He ran away from his circumstances in war-torn South Sudan. Today, this refugee athlete has crossed boundaries, broken barriers and has Olympic aspirations.



Seventy million. That’s the number of refugees forcibly displaced worldwide. The size of an entire nation. People without homes in a world that is now saying ‘stay home, stay safe’.



&nbsp;Jamal Abdelmaji Eisa Mohammed is one of them, forced to leave his home at a young age. Still in his 20s, this South Sudan-born migrant refused to confine himself within boundaries. In fact, he crossed several of them, as a full-time ‘refugee athlete’, eventually making it to the finish line and winning gold at world sporting events.



When he was only eight years old, he had to endure the tragedy of losing his father – who was shot and killed by the militia in his home country. “When you grow up, you have your dad and you don’t need to worry about anything because someone cares about you, and [then] you lose him and life goes from good to terrible and that’s how I decided to do something for my siblings because I was now the head of the family,” recalls Mohammed.



In 2010, this led him to decide to leave his conflict-ridden country to seek greener pastures. However, he legally couldn’t because he was underaged, but arranged to pay to have his date of birth changed.



“I saved money and changed my birth year from 1996 to 1993. I then traveled to Egypt and then Israel and slept in the park until I met a kind Sudanese person who let me move into his house.”



Two years on, Mohammed had made friends in the foreign country and played football with them. One of them advised him to take to athletics because he could run behind a ball for hours.



In 2014, he joined a club, and won his very first competition.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">&#8220;When you grow up, you have your dad and you don’t need to worry about anything because someone cares about you, and [then] you lose him and life goes from good to terrible and that’s how I decided to do something for my siblings because I was now the head of the family.”</blockquote>



Today, Mohammed is a part of the Athlete Refugee Team (A.R.T), formed in early 2017 by Kenyan long-distance runner, Tegla Loroupe, for refugee track athletes competing in global IAAF (World Athletics) events and the Olympics. A.R.T is funded by On Running, IAAF, the UNHCR and Pascal Gerdsmeier, a private investor based in Monaco. A.R.T, made up of refugees from the Congo, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Sudan and Morocco, is hoping to take them to next year’s Tokyo Olympic Games as medal contenders.



A 90-minute documentary titled RUN, released on June 20 (World Refugee Day), depicts the story of A.R.T from inception to the current coronavirus crisis that has stalled the sporting world. The documentary, shot over three years and across three continents, follows the athletes’ “emotional journey to compete at the Olympics”, and covers their lives, from “living in war-torn tribal regions to competing on the world stage”. It’s the story of the human spirit and how sport can change lives.



Since 2017, Mohammed has traveled between Europe and Africa competing professionally. A top contender for the now-postponed Olympics, he continues training hard for the proposed event in 2021. He ran away from his destiny at a young age, and continues to change the course of his life.

Jamal Mohammed [2]

Success In The Long Run

<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="590" height="393" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/SG-Afganistan.2.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-45096" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/SG-Afganistan.2.jpg 590w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/SG-Afganistan.2-300x200.jpg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 590px) 100vw, 590px" /><figcaption>UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls on President Ashraf Ghani during a visit to Afghanistan’s capital Kabul to show solidarity with the Afghan people. Photo UNAMA / Fardin Waezi/June 2017.</figcaption></figure></div>



The world commemorated the 75th Anniversary to mark the end of the 2nd World War also called VE Day on May 08, 2020. 



With her nation, and much of the world still in lockdown, due to COVID 19, England’s Queen marked 75 years since the allied victory in Europe with a poignant televised address. From Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth said, “ the wartime generation knew that the best way to honour those who did not come back from the war, was to ensure that it didn’t happen again”.



But the world is still at war. Proxy wars or localised conflicts are wrecking havoc on human development and humanity in virtually every corner of the world. By the end of 2018, <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2019/6/5d08b6614/global-forced-displacement-tops-70-million.html">wars, violence and persecution have driven record numbers of over 70 million people</a> from their homes worldwide, according to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency. This is the largest ever displacement of humanity, post 2nd World War.



Never has the appeal by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres been more pertinent: “<a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2017/09/repair-world-in-pieces-and-create-world-at-peace-un-chief-guterres-urges-global-leaders/">The world is in pieces; we need world peace</a>.”&nbsp;



The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/world/asia/us-taliban-deal.html">United States signed a historic deal with Afghanistan</a> that outlines a timetable and exit plan for American troops, setting the stage for the potential end to nearly 18 years of war in Afghanistan.  The UN Secretary General <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1058371">welcomed the US-Taliban peace agreement</a> on February 29, 2020.  The United States also won the<a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/03/1059161"> unanimous backing of the UN Security Council</a> to this ambitious peace deal on March 10, 2020.



The implementation of the peace agreement will need leadership, courage and resolve and there will be spoilers who will attempt to upend the peace process. The road to peace will be characterized by violence, set-backs and numerous false starts, but it will need diplomacy, determination and drive to keep the peace process on track. 



Hubris must not prolong the agony of this appalling war. 



The war has cost over $2 trillion and killed more than&nbsp;<a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Human%20Costs%2C%20Nov%208%202018%20CoW.pdf">2,400 American soldiers and&nbsp;</a><a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Human%20Costs,%20Nov%208%202018%20CoW.pdf">38,000</a><a href="https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2018/Human%20Costs%2C%20Nov%208%202018%20CoW.pdf">&nbsp;Afghan civilians</a>. Casualties among Afghan security forces are estimated to have reached around 40,000 between 2007 and 2017.



Wars are appalling. As a combat veteran,&nbsp;<a href="https://news.trust.org/item/20161101105441-eli9d/">I have witnessed first-hand how armed conflicts</a>&nbsp;have transformed some of our finest soldiers into shells of the people I once knew. Combat is savage, it is brutal, it is reckless, it diminishes us as human beings and jeopardizes our humanity.



General William Sherman once said, “It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, more vengeance, and more desolation. War is hell.”



There are no winners in Afghanistan, but let’s consider the consequences on all the women and men who fought in it.



Today, research backs up what soldiers have described for decades, and what was once called shell shock or combat fatigue. We have terms like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), chronic depression, cognitive impairment, and traumatic brain injury to help explain the symptoms suffered by active and returning soldiers.  



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" width="700" height="467" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/US-Army-soldiers-security-duty-province-Paktika-2010.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-45062" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/US-Army-soldiers-security-duty-province-Paktika-2010.jpg 700w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/US-Army-soldiers-security-duty-province-Paktika-2010-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/US-Army-soldiers-security-duty-province-Paktika-2010-600x400.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px" /><figcaption>U.S. Army soldiers on security duty in Paktīkā province, Afghanistan, 2010. Sgt. Derec Pierson/U.S. Department of Defense</figcaption></figure></div>



For a long time, many of the grim statistics about war centred on fatalities and did not include the conflicts’ deep mental wounds. Today we have a better understanding of the kind of moral and psychological toll wars take on soldiers, their families, and communities.



