Refugee Students From Ghana Want Friends To 'Talk' To
'Life is so boring and uninteresting here on the camp, you don't even know what you do till night falls…'
(Patricia, Stage 5)
This is a typical response from a refugee student at the Budumburam Refugee Camp. It is becoming evident from several visits to the camp that a lot of people, especially the youth, are facing several life challenges.
Even though the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is working at providing some basic needs for people living on the camp, these efforts are woefully inadequate and in some instances unavailable.
Several organizations are also offering their widow's mite on the camp but there is the need for more work to promote better lives for all refugees in Ghana.
Forty students from the camp want to break the silence and the boredom they are faced with on the camp; hence they are seeking friends from all over the world so they can share experiences, hopes, and aspirations for the future.
RESPECT Ghana is coordinating this effort and has sent these letters to the International Coordinator, Marc Schaeffer, as part of the letter exchange program of RESPECT. A new template with RESPECT's logo has also been designed and shall be made available to all participating students to be used in all future letter exchanges so as to give some level of uniformity in the initial stages.
Individuals would however be at liberty to use their own materials, but these RESPECT Ghana letter-writing pads shall also be made available. This was an idea brought up by a team member as a suggestion to the current situation where letters are written on all kinds of papers some of which make some letters hard to read.