Meheba: Further information

Meheba: Further information

Spending time at Meheba will be an eye opening experience;

• Some of the refugees were brought to the camp by strangers when they were children.
• The parents of one guy we spoke with had been assassinated by the government (he was son of a commander of the Angolan Rebel Force....he said he couldn't tell us his fathers name).
• Another was from Rwanda and his parents had been killed. He never wants to return there.
• There are others who have simply come because it is a guarantee for food supplies and accommodation - claiming fake refugee status.

For the Book Bus to achieve its goals at Meheba you will need patience, flexibility and a good sense of humour. For detailed information on the settlement please read on….

Location

Meheba is situated at 75km away from Solwezi, the Provincial Headquarters of the North-Western Province.

Layout

Meheba Refugee Settlement covers a vast area of 720 sq km. It is divided into 8 Zones from A to H and into 125 roads and villages. There are 67 roads from Zone A to Zone E, and villages from 68 to 125 in Zone F, G and H.

Average Household Plot

The average household plot is 25x30 metres, The average family size is 6 persons.

Agriculture Farm plot

The average agriculture farming plot per household is 2.5 hectares.

Background Information

Meheba Refugee Settlement was established in 1971 and hosts refugees from DRC, Angola, Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, Uganda, Somalia, Liberia, Namibia and Malawi. At its peak, in May 2003, the refugee population in Meheba was 47,670. As of January 2009 the refugee population is 15,798. Apart from the Angolans, repatriation has also provided a durable solution for other nationality groups in the settlement and other durable solutions such as local integration and re-settlement are also being applied.

Settlement Population

The current population of Meheba Refugee Settlement as of January 2009 is 15,798. In addition to the Angolan refugees, Meheba also hosts refugees from other nationalities including Congolese, Rwandese, Burundians and other nationalities. The table below tabulates the statistics by nationality:

Administration of Zones

Each Zone has an elected Chairperson, Vice Chairperson, and each road and village has an elected chairperson and a secretary.

Settlement Administration

The settlement administration is based on the Tripartite Agreement between the government of Zambia, UNHCR and Implementing Partners.

Main Activity Responsibilities

UNHCR

In line with its mandate, UNHCR is responsible for protection (including re-settlement activities), durable solutions for the refugees, monitoring the programmes in the camp and funding refugee assistance activities implemented by UNHCR partners and government counterparts in the settlement.

The Government of Zambia (GRZ)

The Ministry of Home Affairs is responsible for security and physical protection of refugees, maintaining statistics and a database on refugees in conjunction with other implementing partners and UNHCR. UNHCR and the Government of Zambia continue their protection and coordination role in the settlement. Government departments from 2006 have taken more responsibility for health, education, agriculture and water sectors in the settlement.

World Food Programme (WFP)

Based on a Memorandum of Understanding signed by WFP and UNHCR. WFP is responsible for the provision of food to refugees. Each refugee according to WFP standards receives 600 grams of food daily, which is equivalent to 2100 kilocalories. The ration consists of cereals (maize or sorghum) 450g, pulses (beans) 120g, cooking oil 20g and salt 10g. When certain food items are not readily available for distribution to refugees, WFP has always compensated by providing other food items e.g. sorghum. WFP also provides enroute rations and wet feeding at transit centres during repatriation.
As a policy food is only distributed to the vulnerable persons and new arrivals that have not completed two harvesting seasons and then get removed from the distribution list after the assessment that they became self-sufficient in food production. Only the vulnerable refugees and new arrivals are receiving food rations from WFP.

Implementing Partners

The main UNHCR implementing partners in Meheba are:

• Ministry of Community Development and Social Services (MCDSS)
• Department of Water Affairs
• Ministry of Health
• Ministry of Education
• Ministry of Agriculture

Ministry of Community Development and Social Services (MCDSS):

MCDSS took over the sectoral responsibilities of Community Services, Education HIV/AIDS awareness and sensitization and SGBV in July 2007.

a). Community Services
The focus of community services is to strengthen community traditional care systems for the vulnerable like the elderly, unaccompanied minors and the handicapped. In particular initiating special programmes to ensure that the aged in TC 44 are integrated/reintegrated into the community traditional care system. Further, MCDSS supports self reliance activities like income generation.

b). Education
The other responsibility of MCDSS is to provide vocational training to the refugee community.

c). HIV/AIDs
The community is sensitized on HIV/AIDs through meetings and IEC materials. Information on HIV/AIDS mainly targets adults and youth groups who receive information on HIV/AIDS/STI prevention, care support to people living with HIV/AIDS, condom use, voluntary counseling and testing in the community.

d). Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV)
SGBV cases are reported to MCDSS, police, RO, Health and UNHCR through community leaders and the neighborhood watch. The SGBV Task force comprising COR,Refugee representatives, Forge, Police, UNHCR and all IPs has a monitoring role in the area of SGBV and coordinates sensitization activities and ensures that the referral mechanism is communicated to the community.

e). Non Food Items (NFIs)
MCDSS distributes non-food items such as plastic sheets, blankets, soap, jerry cans, clothes and kitchen sets are distributed to all new arrivals and vulnerable. Agriculture tools such as hoes, axes etc are in-adequate to promote agriculture and self-sufficiency, which eventually causes the difficulty to remove some of the refugees from the food distribution list after two years. MCDSS also distributes 4metres chitenge material as sanitary assistance to the women.

Department of Water Affairs (DWA)

DWA has been operating in Meheba settlement since 2002. It has been running the Water and Sanitation Project whose roles and responsibilities range from construction, rehabilitation, maintenance of all water points in the settlement as well as the provision of good sanitation through health and sanitation education.

a). Water Sector
The water officer supervises pump minders, who carry out the following activities:

• Construction of water points (boreholes and wells)
• Rehabilitation and repairing of water points
• Carrying out water quality test

Currently there are 388 protected water points, 315 drinking water points and 44 people per drinking water point.

b). Sanitation Sector
The sanitation officer supervises 10 community health workers who are distributed in each zone and they conduct the following activities:

• Working in conjunction with the Village Water and Sanitation Health Education committees (V-WASHE), which comprises 6 members at every water point
• Carrying out adequate Health Education on water, sanitation and hygiene in all zones
• Chlorination exercise in the zones
• Base survey
• Submitting reports to the head of field team

There are 1103 refuse pits, 1109 dish racks, 2330 latrines and 6 people per latrine.

Ministry of Health (MOH)

Ministry of Health provides health services. There are 6 health centres in the settlement and they are involved in offering of both preventive and curative health services. The health programmes currently in place are:

a) Extended Programme on Immunization (EPI)
All clinics are conducting both growth monitoring and immunization of children under 5. These are done simultaneously in under-5 clinics, which are held at an appointed day in the week as well as during Outreach Programme.

b) Tuberculosis Programme
In this programme patients receive curative and supportive care. All patients receive full treatment and HEPS supplied by WFP.

c) HIV/AIDS
The programme is growing and doing well. There are VCT centres in all clinics. Testing for HIV is done at Clinic A laboratory. Patients are referred for further investigation and management of ARVs at Solwezi General Hospital.

d) Reproductive Health
All six clinics in the settlement conduct Reproductive Health activities including deliveries, antenatal and post-natal care and family planning, combating sexually transmitted diseases.

e) Nutrition
Beneficiaries of the Supplementary Feeding Programme are mostly under-5 children who are underweight captured during under-5 and Outreach programs.

f) OPD activities
Mostly deal with consultations. The commonest causes of morbidity remains to be Malaria, respiratory track infection and diarrhea.

g) IPD activities
Malaria, respiratory tract infection and diarrhea remain to be the highest cause of admission to the clinics.

h) Emergency Referrals
Maternity and trauma cases are the largest causes for referrals to Solwezi General Hospital. Other causes of referral are anemic patients who need blood transfusion, dental cases and surgical cases.

Ministry of Education

There are 5 basic schools and one high secondary school. The schools are run by the Ministry of Education.Community schools. There are 9 community schools in different zones of the settlement. Currently there are 16 Community School Teachers; however recruitment of some # more teachers is ongoing.

Ministry of Agriculture

Agriculture plots of 2.5 hectares for each family are allocated to refugees to aid food self sufficiency. Seeds, farming tools and technical advice are provided to the refugees, however the supply of agriculture tools is not that adequate. Refugees in Meheba produce maize, cassava, groundnut, Soya beans, rice and sweet potato. In addition to agriculture and farming activities, refugees are also involved in other income generating activities including fish farms and bee-keeping.

Other Operating Agencies

• International Crescent of Red Cross Zambia (ICRC) - ICRC is responsible for tracing refugee families, parents or relatives of unaccompanied minors / elders.
• Saint Mary’s Mission in Meheba - Spiritual, moral and material support to refugees – home base care for HIV/AIDS infected refugees, caring for orphans and vulnerable children (scholarships, school uniforms, school study kits) food and clothes.