Collaboration Works - touring the refugee camps around Boa Vista (Monday 30th)

(Some of the women in the indigenous refugee camps continue to create their baskets and jewelry to sell in local markets. The colors in this basket come from onions, grapes and rusted nails.)

On Monday we had the opportunity to visit various camps around Boa Vista and learn how the Brazilian government and relief NGOs (non-governmental organizations) collaborated to care for the people living as refugees.

Some members of the group who saw the situation in Spring 2018 said the situation looked so much better now. When the team arrived years ago, many of the 3,000 refugees that flooded the city camped out in a central park area - no running water, no bathroom facilities, no cooking facilities. Further, no security measures existed to keep the people safe from nefarious people trying to exploit and traffic them.

And while various church groups would bring food to different parts of the park to try to help with food, the infrastructure of the town was bearing an incredible burden.

On Monday morning we met with a Colonel in the Army tasked with overseeing the camps and the country’s refugee response. He explained how Brazil wants to help both her own people and the refugees. Brazil wants to prevent the infrastructure in the areas in the north of the country from collapsing because they bear most of the weight of the refugee crisis.

(As I type I realize I can get into a lot of details that may go beyond the scope of this blog. I’d love to talk about it more, though, so please feel free to reach out to hear more.) And, in another post I’ll write about the efforts at the border with Venezuela in Pacarajma about the intake of people.

Briefly, We saw cooperation and partnership between the NGOs, churches, and military. Because the military knows how to house, feed, and move thousands of people, Brazil tasked them with assisting aid organizations and churches. They set up camps by: digging wells; setting up tents (supplied by the UN) with space in between for sanitary conditions; supply toilets and showers in converted 20-foot shipping containers; and they provide cooking, washing, cleaning areas. They also provide access to medical care - doctors, nurses, medicines, and procedures.

The aid organizations help with the documentation, programming, and other assistance necessary to help people transition through the refugee camps and become incorporated into Brazilian society. At every camp, there is a military liaison and an NGO liaison.

Beyond the three meals a day and other facilities, these camps offer security to the people living here. No one has to worry about their children being stolen at 2AM or their limited belongings looted.

In Boa Vista, the NGOs and military have also established a unique camp for those not living in the military camps. This camp is open for anyone to stay a night in a bed rather than on the street, and this camp also provides breakfast for 1,000 people and lunch for 1,000 people. Some people coming currently experience homelessness or unemployment, some people live in other refugee camps, where they do not have the same rules as the military camps (no alcohol, no drugs, in by 10PM and not out before 6AM, etc.), yet they do not have the guaranteed three meals a day, access to medical care, nor do they have the security.

Finally (for this post), we saw how Brazil tries to respond to the realities of both indigenous and non-indigenous groups of people crossing the border. These groups live and socialize differently, and five years ago, the government had trouble as they tried to house and move these people together. Now, both in Boa Vista and at the border, there are indigenous and non-indigenous camps. In the camps for the non-indigenous, people live in their nuclear family units in tents for 6 people. If a family has more than 6, then they get two tents. In the camps for indigenous people, they have larger structures built so that 20 or 30 people can live together. The military and NGOs also work to supply different types of food and resources that the people use to prepare their own meals according to their own customs.

Well, I know this is not a pretty post, yet I hope it gives a bit of a thumbnail of what we encountered.