ZAM 07 - IN A FOREIGN LAND: SUPPORT FOR REFUGEES
Project Location
The project is located on the outskirts of Lusaka, where there is a transit camp for refugees. Since 2015, the Comboni Missionary Sisters have been working on the outskirts of Lusaka, through a Social Center that welcomes poor and vulnerable children, including many refugee children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Through educational and support activities, the Center offers children a safe place to learn English, read, and write, restoring their dignity, protection, and hope.
Project description
Many refugee families have fled the DRC due to war, armed violence, persecution, extreme poverty, and ongoing conflicts that have destroyed villages and separated families. These families or single individuals now find themselves in a foreign land. Almost all have experienced traumatic experiences: the loss of loved ones, violence, hunger, long journeys on foot, and inhumane conditions during their escape.
These refugees arrive in the Makeni transit camp awaiting transfer to other camps in Zambia. However, those with serious health problems remain in the camp to access hospitals in the capital. Their living conditions in the camp are extremely difficult: they lack food, clothing, medicine, and money for transportation to health facilities.
Available humanitarian assistance is insufficient; food, for example, is limited to flour, soybeans, and oil. Many suffer from kidney failure, malnutrition, sickle cell anemia, tuberculosis, HIV, amputations, and other chronic diseases that require ongoing care.
The "In a Foreign Land" project aims to support these families by ensuring adequate nutrition, medical care, medicines, and hospital transportation, thus offering concrete relief and hope to people already deeply wounded by suffering and exile.
Objective
- Ensure refugees in Makeni transit camp have access to essential medical care, necessary medicines, and complementary foods for adequate nutrition, in order to restore their health and enable them to live a dignified life.
Beneficiaries
Direct: about thirty refugees, both adults and children
Indirect: families
Referent sister of the project: Sr. Paola Glira
Project's costs