After the Battle

Last week during the meeting of The Network of African Women with Disabilities a consistent theme was the need to rebuild the lives and societies which are shattered by the outbreak of hostilities. The horrors of the conflict and persuction are followed cruelly by subsequent hardships which themselves will take time to overcome.

In the immediate flight there is the need to provide a safe space for these women. On the way through these areas of conflict medical supplies must have been limitied, access to food and water as well, and the means through which these might have been acquired are sometimes too terrible to consider. These concerns do not dissapear once a refugee camp has been reached, and it is important that we and our network partners provide a safe space in those camps as well as making it as easy as possible to access the neccessary supplies.

Our partners in the International Rescue Committee are doing great work across multiple camps trying where possible to make the safe space a one-stop shop for all the health, nutrional and care needs. This begins a long process of rehabilitation and social re-integration, and the work of such charities is vital to bring the human touch. In Ethiopian camps one of the ways in which women with disability were included was through their involvement in coffee ceremonies. A small but important step towards total inclusion.

Yet there is a life outside the camp and beyond the crisis as some of our delegates were testament to.  Their stories of renewal after harrowing experience moved the conference. They had found a role for themselves, and so must we help others find theirs.

We were asked to write down our hopes for the next ten years and someone wrote that they hoped to see no more camps and instead empowered women. Therein lies the future. The path out of this misery lies within, having survived the turmoil of a forced exodus an inner steel must be present, a steel which needs revealing and that is the mission which WCC is trying to achieve.