Zambia: We are the ones to build the community! ---Until the “former refugees” stand up again

The policy gathers global attention, but how is the situation on the ground?

 “I’m old now. I’ve been living in a refugee settlement for decades as a refugee. Suddenly, I was told ‘you are no longer a refugee and there’s no support available’, but how can I live without any aid?”

In April 2017, AAR Japan was in the Meheba Local Integration Area visiting residents and hearing about their living conditions. Meheba Local Integration Area is a target region of the local integration policy by the Zambian government, which is aimed at helping the “former refugees” and local Zambians that cohabit there. The former refugees are people who escaped from Angola, where there was a long civil war from 1975 to 2002, or the Rwandan Genocide, to Zambia, and have lived in the country for several decades.

Tomomi AWAMURA from AAR japan (showing her back) observing the Local Integration Area provided for the “former refugees”. They will have to cultivate the land of endless grass by their own hands. (Zambia Meheba, April 13th, 2017)

Cambodia: Wheelchairs Help Nurture the Rapport Between PWDs and Their Local Community

Since the year of 1992, the Association for Aid and Relief, Japan, (AAR Japan), has provided assistance to people with disabilities (PWDs) in Cambodia. In 1994, AAR Japan set up a workshop to build wheelchairs and have supported it as one of the very few workplaces in Cambodia where staff are intensively engaged in the production of wheelchairs. Even after our leaving this workshop to be independent in 2006 as one of the local NGOs, that is “Association for Aid and Relief, Wheelchair for Development'' (WCD), AAR Japan is supporting their management and operation while paying deep respect to the independent status of the Cambodian staffs.

This report focuses on the follow-up visits to the people given wheelchairs made in this workshop to discuss how their lives have improved. Satomi MUKAI, a staff member of AAR Japan based in our Cambodia Office shares this report.

Mr. Sar Sophano, a chief staff of the workshop
WCD checks various recent situations
where assistance devices are used. (August 23th, 2019)