LET’S SPARE A THOUGHT FOR PLIGHT OF REFUGEES

Refugees have needs just like the rest of us. However, many of us go about our business completely unaware of their presence in our midst and their needs, which are pretty much like ours, the only difference being that they are far from home and other things that we take for granted.

There is a need to raise awareness in local communities of the plight of people forced to flee their homelands by various factors along with marshalling support for the urgent work of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

It is also an opportunity to spread a little understanding about the reality of being a refugee, given that it is a problem that is now widespread.

We in Tanzania, probably more than anyone else in this region, have borne the brunt of refugee movements. At one time, Tanzania hosted over a million refugees.

In years past, political instability in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo sparked off an influx of refugees into Tanzania.

This inevitably led to over-exploitation of natural resources and environmental degradation.

Services such as health, water and education were overstretched as this country struggled to do the right thing and provide humanitarian assistance to people rendered homeless by politically instigated violence.

As if these challenges were not enough, there was also the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in and around refugee camps.

It is a good thing that Tanzania has land to spare. The refugees were enabled to set down roots and maintain themselves. As stability returned to the Great Lakes region, the country opted in 2000 to offer citizenship to refugees from Burundi, some of whom had been in the country since 1972.

In a move described by the United Nations as the most generous and largest naturalisation anywhere, Tanzania granted citizenship to 162,000 refugees from Burundi in what was proof, if any were needed, that ours is indeed an island of peace and political stability.

WHY A NEW MIND SET IS NEEDED

Job creation and unemployment have been sensitive issues for many decades not only in Tanzania, but globally. The situation is worse in developing nations, including Tanzania, where the rate of unemployment has stubbornly remained in double digits.

Meanwhile, employers have been complaining about poorly trained personnel. They argue that, more often than not, they have to invest huge sums in shaping up and bringing their employees to the desired standards.

What, then, is the cause of this mismatch? Clearly, our education system has problems. It provides the labour market with semi-skilled and barely skilled personnel. What is even worse is that it tunes the minds of students to think of “getting an employment somewhere” rather than self-employment.

The role of the government is to provide an enabling environment for transformation to take place. It must ensure that the education system is aligned with modern needs.

Families should fine-tune children’s thinking so they appreciate self-employment from a young age.