The United States is a leader in the understanding of psychological and emotional damage to soldiers and has taken some steps to address their mental health. The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan have left between&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ptsd.va.gov/understand/common/common_veterans.asp">11% and 20%</a>&nbsp;of military personnel suffering from PTSD. As many as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dav.org/veterans/resources/traumatic-brain-injury-tbi/">375,000 US veterans</a>&nbsp;have been diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries between 2000 and 2017, mostly caused by explosions.&nbsp;



But suicides in the&nbsp;US armed forces have continued to rise in recent years, reaching&nbsp;<a href="https://www.military.com/daily-news/2019/09/26/military-suicide-rates-hit-record-high-2018.html">record levels in 2018</a>&nbsp;when there were 25 deaths per 100,000 service members. Former defence secretary Leon Panetta once said that the “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/opinion/sunday/war-wounds.html">epidemic” of military suicide</a>&nbsp;was “one of the most frustrating problems” he had faced.



<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/09/world/middleeast/afghanistan-war-cost.html">More than $350 billion has already gone to medical and disability care for veterans</a>&nbsp;of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Experts say that more than half of that spending belongs to the Afghanistan effort.



Homelessness among veterans is pervasive, and soldiers still struggle to access benefits and healthcare if they suffer from&nbsp;<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/opinion/sunday/war-wounds.html?pagewanted=all&amp;_r=2&amp;">mental health</a>&nbsp;issues rather than from physical wounds. At any given time in the US, more than 40,000 veterans are homeless, constituting around&nbsp;<a href="https://www.usich.gov/resources/uploads/asset_library/Homelessness_in_America._Focus_on_Veterans.pdf">9% of all homeless adults</a>&nbsp;in the country.&nbsp;



In the United Kingdom, spurred by&nbsp;<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-veteran-soldiers-afghanistan-suicides-deaths-a9367856.html">a dozen suicides</a>&nbsp;among Afghan war veterans in just two months, the government expedited new mental health programs to help deal with former military members’ PTSD and addiction.&nbsp;



What does this now mean for the Afghan security forces? They and their families do not have the same support structures.



All this ‘hell’, but to what end? Afghanistan remains one of the world’s largest sources of refugees and migrants. Since 2004 alone, more than&nbsp;<a href="https://www.giz.de/en/ourservices/55909.html">1.8 million Afghans have become internally displaced.</a>&nbsp;Afghanistan’s&nbsp;human development and progress has been set back by decades.&nbsp;Women and children have suffered the most and countless are emotionally and psychologically scarred for life.



While we like to see soldiers as stoic and heroic, we must open our eyes to the fact that wars scar minds as well as bodies, often in ways medical science cannot yet comprehend.



Just like the world is desperately seeking a cure to end the coronavirus pandemic which has killed over 275,000 people so far and leaving a trail of human, economic and social misery, the world too must find a way to end wars, or else we may be defeated as a civilization.



Siddharth Chatterjee, is the United Nations resident coordinator to Kenya. He has served with the UN and the Red Cross Movement in various parts of the world affected by conflicts and humanitarian crisis. He is also a decorated Special Forces veteran and a Princeton University alumnus. Follow him on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/sidchat1?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">@sidchat1</a>



The views expressed in this article are the author&#8217;s own.​​​​​

VE DAY MARKS THE END OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR-BUT THE WORLD IS STILL AT WAR

refugees6

Refugees: The Nowhere People

A little more than a year ago, Aisha Ibrahim was over the moon as she took her marriage vows with her childhood sweetheart Abdulai, in the town of Baga, in Borno state, northeastern Nigeria. That happiness was short-lived though; she is now in an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp in Kuchigoro, Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.
<blockquote>“It was just God that helped me. We had to flee for our lives. We went through Cameroon before we ended up here. I had no idea where my brothers and sisters were until we got here. I still have not seen my mother or my husband since that day,” says Ibrahim.</blockquote>
She is one of millions who have been displaced due to the violence unleashed by Islamic militant group Boko Haram on communities in Borno State, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC).
This year alone, more than 1,500 have died in the Boko Haram conflict, according to Amnesty International. For Ibrahim, the most difficult part is the nightmares.
<blockquote>“I still remember everything like it was yesterday. So many people lost their lives when they attacked. I saw friends get shot; I pray I will see my husband again. We have to live here now because we have no homes to go back to,” she says.</blockquote>
The conflict is also difficult for those that take in the refugees.
“We had to provide an answer quickly for the thousands of people who all of a sudden appeared in Abuja. This was not something we prepared for, the government had to respond very quickly to accommodate all these people,” says Ishaya Chonoko, Zonal Co-ordinator at the Abuja office of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2016/12/01/good-news-little-progress/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Good News But Little Progress</a>
Life in the IDP camp is challenging. Ibrahim sells the food she receives through donations from a local church. Other women in the camp are not so lucky.
<blockquote>“Most of the girls here have to sleep with men in order to make ends meet. It is terrible but what can you do when everything has been taken away from you?” says Ibrahim.</blockquote>
The NEMA North East Zonal Office is responsible for feeding an estimated 1.6 million people in the resettlement camps across Borno. Combating malnutrition and a lack of food is a daily battle in these camps, says Chonoko.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2015/07/01/bloody-market-fear/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Bloody Market Of Fear</a>
At the IDP camp at the Saint Theresa’s Cathedral in Yola, the capital city of Adamawa state, Nigeria, about 1,500 people, mainly women and children, are cramped into a compound and living in a large hall which was previously a church building.
<blockquote>“Most of the men have died fighting to defend the communities. I lost two of my sons and my husband along with most of the other women here,” says Amina, one of the mothers at the camp.</blockquote>
She lives with her 10-year-old son who is extremely emaciated.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2015/03/01/people-hell-lurks-around-corner/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The People For Whom Hell Lurks Around The Corner</a>
In 2016, the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated that 75,000 children would die if they did not receive aid in these camps. Another 400,000 children were at risk of severe acute malnutrition in the areas worst hit by Boko Haram.
“We decided to take control of feeding 100% of IDPs to buttress the efforts of both the government and other humanitarian agencies. There are several challenges in feeding over two million people, most of which relate to scarcity of resources and an efficient distribution system and attempts to solve the food crisis requires a group effort,” says Mallam Mohammed Kanar, the North-East Coordinator of NEMA.
When elected, President Muhammadu Buhari promised to crush Boko Haram. Years later, despite many military raids and isolated victories, the militant group is still terrorizing those in the North east of the Nigeria. To add insult to injury, last year, Nigeria’s air force killed at least 52 people and injured another 120 in an air strike on an IDP camp. It mistook the camp for a Boko Haram base.
Although the militant’s stronghold has been dislodged, the lingering chaos and damage of the past years are still felt in the North East.
Life in the camp is a harrowing experience. For now, Ibrahim and Amina can do nothing but hope it will end soon.
<a href="https://www.cnbcafrica.com/news/2017/06/08/nigeria-boko-haram-attack-maiduguri-ahead-vps-visit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Boko Haram attack in Maiduguri ahead of VP’s visit</a>

