Refugees in India

As one of our Social Development projects and commitment to both local and international communities, Leonardo Rocker represented the Quirky Kid Clinic for a 15 day community development project in New Delhi, India. This involved working with Burmese, Somali and Afghan refugees living in exile. The project was organized by the Centre for Refugee Research at the UNSW and the UNHCR - The UN Refugee Agency.

More than 120 women and girls as well as 70 men attended the four-day gathering and while grateful for the asylum they receive in India, the refugees said they faced many challenges. "Our children can go to school but I fear for their safety as the local children tease them, laugh at them, make fun of their skin colour and clothes and sometimes even beat or harass them," claimed a Somali mother, who fled her country five years ago (UNHCR, 2010).

See some photos of our trip to India: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rX_klmiiKgQ

Our dual role was to participate in the Consultation with Woman and Girls project as part of regional dialogues involving meetings with community leaders, documenting and researching human rights violations. Secondly, we worked closely with the Burmese refugee community by facilitating workshops to encourage regional solutions to local livelihood issues in view of developing funding proposals. Our intensive work served to support the refugee's  Community Based Organizations (CBO’s).

We were privileged to be part of such a great project, meet amazing people and in helping to fund-raising over $7000 for their projects.

You can find more about the dialogues by visiting the UNHCR website.

Leonardo Rocker participated in this project as an Intern for the Centre for Refugee Research at the UNSW in Sydney. The Quirky Kid Clinic provides supervision for other refugee organizations, such as the Malaleuca Refugee Centre and we currently consults to STARTTS.