Newsletter New 29 February 2008

Media Fellowships A Helping Hand: An Afghan Refugee Teaches Myanmar Refugee Children

UNHCR is glad to announce the selection of Mr. Nava Thakuria, a

freelance journalist with 17 years of experience based in Guwahati, as the first UNHCR-CNES Media Fellow. In collaboration with the Centre of North East Studies and Policy Research (CNES), New Delhi, UNHCR will provide three media fellowships for Naina (in black jacket) with her students at the crèche/tuition centre for Myanmar refugee children.. journalists in the print media in 2008. The selection panel includes an independent expert, Ms. Pamela Philipose in addition to It’s a room bathed in sunlight up a narrow flight of stairs. Sounds of children Dr. Sanjoy Hazarika of CNES and Ms. learning , one of India’s many languages, filter down. They are taught by a Nayana Bose of UNHCR. young refugee from Afghanistan, Naina. The children learning are also refugees – not Afghan, but from Myanmar. The three fellowships, spread over a period of nine months, beginning 1 March 2008, Naina is in charge of a crèche in west Delhi for Myanmar refugees and teaches focus on the following themes: Hindi, a language she learnt in India. The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR supports Fellowship I: 1 March to 31 May, 2008: “The crèches run by a partner, the New Delhi YMCA for refugee children in New Delhi. Chins of Myanmar: Refugee Life in a Distant YMCA in turn, empowers refugees to run the crèches. Neighbour” (focus on Protection and Durable Solutions). In her early twenties now, Naina came to India as an eleven year old in 1994. “I Fellowship II (1 June to 31 August 2008): love teaching and I love children,” she says with a shy smile. She believes that as The Need for a Refugee specific legislation a refugee, it is her duty to help other refugees, to give something back to the in India. community she is part of. The difference is, she makes no distinctions among Fellowship III (1 September to 30 November refugees and is delighted to be able to help Myanmar refugees. “It makes me very 2008) Sri Lankan Refugees: Away from happy, very proud when I hear them bargaining with shop keepers in Hindi. It gives home across the Palk Straits (focus on me immense pleasure that they can now be understood.” Protection and Durable Solutions). Naina’s story is perhaps typical of refugees who fled the Mujahideen and the Each Fellowship is for Rs. 45,000, primarily Taliban in Afghanistan. Born to a Sikh family, she lived in Jalalabad in eastern towards travel and research costs. Media Afghanistan. Her memories are fraught with trauma—of a severed head falling at Fellows are expected to write a minimum of her feet in a bomb blast, of her father’s strict orders not to go out, of her being three in-depth articles (Sunday features, confined in her home at an age where children normally would be playing on the news analysis or op-eds) on the selected streets. Their flight out was equally horrific-she got separated from her family as refugee topic, which must be published in a they desperately tried to get onto a helicopter that her father and many others had mainstream English–language publication- paid for, to get to Kabul. “People were pushing, it was worse than cattle being such as , Times, , The Indian squashed in a truck. I got separated and I was the only one of my family who got Express, , The Asian Age, onto the helicopter.” She spent two months alone in a Gurudwara (Sikh temple) in Kabul before her family found her. She was only ten. The or newsmagazine such as Outlook, India Today or Frontline. The family then fled by road through Pakistan to India. And through it all, Naina

While there is considerable interest in kept a diary. A scrap book of her life, her flight and her memories of Afghanistan. migration issues, given regular flows across Like thousands of Afghan refugees in India, the family made a new life for India’s porous borders, there is often themselves in New Delhi. Naina’s brothers work as salesmen in a shop in Delhi, confusion about who is a migrant, an asylum she earns an income teaching refugee children and supervising the crèche. Some seeker or a refugee. All categories of 160 children use the crèche, which also doubles up as a centre for language persons tend to be lumped together, and classes for older children and tuition classes for those who need help with school economic migrants or internally displaced work. Teachers from the Myanmar refugee community teach English, music and persons are referred to as refugees. This math, and are paid a monthly stipend by UNHCR for their time. leads to considerable misinformation and an There are 11400 refugees under UNHCR’s protection and assistance in India of exaggerated sense of how many refugees live in India. It is hoped that an informed which 9100 are Afghan, 1900 are from Myanmar and the rest are a myriad of nationalities ranging from Palestinian to Somali. debate in public space will be facilitated through these Fellowships. Life has come a full circle for Naina. She married an Indian in December 2007. Perhaps this will be the last entry in that scrap book.

Data as of 29 February 2008 Figures given represent number of persons, not cases

Myanmar refugee children at a crèche cum tuition centre, supported by UNHCR, supervised by an implementing partner, the New Delhi YMCA. The centres are run by refugees and some 325 refugee children attend the tuition classes in six centres; some 100 refugee children go to the four crèches located in different parts of the city. © UNHCR/N.Bose

Total Number of Refugees under UNHCR mandate in India: 11,783 Refugees from Afghanistan 9,234 Refugees from Myanmar: 1,903 Other nationalities: 649

Asylum seekers registered in February with UNHCR: 222 Number of asylum seekers recognised as refugees in February: 35 Number of refugees reinstated in February: 5

Voluntary repatriation refugees in February: 0

Number of submissions for resettlement in February: 16 Number of refugees resettled in February: 44 Cumulative Resettlement Submissions pending outcome 864

Number of refugees naturalised as Indian citizens in February: 64 Cumulative total of refugees naturalised 205

Number of refugees financially assisted by UNHCR in India: 1494 Of these, medically vulnerable 686 Of these, physically and mentally handicapped 26 Of these, elderly 52 Of these, vulnerable women, with or without family 142

Number of refugee children of school going age (5—17 yrs): 3782 Male: 1942 , Female: 1840

Number of refugee children enrolled in schools: 1884 Male: 1004; Female: 880

Number of refugees on the German sponsored DAFI scholarships: 29 Male: 9; Female: 20

Credits: Photographs and Text: Nayana Bose; Layout Priya Rozario, UNHCR New Delhi