The Pain Of The Women And Children Who Have Lost Everything

<h2>‘The Crisis Could Be With Us For The Unforeseeable Future’</h2>
The tear-inducing image of a young boy washed up on a beach in Turkey last year dominated headlines for weeks. His small, lifeless body had finally presented the true picture of the greatest crisis of our times. His death became a metaphor of the desolation and helplessness faced by the millions forcibly displaced.
The boy was later reported to have been on a boat with his family from his hometown Kobani in northern Syria, a country torn apart by war for years. He was one of 11,000 children reported as displaced every day, the victims of forced migration.
His father would later explain to reporters that their boat suddenly capsized as they were making a final and desperate attempt to escape the conflict-ridden state by sea.
This illustration is but one of many that has continued to grab headlines over the years. The refugee crisis is real and the biggest casualties are children.
Antonio Guterres, the former United Nations High Commissioner for refugees (UNHCR), highlights in the UNHCR Global Trends 2014 report: “We are witnessing a paradigm change, an unchecked slide into an era in which the scale of global forced displacement as well as the response required is now clearly dwarfing anything seen before.”
Children form an overwhelming majority, at least about half, of the world’s total refugee population upwards of 60 million.
Chaos has long descended on the world but the lack of political will by global leaders is robbing children of their childhood, families and identity.
On a recent visit to Johannesburg, British politician, activist and author, Professor Peter Hain, the Lord Hain of Neath, said the refugee crisis is a calamity for women and children.
“This global phenomenon capitalizes on the shortcomings of states, adequate political standards need to be established in order to create change,” he told FORBES WOMAN AFRICA.
While governments are not as willing to initiate processes to mitigate the rising numbers of refugees, particularly children, Amnesty International earlier this year conducted the Refugees Welcome Index; the global survey revealed that government refugee policies and citizens are on opposite ends, with the important call to integrate the refugees into economies.
The fight continues for children, though. They are more vulnerable to sexual abuse and exploitation in unfamiliar, often crowded conditions they have no control over.
Mosa Moremi, national child rights and advocacy advisor of SOS Children’s Villages South Africa, tells us processes to integrate children into society are very difficult.
“In my experience, sometimes children are brought into the country by parents who have migrated and then they are later abandoned. They are left with nothing.”
She highlights that giving these abandoned or unaccompanied children adequate care becomes challenging and the system is riddled with layers of red tape.
Professor Hain echoes this sentiment, stating that the crisis which manifests in “a seemingly impotent international system led by the United Nations could be with us for the unforeseeable future”.
It’s no comforting thought that one estimate suggests that 80% of the world’s refugees are in developing countries and yet less than 9% are hosted by six of the world’s richest nations. And, the rise of right-wing populism ideas, as Professor Hain stresses.
This means that many will continue to face racism, xenophobia and discrimination, imposing an unprecedented new burden on children who often have little understanding of the social, political and economic discourse of a society.
In the pages that follow, FORBES WOMAN AFRICA speaks to three young migrants in South Africa, who now live in a limbo, hurt and homeless.
<h2>Sarah (16) and Kudzai (15) Mathe</h2>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-32018 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-059-681x1024.jpg" alt="" width="681" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-059.jpg 681w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-059-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-059-600x902.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-059-200x300.jpg 200w" sizes="(max-width: 681px) 100vw, 681px" />
One night in 2009 when Sarah and Kudzai Mathe, nine and eight respectively, were asleep after another long day selling tomatoes, onions and fruit, their stepfather returned home drunk as he did everyday but this time, he attempted to rape them.
Sarah was able to break free from his grip. She grabbed all her courage, and the money she had saved on the day with Kudzai, and together, they ran, not knowing where they were headed.
As they ran, Kudzai looked back. In the blackness of the night, she could see the house their mother raised them in fade into the distance, never to see it again. The girls had spent their early years with their parents in a small town in Harare, Zimbabwe.
“Our parents got divorced when we were still young. Our stepfather didn’t even hide that he didn’t love us,” they say.
Shortly after their mother’s new union, they stopped attending school.
“He told us he didn’t have money to pay for school fees and that’s when we started selling fruit and vegetables on the street.”
Whilst other children walked to school or waited for the bus in the mornings, Sarah and Kudzai would set up their stall.
“The other kids would laugh at us because we wore rags and sometimes had no shoes.”
Things got worse when their mother fell ill and passed away in 2009.
“There was no longer place for us in that house. Our stepfather just brought in different wives every night and spent most of the money we would make.”
The day after they ran away from home, as they wandered the streets, Kudzai suggested they go to South Africa.
“I heard about it and thought we could get on the bus and just go.”
They arrived at a bus station and spoke with one of the drivers who directed them to the bus that would take them to South Africa.
“When we got onto the bus, the driver asked us how much we had and I pulled out all of our savings and he grabbed it and said we should find seats,” Sarah says.
“We were so hungry and the lady we sat next to on the bus gave us an apple each. We ate them like we’d never eaten before.
“After a few hours, the bus made a stop at Beitbridge; the driver told us to get off and that he would be back for us.”
They waited for the bus driver for two weeks. He didn’t come back for them. And they were only nine and eight years old.
When it dawned on them that the bus driver was not going to be back for them, they found work handing out flyers to travelers passing by the border bridge. They were paid R30 ($2) each a week and saved that up to pay malaicha, which Sarah explains means carriers. The malaicha would help them get to South Africa.
“We paid the R200 ($15) we’d saved and we were on our way.”
With Sarah and Kudzai were five other men.
“As we walked through the forest and then the Limpopo river, what scared us the most was that any one of the men could rape us, we were the only girls and the night our father almost raped us was fresh in our memory,” recalls Sarah.
Kudzai does not say much apart from a nod or a sigh throughout the interview. But she says now: “We really thought South Africa was so far.”
After over 12 hours of walking, they found themselves in Messina, the northernmost town of Limpopo.
“We looked for work but no one would hire us.”
In time, they found an old woman who paid them R50 ($3.6) a month to clean and do the laundry. “It wasn’t that hard for us because we were used to working.”
