - about 61 percent of the refugee population is under age 18. Nduta holds about 48,000 refugees, with about one-quarter of them four years of age or under and some 57 percent under 18 years. Kibondo District is home to almost 150,000 refugees (mostly from Burundi, but with some from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo) in four refugee camps at Kanembwa, Mtendeli, Nduta and Karago, according to the UNHCR. There have been some developments in children's issues in Kibondo over the last few years - at least partly due to the refugee numbers in the district, according to aid workers. Helen Macha, the executive director of the district, said enrolment for grade 1 in primary schools in the district had risen from 4,800 (representing about 30 percent of the eligible children) in 1998 to 13,704 (88 percent of children) in 2002, while an extra 27 primary schools had also been built in the area. A house-to-house campaign telling parents of the benefits of education, and the use of by-laws linked to education to enforce school attendance, has seen attendance at primary schools rise initially and then stabilise at a higher level, according to teachers. Macha said that (global) malnutrition among children in the district had fallen from 10 percent three years ago to 1.2 percent now in two of the district's best performing divisions - as a result of some development projects in the area - and that child immunisation programmes were also proving to be highly effective. Within the refugee camps, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) believes that children's status is generally good, in terms of key indicators for health, nutrition and educational status. Though there is pressure on many of the services, children do, as a rule, have access to primary education, with UNICEF figures showing enrolment to be as high as 90 percent. Health services are easier to implement in areas with proximity to the refugees than in other parts, according to humanitarian sources. There is close monitoring of maternity care, immunisation programmes attain 99 percent coverage, and additional micronutrients can be given to pregnant mothers and children, they added. Despite these positive developments, the children's councils maintained that many students risked being left behind, in terms of development, because there were still many parents who were reluctant to support children attending school, and because the level of teaching in schools was often unsatisfactory. Added to this, they said, "risk behaviour" was leaving thousands of children orphaned by HIV/AIDS, and children in war-torn countries such as Burundi were continually innocent victims of war. However, the key message that Tanzanian and Burundian children alike wished to pass on was that it was time that parents, elders and decision-makers took more time to consider what children themselves considered to be their problems, and listened to some of their ideas of how these might be solved. Dismissing the issue of the potential conflict between differing levels of care given to refugee children and Tanzanians living in refugee-affected areas, Happiness Robert, secretary of the Mugunzu children's council, said she saw common issues and challenges. "We have no problems with the refugee children," Robert said. "All children are the same; we are all children of Africa and, as the problems such as war, poverty and mismanagement are with the leaders and elders, they should help solve them." "We have a right to be listened to and not just ignored because we are young," she added.