Susan Grace Duku, is a refugee and head of our partner agency, Refugee Women and Youth Aid in Uganda. This World Refugee Day, she focuses on why refugees must be equally represented in decision-making. My name is Susan Grace Duku. I am 33 years old and I have spent 21 of those years as refugee. This week, we learned that …
How small and regular design tweaks can make a big difference to latrine use
Communications Advisor, Tanya Glanville-Wallis, talks us through the process of developing Sani Tweaks—a series of communications tools for technical staff, promoting best practices in sanitation. Visiting the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar, I reflected on just how few women use emergency latrines. Having worked in the humanitarian sector for years, using camp latrines is nothing new to me. Yet …
We must do more to make emergency sanitation safer
Why do so few women and girls use emergency latrines? Rachel Hastie shares key findings that could help make sanitation safer in camps. We looked at the latrine with dismay, as Sarah told us how her relatives had been killed in South Sudan. She had walked to the Ugandan border with her three children and nine nephews and nieces. Their …
Standing up for women’s rights and local leadership in Uganda
Elizabeth Stevens describes how a small, local NGO has had an outsized impact on Uganda’s refugee response. Heart, guts, big ideas, and an investor. If you are launching a tiny women’s organization into the rough-and-tumble world of humanitarian response, you had better have all four. That’s what I concluded from my time with African Women and Youth Action for Development …
6 lessons on building resilience for displaced people in the Middle East and North Africa
Jude Powell and Shekhar Anand share the lessons learnt from Oxfam in the Middle East and North Africa on building the resilience for displaced people in the region. By the end of 2017 over 68 million men, women and children had been forcibly displaced from their homes through conflict, violence and persecution. The protracted armed conflicts in the Middle East …
Five things I’ve learned being a humanitarian aid worker
This World Humanitarian Day, Iffat Tahmid Fatema, Oxfam public health worker, shares what it’s like helping people in our Rohingya refugee response in Bangladesh.
Lighting up the lives of Rohingya Refugees
Oxfam and partners at Loughborough University are looking at how lighting can be used to reduce the perceived risk of gender based violence around water and sanitation facilities in camps.
Introducing the new Gender Handbook for Humanitarian Action
For World Humanitarian Day Tess Dico-Young reflects on the process of producing the new, improved, IASC Gender Handbook for Humanitarian Action. Huge shifts have occurred in the humanitarian sector and humanitarian programme cycles over the past twelve years, including in standards and expectations for the integration of gender equality. Which is why, under the leadership of UN Women, and with …
The number to focus on this World Refugee Day
This World Refugee Day, Head of Humanitarian Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns, Fionna Smyth, reflects on the recent UNHCR refugee figures and reminds us of those who are seeking safety in poorer countries. We’ve learned that more than 68 million people have been forced from their homes worldwide. It is the fifth year in a row that this number has hit …