They used the money to pay for a lorry ride to Johannesburg in September 2009. They were two of the lucky ones. When they got to Johannesburg, they were directed to the Methodist church in Braamfontein. They have since been moved and “life is good”.
“We are back in school and I love maths but I’m not that good at it,” Kudzai giggles.
“We also have each other and that’s what matters,” says Sarah, her smile brightening up a face hardened by experience.
<h2>Maqhawe Garikayi (17)</h2>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-32019 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-132-681x1024.jpg" alt="" width="681" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-132.jpg 681w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-132-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-132-600x902.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-132-200x300.jpg 200w" sizes="(max-width: 681px) 100vw, 681px" />
When Maqhawe Garikayi was arrested by border security for attempting to illegally cross over into South Africa from Zimbabwe in 2012, he was not discouraged. Shortly after he was released, he tried again, and succeeded. He was 13.
Four years on, Garikayi barely looks up as he tells his story.
“I never knew my birth mother and I don’t know if I have any siblings. All I had was a stepmother who saw me as her worker, not her child. She just didn’t love me.”
Garikayi couldn’t get along with his her. At the age of 13, he was questioning his existence and toying with the idea of running away from home. Thoughts of where he would run away to and how he would survive were secondary as survival instincts compelled him to get away from what he describes “a toxic environment”.
As a young boy who was not attending school and knew no stability, he was left with little choice.
“I left home with nothing but the clothes I was wearing. I had no money. I had no documents. I heard about South Africa and how it was the land of milk and honey so that was where I was going to go.”
The second time he tried to cross the border illegally, he was able to sneak past security.
“After [hitch-hiking], I walked through a forest and then through the forceful waves of the Limpopo river. I just followed other groups of people I assumed were also on their way to South Africa.”
Trouble awaited young boys like Garikayi in Messina, where he was robbed of his clothes, and beaten. He had to cover his nudity with a discarded blue overall he found.
“I cried, I thought I was going to die.”
Garikayi mustered strength and made his way to a filling station in Messina. He spent the night there and the following morning, wandered into a suburb and knocked on doors for food and some clothes. Eventually, he was handed a pair of blue shorts, sandals and a T-shirt. After a few days, he was able to make his way to Johannesburg, in a pick-up truck.
Garikayi remembers spending almost eight months on the streets, surviving on whatever he could find in trash bins.
“It was funny the way I always found KFC in the bins, a lot of people wasted that,” he says with a hint of a smile.
Garikayi has since been taken in by an organization that is currently sending him to school, clothing him, feeding him and ensuring he has a warm bed to sleep in every night.
His dreams of being an accountant and having a family of his own have a fighting chance but he sobs and whispers: “My greatest wish is for a mother, I don’t know why God gave me this life.”
&nbsp;
<h2>Wasithanda Hadziperidzega (21)</h2>
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-32020 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-0591-681x1024.jpg" alt="" width="681" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-0591.jpg 681w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-0591-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-0591-600x902.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Refugee-child-0591-200x300.jpg 200w" sizes="(max-width: 681px) 100vw, 681px" />
On April 28, 2014, Wasithanda Hadziperidzega decided to leave home in pursuit of a better life, a life he thought he would find in South Africa.
But sadly, the journey and destination were a far cry from his dreams.
Originally from Ghana, Hadziperidzega moved to Zimbabwe to live with his mother, a single parent raising four young children, a common scenario in the African narrative.
His mother worked in the public sector and could not afford a decent living.
Many, if not all public service employees, were left for weeks and even months at a time without income, left to live at the mercy of a government mired in turmoil.
“My mother would never tell us that she was struggling financially but I could see; I can see things.”
One day, at the age of 18, Hadziperidzega left home as he did every day for soccer practice. After the game, he listened to his peers talk about how tough life was in Zimbabwe.
He made up his mind.
“… The grounds [were] the only place we could talk about the country’s situation and Mugabe. It was safe. After we talked, I decided then that I was going to leave. All I needed was $53 for a passport and $30 for the bus,” says Hadziperidzega.
He never returned home.
Hadziperidzega remembers it took him no longer than five minutes to decide his new fate. The task was now to make the money.
He had heard about how he could collect a small fortune in Mashonaland West, another province in Zimbabwe. The opportunity presented itself in the form of an illegal gold mining job. The word out on the street was that it was lucrative. After months of struggling to infiltrate a mine called Toppers, he was finally in.
“All I needed was a hammer, a short chisel and that torch you put around your head; it’s dark in those mines, there’s no sun,” he laughs, but there’s pain in his eyes.
After months of hard and treacherous work in the depths of Zimbabwe’s gold pits, he was able to save up $120.
He applied for his passport and used the rest to buy a bus ticket to South Africa.
“I arrived in South Africa at around 11PM at Park Station. Have you ever been to Park Station?” he asks. “There is a huge waiting area and I just sat there and pretended to be waiting for someone.”
People came and went fetching their relatives who had come through from different parts of the continent but no one came for Hadziperidzega. And it was the dead of night.
He hides his sorrow with a nervous chuckle, saying: “I knew no one was coming for me but I was just being silly and hoped someone would fetch me but I knew no one, I didn’t even understand where I was, all I knew was that I was in South Africa.”
For days, Hadziperidzega wandered the streets of Johannesburg looking for some validation that he had found in South Africa the social and economic salvation he couldn’t find in his home country, anything to convince him that he had made the right decision.
All he would encounter were other young foreigners collecting rubbish, “looking horrible”.
Nothing was easy to come by, not even scraps of food.
“I would eat anything just to make my tummy happy but not my tongue,” he shrugs.
Over the past two years, he has moved jobs trying to earn a decent living.
He says he has survived police harassment and several death threats because of his nationality.
But Hadziperidzega has not stopped dreaming.
His mind in still in the football fields of Zimbabwe; and he hopes to one day become a soccer star.
“I definitely don’t want to further my education, my whole family is educated and look at them, they are all poor and they will die poor. When you have money everything is easy and that’s all I want,” he says in conclusion.

