After an auspicious first day in the camps — in the sense that we got in and moved freely without incident — the second day brought unexpected challenges. I woke up to find out that street protests by the host community living adjacent to some of the camps were blocking any vehicles from going through, effectively cutting off all access to the camps. The government wasn’t permitting any NGOs to enter. At first, I started to panic: does this mean I lose a whole day? What if the Rohingya refugee camps don’t reopen for the rest of my time here? I decided to just see where the day takes me. Since everyone was essentially stuck in the city center due to the camp closures, I quickly coordinated meetings in and around my hotel. It turned out to be an unforgettable day exploring areas and interventions I didn’t even know existed.
My first meeting was with PULSE Bangladesh, a local organization that is a main implementing partner on the ground for many U.N. and government agencies. I was drawn to the group because of its work around gender-based violence, child protection, education, and vocational programming. PULSE does a lot in the camps, across numerous sectors. With a staff of 450, including members of the host community and Rohingya themselves, it has the capacity to take on many roles. The director, Atiqul Islam Chowdhury, is a warm-spirited, committed man who spoke excitedly about all the great work PULSE is doing. Because visiting the projects in the camps wasn’t possible, we opted for a tour of the shelter for orphans and street children right there on the property.
A sign on the wall in a shelter for orphans and street children in Bangladesh. Photo by Ann Strimov Durbin
Behind an unremarkable green gate lay a safe space for children. The jovial director of the shelter proudly guided us through the tidy and organized facility. There are dormitories for girls and boys, study areas, a dining room, and a classroom that doubles as a place for prayer. “Look at these pictures,” he insisted. “Before these children were so, so poor. We found them wandering the beaches, begging. Now look at them, clean, proud, nutritiously fed, getting an education.” Before and after photos of the children lined the walls, cliché but telling. The children I met appeared to be genuinely healthy and happy. I spoke to the shy, sweet girls a bit in English. I showed the boys photos of my own three sons, and this caused a frenzy as they all grabbed at them, eager to see how boys in America look. It was touching to see the children so happy. One little boy followed my friend Haythem around, hugging him repeatedly—a street child he had befriended and shared a few meals with before the boy came to the shelter. A sign on the wall reads, “If you give me a good mother, I will give you a good nation.”
My next meeting was with John Littleton. His organization came highly recommended, so I was very eager to see its projects. With the camps closed, John offered to take me to the schools his organization runs in the slums of Cox’s Bazar, in partnership with local NGO Mukti. I didn’t know that they worked together, so it was quite serendipitous that Bimal, the head of Mukti, would be accompanying us since I had a meeting scheduled with him the next day.
John explained that the slums surrounding Cox’s Bazar city actually contain many Rohingya refugees from previous waves of persecution-triggered flight. One slum, in particular, Kutupdiapara, has a very high number of Rohingya refugees. The area was named after Kutupdia island off the coast of the Bay of Bengal, which was once home to many Rohingya refugees, but has gradually been sinking into the sea, causing many Rohingya to have to flee once again.
A seesaw in a schoolyard in Bangladesh. Photo by Ann Strimov Durbin
It caught me off-guard to observe that the living conditions in the slums were seemingly worse than those I had witnessed in the section of the camps I visited the day before. Sewage and trash were everywhere, and the stench I had surprisingly avoided in my first day in the camps finally imprinted on my senses. I began to feel overwhelmed by the sheer immensity of need until John announced our arrival at the first school. I entered through the gate into a paradise set against a backdrop of despair. A lush garden greeted us with tidy bushes, blooming flowers, and planters fashioned from repurposed plastic water bottles. And, my first sighting of a slide and swings! Old and rusty as they were, seeing them in this verdant wonderland — such a stark contrast to the bleakness outside — filled my heart with joy.
In the first classroom, sat rows of beaming children in uniform, all in grade 2. The walls of the classroom were covered in the children’s art. Bright paper streamers and flowers crisscrossed the ceiling. A mobile handmade by the children from shells and pompoms hung from above. It was one of the happiest, most colorful classrooms I had seen in my life, and the love put into this classroom paid itself forward in the smiling faces of the kids. The children knew Bimal and John, so they eagerly answered questions, pointed to the locations where their visitors were from on the classroom map. Every single child was so engaged and happy to be there. It felt genuine and true. “They’re doing something right here,” Haythem said as we moved to the next classroom. My thoughts exactly.
Inside a colorful classroom in Bangladesh. Photo by Ann Strimov Durbin
We visited around 5 different schools, all with multiple classrooms, across three different slum areas throughout the day. John explained the strategy and pedagogical philosophy underlying his approach. While the children in the slums, including the Rohingya, can learn Bangla — the predominant language of Bangladesh, which is similar to the Rohingya’s Chittagonian dialect — their counterparts in the camps cannot. They are confined to learning Burmese and English from teachers who usually speak neither. This disparity clearly made a significant difference. While the young kids in the schools were just overjoyed to be there, the older children had a palpable drive. Nearly every classroom had that one child you could tell would move mountains, just by looking in his or her eyes. I really loved a newsletter I received containing the children’s photos, drawings, and poems. “They must be so proud to hold this in their hands and know they made it,” I mused.
Despite being overjoyed to see such healthy learning environments and enthusiasm, I could not help but think, “if only this could be replicated in the camps.” John shares this ambition. Despite multiple limitations, including the above-mentioned curricular restraints, some committed humanitarians in the camps are working tirelessly to carve out safe, joy-filled places for children and to find innovative ways of teaching them things they can actually understand and use. This is not to minimize the work being done in the slums. The areas I visited — Kutupdiapara, Garmin Matt, and Fishery Ghat — are equally if not more impoverished, though they receive no international aid whatsoever. This provides a niche opportunity, from a grantmaking point of view, where every intervention can be monitored and leveraged. But the people living in the slums have something the refugees in the mega camps do not: choice. The one silver lining in the slums is that their inhabitants have freedoms — to work, to move, to study — that those in the camps do not.
A young student proudly displays her drawing of an elephant at a school in Bangladesh. Photo by Ann Strimov Durbin
Only by being in the camps can you visualize, if not comprehend, the vastness of the need and the overwhelming heaviness of inertia. The Rohingya fled genocidal persecution in a homeland where many of them, too, were confined to camps with no freedom of movement, no education, no future. And, now, they face many of the same circumstances, but with severe overcrowding, water-borne diseases, unstable living structures, and very little options for how to pass the days, stretching out indefinitely with no solution in sight. Moreover, it appears that those in charge of the camp system may be motivated to make conditions in the camps unpalatable to a certain degree so the Rohingya don’t get too comfortable or have incentives to stay for the long-term.
After seeing the students in the slum schools, I am even more resolute in my conviction that quality, developmental education is critical for the children in the camps. They need a place where they feel safe, happy, stimulated, and engaged. There are many restrictions on what these children can receive, but I remain hopeful that there are innovative approaches to be found that work within the system while giving these deserving, bright-eyed, enthusiastic and kind children just that little bit more that will make all the difference.