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| Gerihun Camp, Bo |
| The International Rescue Committee (IRC) spent years in Sierra Leone supporting internally displaced people (IDP). IRC managed a camp in Gerihun which was about 20 minutes away from the country's second city, Bo. When I arrived in Sierra Leone the IDP camps were going through a transformation. By May 2002, there had been fair and violence-free election in the country which provided a pretense for people to return home. At the same time the war in Liberia was turning terribly bad. Refugees in the thousands started to cross the border. In essence, we had to help people leave (sometime persuade) the camps at the same time we needed to set up emergency relief for those new arrivals. It provided us with a dilemma of conflicting needs. |
| Liberian Refugee. Gerihun Camp, Bo |
| The GBV work with refugees was similar to what we did in Kono just in a different environment and atmosphere. Working on a community based program with refugees is unique because basically each refugee's community and sense of comfort was shattered during the war. They have to rebuild community strutures.......sometimes they don't want to because they figured "why? This isn't my home". One element that was substantially different was our processing of war related assaults at the border crossing in Zimmi. Our typical program rely on people coming out to us or being referred to us. We improve intake by improving people's trust in the system. With the refugees we took a more active approach to ensure that women who had been assaulted during the war knew that there were facilities available for them to get help. |
| Liberian Refugee. Bandajuma, Pujehun |
| Upon my arrival in Sierra Leone a report came out, which my Guinean staff had helped, damning NGOs for complicity in sexual exploitation that was being perpetrated in the camps by NGO staff. Most employees didn't see the problem (nor did many refugee women). Throughout my contract, we continually trained staff and refugees about exploitation and helped form policy to address the problem. While most agencies focused on sexual exploitation in the camps we also address the issue in the returnee communities as well. |
| Boys. Gerihun Refugee Camp, Bo |
| Hanging Out at the Youth Center. Gerihun Refugee Camp, Bo |
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