refugee-child-015

A Lonely  Planet For The  Child  Refugee

There are 65.3 million displaced people worldwide. Of those people, 21.3 million are refugees, the people who belong to – Nowhere. No one knows where they come from, no one knows where they’re going. Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations, has highlighted that: “We are facing the biggest refugee and displacement crisis of our time.” He has called it a crisis of solidarity.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) Global Trends report shows that since 2003, the number of newly-displaced people per minute has increased from just fewer than 10 to 24 persons in 2015. In 2014, the number was at its highest – 30. The reasons for displacement differ. Increasingly, the main reason is fleeing the source of political or economic conflict. It then becomes difficult to imagine the uncertain reality the many have run to or are left to live through. In theory, international law defines and protects refugees, encouraging the initiation of asylum procedures once they enter a new environment. In reality, the many who have migrated become nomads, often pursuing what becomes a hollow quest for a better life.
Women and girls form around 50% of refugees or displaced people around the world, according to UNHCR. In Africa, the number of women uprooted by war and unrest is significantly higher. A study published by Hivos International recorded 80% of refugees in Lebanon were women and children.
Along the inner streets of Johannesburg are ‘foreigners’, women selling fruit, vegetables and sundry items to feed their hungry children and themselves. Whilst walking up to the Department of Social Development, two young female hawkers run past me, clutching towels in one hand and tacky sunglasses and cellphone pouches on the other, fleeing cops. As is the case with hundreds of immigrants, they have no papers.
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-31973 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2016/08/Refugee-mom-bw-038-1024x681.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="681" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Refugee-mom-bw-038-1024x681.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Refugee-mom-bw-038-300x199.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Refugee-mom-bw-038-600x399.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Refugee-mom-bw-038-768x511.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Refugee-mom-bw-038.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />
Another, a lady, sits rubbing her pregnant belly beside a small stall on Eloff Street. She sells hats, wallets, purses and scarves. She is reluctant to talk and asks not to be named. She came to South Africa following her husband, escaping the political turmoil in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
“I came after he had made his way to what we were calling the land of milk and honey… [but] when I arrived in South Africa, it was made known to me that he had left for Canada. I’d come for nothing.”
Abandoned, she was forced to join the informal trading business.
“Life is hard here. We as foreigners are just not free. People don’t respect us and just steal our stock,” she says with little emotion.
After matriculation, she had gone on to acquire a degree in management in the DRC. But today, she is battered and broke.
Often, along their treacherous journeys, the women are abused and mishandled by gangs, truck-drivers and cops. This is only the beginning of their travails. The constitutional guarantees cannot protect them from the injustices they face. The UNHCR has highlighted that life for a woman, beyond her country of origin, becomes a constant battle and one of constant fear and uncertainty.
One of the many dangers is the xenophobic attacks, as has happened in recent times, with South Africans accusing foreign nationals of taking their jobs and over-populating their areas.
The informal trading sector is the main space in which the hateful disputes unravel. But for foreign nationals who have no other hope, informal trading becomes the only option.
Vanya Gastrow, a PhD candidate currently doing research for the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS), says one of the biggest challenges faced by foreign traders who come to South Africa is the crime targeted at them.
Other challenges include lack of access to reliable documentation, says Gastrow. “Asylum seekers and refugee permits often don’t meet documentation requirements for banks, visa offices, and landlords,” she says, as such foreigners cannot open bank accounts or access loans.
“These permits also require frequent renewals and so many make the decision to just live without them.”
For women though, it is even worse.
“It’s the sexual violence… and extortion, specific dangers that authorities fail to understand,” according to Penny Foley, a volunteer from Australia currently living in South Africa. She highlights that the objectification of female refugees is one of the many symptoms of what has become the de-humanizing of forced migration.
“The global community needs to change the 20th century understanding of a nation-state and move away from the notion of isolated nationalities,” she says.
“Interestingly though, the problem is not just about changing the perception of what nationals think of foreign nationals, relations amongst refugees need to be established. The fight becomes harder if unity lacks amongst them.”
In the pages that follow, FORBES WOMAN AFRICA speaks to three women from Zimbabwe; what displacement has done to them.
&nbsp;
<h3>Tafadzwa Shumba</h3>
“I just stood at the border in my pink shirt and panties after I had crossed over. I had nothing and I was scared.”
*Tafadzwa Shumba is 42 and came to South Africa in 2008. She was forced to leave her country, Zimbabwe, because of the political instability that made life for her and her family unbearable.
“I was seen to be too neutral so they threatened my parents and tried to kill me for not engaging in their dirty politics.”
The choice to leave was not an easy one to make but as she recalls, “I literally had to take that leap of faith”.
On July 27, 2008, as the world slumped to a financial crisis, Shumba packed a portable bag. She had R300 ($21) that would pay the ‘Guma-Gumas’, a group of men said to assist escapees across the woods to the border.
“I had a passport but those days we were using visas and they were expensive so my only choice was to cross over illegally.” She was the only woman amongst seven guys.
The group began the three-day trek through the forests, the Limpopo River, eventually reaching the border.
Few survive the trek but Shumba’s determination carried her.
“I don’t forget, as we walked through the forest we saw dead bodies. There was a human head lying on the ground with dreadlocks like mine,” says Shumba, running her fingers through her own.
“The Guma-Gumas picked it up and pointed it at us and said if you don’t give us your money you will end up like this head.”
“They took everything, even my pants and left me with there in my pink shirt, panties and shoes.” There was no time to process the betrayal. The trek had to continue.
“Look at me,” she says, as she gestures to her body. “I am nothing. I was a nurse, we would wear crisp white uniforms and after work, I had a home to go to.”
Last year, she was involved in a road accident in South Africa that left her crippled.
“I could not even get compensation from the Road Accident Fund because I am a foreigner.”
Now, because of her disability, she cannot work so she takes care of children and sells fruit and vegetables when desperate for money. The future is uncertain but she takes “each day as it comes”.
&nbsp;
<h3>Refugees Seen As ‘The Other’</h3>
<h5>The travails of a Vietnamese immigrant</h5>
Lisa Phung, her mother and older sister hid in a mosquito and disease-infested swamp during the day and in the night were led on to a small vessel that took them to a main fishing boat which would eventually transport them to their new lives.
Earlier, Phung’s mother had received instruction from her father to leave Vietnam as their freedom was under threat. He was a pilot who had just been captured by communist soldiers in the Vietnam War. Her mother who was not educated enough for a stable job heeded her husband’s advice and managed to secure the money to get her and her girls out of war-torn South Vietnam.
“People smugglers” were paid to get them out.
“The first two times, we got caught and were jailed,” says Phung. The third time, they got lucky.
“En route to the fishing boat, we got robbed by the people smugglers and everything was taken except for a few pieces of food.”
But at least they got on to the big boat.
“We were crammed up like anything and I was one of the youngest at age four.”
Shortly after they started, the boat’s engine died.
“They thought it was a petrol problem but the people smugglers had taken the petrol and replaced the tank with water.”
The group of people floated for 10 days with nothing more than a packet of rice to sustain them.
“My mother remembers that I was starting to die… everyone was getting ready for death.”
Shortly before a storm, a British cargo ship sailed past and for a few moments, there was a ray of hope.
“It didn’t stop to save us and that was heart-breaking because we lost hope.”
It was as though their fate was sealed but then, in a surprise move, the ship turned around and carried the refugees, Phung and her family amongst them, to Singapore.
“After the ordeal, my mum told me she lost hope in a lot of human beings because everyone just looked out for themselves.”
Because Phung’s mother had children, she was the last to be rescued.
“She was the last person off that boat; it must have been horrifying for her.”
The ship docked in Singapore. From there, the refugees were taken to a detention center in Hong Kong where they stayed for three years.
“My mum wanted to go to the USA but they were no longer taking refugees.”
Sometime later, Australia was accepting refugees. Phung was seven years old and finally a life of stability awaited her.
Years have passed. She now lives in Australia with a family of her own and uses her experience to give hope to others who have walked her path.
“I’ve seen how refugees are seen as ‘the other’ in different parts of the world, coming to take their jobs or their land and they really just want a safe place to live and everyone should have that right.”
<img decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="alignnone wp-image-31981 size-large" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2016/08/Refugee-mom-bw-074-681x1024.jpg" alt="" width="681" height="1024" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Refugee-mom-bw-074-681x1024.jpg 681w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Refugee-mom-bw-074-300x451.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Refugee-mom-bw-074-600x902.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Refugee-mom-bw-074-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Refugee-mom-bw-074-768x1155.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Refugee-mom-bw-074.jpg 1346w" sizes="(max-width: 681px) 100vw, 681px" />
<h3>Tapiwa Moyo</h3>
“Coming to South Africa was supposed to be like going to heaven,” says *Tapiwa Moyo, who is 22 years old and from Zimbabwe. When her mother, her only caregiver, left her and her younger sister to find work in Johannesburg, she did not anticipate the hardship.
“At one stage we went without food for almost a week and we had to start selling my mother’s belongings to get some money to buy some maize meal.”
Moyo’s mother saw South Africa as the place where she could try and build a better life for her children.
“The deal was that she would work for a few months, save the money and get us passports and visas to move to South Africa,” says Moyo.
Months passed and then they turned into years. When their supply of cash and food ran dry, Moyo, as the older sister, still in her early teens, was forced to work menial jobs washing clothes, selling nuts and chips and eventually having to part with all their worldly possessions to survive.
“I would see other children playing with teddy bears and Barbie dolls or walking in the streets with their mothers and I would just cry because that’s all I wanted to do,” she weeps.
She was 15 when she received word that her mother had finally made enough money to bring her and her sister to South Africa.
They had waited seven years.
“When I finally got my passport, it was like my prayers were finally answered.”
The bus ride was one filled with excitement.
“It was a 12-hour ride but I couldn’t even sleep. My life was about to change.”
She recalls the moment she arrived.
“Everything I thought was a lie, South Africa was supposed to be my heaven but it was not.”
She wipes her tears with anger, not allowing herself to be weak.
“I’ve cried about it all for so long you know and nobody cares&#8230; the tears don’t mean anything.
“My name meant nothing to the border police and some of the citizens. I was just another ‘kwere-kwere’.”
Since then, that’s all she’s known apart from poverty. Just as she did in Zimbabwe, Moyo finds and sells what she can to ensure she and her daughter do not go to bed hungry each day.
“I left one hell for another. Would I like to be back home with my family? Sure, but that’s no longer an option for me. I’m here now.”
&nbsp;
<h3>Emily Shamu</h3>
*Emily Shamu came to South Africa when her daughter, Lisa, was a toddler.
“She was too heavy for me to carry along with our luggage and a gentleman offered to carry her when we crossed the Limpopo River,” says Shamu.
She would normally not have trusted a stranger, but for Shamu, the focus was survival.
Shamu and the others walked 12 hours to Musina, the northernmost town in South Africa’s Limpopo province.
“I did not know we were going to walk for so long. At some point, I fell to the ground and started to scream ‘I am tired’.”
She describes her knees colliding with the gravel road. Her daughter watched as she cried inconsolably. “My child remembers. We rested for some time and I used this time to remind myself (sic) why I was going through this.”
Now, living in South Africa for eight years as a refugee, her life is defined by a cycle of begging – not for food or spare change – but, each quarter of the school year, to plead with the headmaster to allow her daughter to sit her exams with her peers.
“Every term, my heart sinks… I don’t know if he will say yes. We are just controlled by circumstances.”
In South Africa, students are required to produce a form of identification before they are allowed to partake in written assessments. Because Shamu has no asylum papers, she is unable to apply for an ID document for her daughter.
“If I’m honest, I have not tried to get my papers,” she says. “I tried in 2010 and the back and forth is just so demoralizing.” Shamu and her daughter live stateless with nothing to ensure them stability.
“I want to go home, if the situation can just change…”

