Erasing Our Humanity: Crisis, Social Emotional Learning, and Generational Fractures in the Nduta Refugee Camp
Abstract
:1. Introduction
“These organizations are destroying our values by keeping children in play. They say they are protecting the rights of our children, but what about the rights of our community? Because of play, children are now thinking and doing only for themselves. They are losing the culture of Burundi, they are losing their future success, they are losing their humanity.”—Miburo, Nduta Community Elder
2. Complicating Crisis
3. Methodology
4. Results
4.1. Compounded Crisis in Nduta
4.1.1. Child Rights
“Discipline is everything. It is respecting, it is valuing school, it is knowing right from wrong and how to behave. To have discipline is to be kind and work in a team with others. It is about conducting yourself well, acting polite, being responsible, helping others, and avoiding problems.”
4.1.2. Child Labor
“Children in the camp will get problems when they go to Burundi as they are being poisoned with the current situation in the camp where it is forbidden to grow crops, to sell goods. This is making children build a negative image in their mind for what is important for them, their families, their communities. Now, the culture of encouraging children to be hard working in farming, breeding, and selling is disappearing.”
“To stay alive in Burundi is the result of hard work; in Africa people eat because of their hard work; the community survives because of hard work. So, since the NGOs say that the children do not need to work hard and cannot do physical [labor], what life are they expecting children in Africa to live?”
4.1.3. Corporal Punishment
4.1.4. Play
“The culture is changing because children are taught to keep playing all the time. Children are valuing play above anything else. When a parent asks a child to fetch water, the child says, ‘No, it is my right to play’. Children are not learning about what is important and necessary for community life.”
4.2. Converging Crises: SEL and Moral Education in Nduta
4.2.1. The Individual vs. the Collective
4.2.2. Pedagogies
“[Previously] children would not pass between or near parents when they are having a discussion, but now children are not afraid to interrupt. The discipline of long ago was formed on fear, where children were afraid of parents and teachers so that they would develop respect. But now, children are not afraid and have no discipline, no respect.”
4.2.3. Rationales and Aims
“The main aim [of SEL] is to help children here and now. A lot of the project documents have language about ‘building a brighter future for children’ and supporting the wellbeing of communities, but really it focuses on helping individual students cope with stress and get back to learning in the immediate timeframe. Sure it will help them in the future, but the priority is dealing with the current situation. That is emergency education, right?”
“…many refugee children are suffering from the excessive or prolonged activation of stress response systems in the body and brain. ‘Toxic stress’ can have damaging effects on learning, behavior, and health across the lifespan. Holistic psychosocial support and social-emotional learning strategies are needed to address the effects of toxic stress in children…enhance holistic learning and heal from trauma.”
4.3. Generational Fractures in Nduta
“PTA members are like working gears, we are not welcomed to give our suggestion or opinion in education; we are not respected by these NGOs. PTA members no longer feel responsible for schools and community education activities for youth because we are not being valued, respected, or welcomed by these NGOs.”
“I am useless as a teacher now. How can I help my students develop discipline and respect if I cannot punish them and if I am required to only play with them? They are not developing in the right way. Before, I thought of students like my own children, but I cannot treat them like my own children anymore. I am failing them.”
“The saying that ‘a child belongs to the community’ is changing. Before, the development of children was the responsibility of everyone in the community. A child could sleep at their neighbor’s house. But today if a neighbor punishes your child for their own safety or to teach discipline, it causes conflict and can even impact the terms of resettlement for people in the camp. So parents now are not comfortable to be responsible for children that are not their own.”
“There are many intelligent individuals in the camp who can help to fix the problems of discipline and respect. But we are considered fools by these organizations. They have all the power and they are destroying our culture and the nature of Burundian discipline. They are destroying the future of children and killing their humanity.”
5. Discussion and Conclusions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
1 | Participants included: teachers, head teachers, school inspectors, primary school students, out-of-school youth, school club facilitators and student participants, recreational programming facilitators and child participants, parents, community leaders, and community elders (Mushingantahe). |
2 | Bashingantahe = council of elders; mushingantahe = individual council member (plural. bashingantahe); ubushingantahe = conceptual set of peace-enhancing values. |
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Dalrymple, K.A. Erasing Our Humanity: Crisis, Social Emotional Learning, and Generational Fractures in the Nduta Refugee Camp. Genealogy 2024, 8, 105. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy8030105
Dalrymple KA. Erasing Our Humanity: Crisis, Social Emotional Learning, and Generational Fractures in the Nduta Refugee Camp. Genealogy. 2024; 8(3):105. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy8030105
Chicago/Turabian StyleDalrymple, Kelsey A. 2024. "Erasing Our Humanity: Crisis, Social Emotional Learning, and Generational Fractures in the Nduta Refugee Camp" Genealogy 8, no. 3: 105. https://doi.org/10.3390/genealogy8030105