refugee-mom-bw-059

The Nowhere People

Isolated from the world and within their own state, this has been the plight of the Saharawi people living in the refugee camps of Western Algeria for the last 41 years. They face human rights injustice, but unlike other refugees, it is in their own land.
The Polisario movement, the voice of the Saharawi ethnic group, says the territory reported to be illegally occupied by Morocco, belongs to the Saharawi people.
For years following a guerrilla war, they have tried and failed to claim ownership of the land from the Moroccan government. Now, according to the United Nations, they live in mud brick houses and tents in the harsh desert conditions of Tindouf Province, Western Algeria.
They have been locked in an armed struggle for liberation.
At the forefront of the movement are the Saharawi women who have increased their traditional role in the fight not only to reclaim their territory but to also salvage their self-determination as a people.
According to Catherine Constantinides, a human rights activist and executive director of Miss Earth South Africa, the power structure is unlike any other on the globe, particularly in Muslim culture.
“Women have a strong hold in the camps; they double as caregivers as well as liberation fighters. They also invest heavily in themselves educating one another and learning various skills. They exert the power there and the men respect this because they hold the camps together.”
Constantinides, who has dedicated her efforts to bringing to the fore their plight, emphasizes the world cannot fathom the dire conditions faced by the Saharawi people “until you see it”.
“The Saharawi people have less than nothing,” she says.
On one of her many visits to the region, Constantinides witnessed the dehumanizing of the people as they received food packets dropped by aeroplanes and water delivered in trucks.
The men cannot provide for their families so their children look to the skies for scraps of food.
This is just one illustration of the gap between humanity and policy regulations that leaves the Saharawis perennially stateless.
Moreover, there are no adequate health facilities for them.
“Child mortality is at its highest in Tindouf as women are forced to give birth in their mud houses or tents,” explains Constantinides.
“It’s devastating because children bring that spark of hope within that unfortunate situation.”
United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has since visited the refugee camps in an effort to reignite negotiations in the region and to end the dispute and bring liberation to the Saharawi people. During his visit, he said he “would spare no effort towards a just and meaningful solution” for the people in Western Algeria.
These are the kind of efforts activists like Constantinides want to see in the fight against the apparent global neglect of refugees.
“We have to find better ways of dealing with the crisis.”
One example that Constantinides refers to is the naturalization process she witnessed earlier this year in Virginia, America, on the fourth of July.
“This was an example of how in time systems can work if applied to crises to give people dignity.”
“We have to bring the concept back of supporting each other instead of building walls,” she sighs.
Until such time, the Saharawi people will continue fighting for their statehood, led by the women who Constantinides says will never give up, come hell or high water.

00018733.jpg

Refugees In Their Own Home

When Maybin Madiba Mudenda was 15 years old, he sold CDs and blank cassette tapes across the back of threadbare seats on the train on his way to school from Livingstone to Lusaka.  It is a heck of a long train ride to where Mudenda sits and sells now, in a leather backed chair with a polished table in his offices at African Grey Insurance, in the heart of Lusaka. In his pocket he has over $9.5 million, enough to buy a pile of CDs that could derail a train or match his mountain of ambition.
“Give me five years and I’ll be on the cover of FORBES AFRICA magazine, there with Adrian Gore and Patrice Motsepe,” he says with a smile.
It may take longer. On the FORBES AFRICA 50 Richest List, Motsepe is ranked 11th with $2.7 billion and Gore 45th with $460 million.
It’s not a worry for Mudenda, who makes his money carrying risk. He is of a new generation of confident, cool and savvy Zambians. He started out in logistics for Oxfam and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in the drought ridden bush around Nangweshi, in the Western Province of Zambia. The contracts dried up, so did Mudenda’s job. Out of the blue stepped the appropriately named Saviour Konie, known as the father of Zambian insurance. Konie gave him a chance as a salesperson for ZIGI Insurance in 2000.
Money proved the spur. Mudenda’s first commission was $2,000.
“Now that’s when life started to get interesting,” says Mudenda.
A year later, he was confident enough to make a bold move to sell in Zambia’s Copperbelt, the lifeblood of the Zambian economy. The mines needed insurance badly, but few took the trouble to sell it. Mudenda didn’t need an invitation and made $50,000 in his first year.
No sooner had the dust settled on the copper mines, along came another piece of luck. Sandra Valenzo, an Italian working in Zambia and owner of VS Cargos, wanted to move large amounts of copper. Again Mudenda stepped in and oversaw the movement of 10,000 tons of copper from the Democratic Republic of Congo to South Africa in a deal worth $250,000 that earned him 20% commission.
Twelve years later, Mudenda is a multimillionaire. He’s never looked back. He holds 50% of African Grey Insurance which is valued at $6 million and 20% of Genesis Finance Limited which is valued at $3 million. He also owns the $1-million Insizwe Consult , a $2-million 2,000-hectare farm, Muccabella Farms, in Chisamba as well as the Kabanana House and Halen Kaunda House, in Lusaka, valued at $650,000 each.
Through a string of canny deals, Mudenda has also garnered shares with H&amp;F Hydraulics, a company based in South Africa worth $125,000, and 25% stakes in Burton Karya Resources and Kurema Resources.
“The new generation now wants to come out. The older generation still lives in the fear that if you talk about your wealth, the politicians will still come and haunt you. You will find guys that will call you and say ‘no you mustn’t tell people about your wealth. People will put some sort of juju on you. You are attracting commissions to you’. I have got nothing to hide,” says Mudenda.
Among his assets are cars that are the envy of most people he passes in the street. A Mercedes Benz SL500, ML500, E300, the new S Class and a Land Cruiser are parked in his garage. It is a long drive from the tiny apartment he shared 15 years ago.
“We used to have nothing. We used to live in a little two bedroom flat in Northmead, Buchi Road. My mom gave us a Toyota Camry 1998/99 model. We were comfortable, but we didn’t have all these luxuries,” he says.
Mudenda says Zambians must not be afraid to start their own businesses.
“The next generation must go for what you think is right for you. Most young Zambians believe in being workers. They are so scared of being entrepreneurs. But you need to go out and fight to get the business. I’ve got files of people who I’ve been to school with that could do it. You know what I’ve started doing now? I’ve started employing them as agents. That’s what Konie did for me,” says Mudenda.
Mudenda might not be on the cover of FORBES AFRICA anytime soon, but with more deals on the way he could put himself in the fast lane. At the very least he plans on shaking hands with the men he looked up to when he had nothing.

Meet Our  Cover Story  For 2019

“And the Oscar goes to&#8230;”.
Five little words that caused writer and director Bryan Buckley to draw a deep breath:
“When you hear those words&#8230; and you happen to be one of the five guys it could possibly go to, it is, in itself, a crazy thought. It simply just doesn’t seem real. All the films could have easily won that night. And mentally you know this going into the evening. If I didn’t think we had put everything we had into our film, perhaps I would have been disappointed in myself and thought about what we didn’t nail in the film when the winner [Curfew] was announced. But I knew this wasn’t the case. It just wasn’t our night,” says Buckley.
<div id="attachment_1690" style="width: 209px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1690" decoding="async" loading="lazy" class="size-medium wp-image-1690" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/162620158-199x300.jpg" alt="" width="199" height="300" />Bryan Buckley and Mino Jarjoura with Harun and Ali Mohamed, on the red carpet</div>
He was in Los Angeles, California, at the 85th Academy Awards, where he was nominated for best live action short for ASAD—a tale of refugees, in Somalia. Sitting nervously by his side were the two leads, 14-year-old Harun Mohamed and his 12-year-old brother Ali. The day had flown by, moments before they were walking the red carpet alongside the A-listers—including Ben Affleck, Daniel Day-Lewis and Ang Lee—and doing interviews.
“The BBC was the first to interview the boys. Harun stepped forward to the microphone and began to talk about his journey in English. How far he had come, had never been so apparent. He and Ali were constantly asked what celeb they wanted to meet the most at the ceremony. And without question Harun would say Jackie Chan and Ali would say Jean-Claude Van Damme,” says Buckley.
It was a journey that began with the filming of ASAD in Africa.
Buckley is the last person you would expect to make a film about Somalia. His business is big-budget Super Bowl (American football) commercials for a quarter of a billion dollars with an audience of more than a million. Conversations with Somali refugees motivated him to create the short film with little commercial value or audience.
It all started in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, in 2010, where Buckley was shooting a documentary called No Autographs for the UN Human Right’s Council. He left with that feeling of hope in the face of despair. A year later he wrote ASAD.
The film was set in Somalia and shot in Cape Town. It tells the story of a young boy who must choose between life as a pirate or that of a humble fisherman. The entire cast was made up of refugees who had fled to South Africa.
Buckley says the biggest problem in producing the 18-minute short-film was overcoming the language barrier as both leads, Harun and Ali, were illiterate.
“We knew language, with the whole cast, was going to be a barrier by virtue that we were doing the entire film in Somali and I didn’t speak a single word of it. Right off the bat we enlisted in two Somali translators [who helped the boys memorize the script]&#8230; Both the boys are exceedingly bright. They picked up on things so quickly it was crazy. And then I’d act out some stuff and they would study it and follow. Always bringing their own twist. of course, like any Hollywood star would.”
The filming was taxing and Buckley struggled to shoot scenes with the rebels.
“There was just so much emotion there between them [the rebels] and the boys. It was quite clear this wasn’t the first time these refugees had handled guns. I kept thinking what horrible ghosts were haunting them after every take. And how bizarre [it was that] our cameras were recording every second of this nightmare.”
The international acclaim came with praise from Somali musician K’naan.
“He is truly a man who has supported Somalia and its people’s plight more than anyone I know. He said, ‘ASAD is an important film. It makes human the inaccurate caricature of Somalia, showing real people, a community and life beyond a land of pirates and warlords,’” he says.
The film won numerous awards at various international film festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival and San Jose Film Festival. The Academy Awards nomination was the cherry on top but the leads almost didn’t make their big moment in Hollywood.
“The fact that they [Harun and Ali] didn’t have travel documents and that they were Somali refugees did not help matters. ASAD’s producer Mino Jarjoura worked around the clock with [South African producer] Rafiq Samsodien to get the kids there. It took government officials from both the US and South Africa, along with UNHCR to pull off the task. And they did so, in dramatic and perfect timing.”
Regardless of the outcome the team celebrated making it to the Oscars with a toast. After the ceremony they attended the prestigious Governor’s Ball.
Buckley may have walked away empty-handed but he and his two young leads stood tall for one of Africa’s untold stories.

From Mogadishu to Hollywood

The neighborhoods surrounding Tel Aviv’s old central bus station are littered with broken dreams, false promises and aching poverty. But one person here, at least, is living her dream.
It is to these Israeli streets that tens of thousands of African refugees have flocked, grateful to be alive but struggling to make ends meet. In one of the alleys, a broken gate signals to me that I’ve arrived. Here, in a two-bedroomed apartment, 30-year-old Faida Bakaji Tshuma is a ray of hope in a place where hope itself seems a luxury.
Six years ago Tshuma arrived in Israel with her family, political refugees from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her parents were being threatened with prison, or worse, for their political activities and Jerusalem’s arms were open to those seeking asylum. Tshuma had just finished her university studies and the world seemed promising.
“I was very happy. It was like a dream. I was full of ambition. I thought to myself, ‘this is my chance to build my future in Israel’,” she reflects.
But the greater happiness she expected in this longed-for place evaded her when she found herself in a cramped apartment with seven other family members all surviving on piecemeal jobs.
“It was a big disappointment, but there was nothing we could do, so we stayed in this condition for two years. It was a vicious circle. I didn’t have money to learn Hebrew and, without Hebrew, I couldn’t apply for a Master’s degree, not that I would’ve been able to pay for my studies anyway. The only option was to work as a cleaner in people’s homes,” she says.
There are about 50,000 refugees in Israel, with thousands more arriving every year—mostly from Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan and Congo. But these numbers are dwarfed by the hundreds of thousands who die, or are killed, en route.
“It’s not easy. And even when we get here, it’s just as difficult. One day I just slumped into a depression and decided to stop everything,” Tshuma remembers. “I didn’t answer my phone for three days. I knew something had to change. I thought, ‘what can I do? What can I do to get out of this condition, out of this poverty?’ The problem was that I had no savings that could help me do something else.”
And yet the answer was staring her in the face.
“Because I didn’t have a job, my sister and brother asked if I could babysit their children while they were at work. I agreed because I like kids. In the morning, we would paint, sing and dance and afterwards they would eat and sleep. I spent three days doing this when I suddenly realized I could open a nursery school, provide this service to other families and turn it into a profitable business.”
But she needed funds, so Tshuma approached Microfy, a microfinance organization.
“Being a refugee is like being an entrepreneur because you take your life into your hands and it’s up to you to make it work,” says Microfy’s founder and director Andrea Kruchik Krell.
“The business risks to these refugees are huge and more often than not, those who open a business have it closed down by the authorities because they don’t have the legal status to own a company in Israel. But just like the rest of the population, about 10% of them are entrepreneurs—refugees with great ideas who are good at doing business but need to be given a chance,” says Krell.
In addition to providing loans, Microfy organizes intensive training in business management and mentors refugees.
“If they don’t show commitment and if they talk about importing diamonds from Congo, they won’t get funding,” points out Krell. “But Faida knew what she wanted and was determined and willing to make an effort to learn.”
In the past four years, the nursery school has grown to 40 children, all of them from refugee or foreign workers’ families. A typical day starts at seven and ends 12 hours later when parents finish their often irregular, often menial labor.
Mimi is a shy, tiny woman, who gave birth to her daughter, Nohami, in Sudan while she and her husband were fleeing Eritrea. They spent a year in an Israeli prison after being arrested for trying to sneak into the country from Egypt. She supports her daughter with the money she earns from cleaning apartments. Her husband is in Switzerland where he is trying to arrange papers to take the family there.
“I don’t know what I’d do if this place didn’t exist. I know no-one in Israel and there’s no other place I can leave my daughter, knowing she’s in a safe environment and being well taken care of,” she says
Fura is another single mom who has two children at the nursery school—her youngest is six months old. She, too, says life is difficult in Israel and knowing her children are being looked after during the day while she searches for work gives her peace of mind.
“The children are still too young for us to see what kind of trauma they’ve experienced,” says Tshuma. “But I see the difficulty in the conditions of their lives; they don’t spend time with their parents as they’re here all day and go home just to sleep. The other day, one of the four-year-olds asked me why his mom couldn’t come to pick him up early and take him to the park to play. It’s so sad.”
The nursery school provides a safe environment in which the children can grow and learn. Tshuma has since trained in early childhood education and with the help of volunteers has a daily schedule she follows that includes educational games, art and music. She talks to the children in English, French and Hebrew and often the meal she gives them is the only food they eat all day. Her work won her a Microfinance International Award for successfully using a Microfy loan to start her own business.
“I run this place with a lot of understanding. Often a parent will come to me and say they’re so sorry but they haven’t been able to find work this month and can’t pay fees. Sometimes I take money from my own pocket to buy books, a nice chair, a CD,” she says.
“Nothing in this life is easy, you need to fight, to stand up and do it. The value of a person is what’s inside. Many of the refugees have so much to contribute but don’t get the opportunity to do so. I wanted to be an exception and challenge myself. I wanted to help people and give back. I didn’t want to just have any nursery school where kids were dropped off and picked up—I want this place to be something different.”

Tag: Refugees

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA