Today it’s not only a celebration day. It’s a day to ensure we support refugees rights and guarantee everybody is welcoming in everywhere. For the World Refugee Day, Migrant Women Press invited the youth leader and poet Rita Ngarambe Laurence to record her poem “The Story of a Refugee”, acknowledging the resilience of our refugee sisters and brothers.
According to with the United Nations “The world is witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record.” An unprecedented 70.8 million people around the world have been forced from home by conflict and persecution at the end of 2018. Among them are nearly 30 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of 18. There are also millions of stateless people, who have been denied nationality and access to basic rights such as education, healthcare, employment and freedom of movement.
Women represent almost half of the migrants and half of the refugees worldwide. Migrant and refugee women and girls have been exposed to various forms of gender-based violence, either in their country of origin, during their journey and upon arrival.
Ideally, no one should be forced to leave their homes due to war, violence, poverty, persecution or any other issue to unknown journeys of suffering. However, all countries should create policies to guarantee a society where everybody is welcome and safe, have opportunities to fulfil dreams and aspirations, inspire others and contribute to a better place for everyone.
Migrant Women Press stands in solidarity with our refugee sisters and brothers!
We are delighted to feature the beautiful poem “The story of a refugee” by Rita Laurence Ngarambe, recorded especially for World Refugee Day.
Listen here:
The days are so bright the heart is filled and overwhelmed with joy, I have walked into what most call a promised land.
Just like the Bible stories at Sunday school how the children of idealists crossed over and left their burdens so did mine, at least I thought.
When I crossed over the border, leaving behind the country, smokes of burning cities, homes of my neighbours, the dying children in hunger and warzone land, I felt relieved, having not to process how I have left all my families behind with no promises of if they will still be around.
But I made it to a strange land claiming refuge seeking comfort, hoping I will see my loved ones once again.
This, this is a life of a refugee, you seek a home in a house, hoping to create hope and become whole out of a broken shell. And your dreams of freedom and natural existence lay in the facts you can prove.
This is the stories of women who ran away from paedophile men, girls who escaped a human trafficking system, young men and boys who run away from fired bullets of the hungry politicians at war for treasure and riches of the land.
These women, men and children’s hopes come back alive at their arrival in the new countries but then a new unanticipated nightmare starts.
The system breaks you. Some spend 1825 days trying to prove their lives worth, why they deserve to be protected while living their tremors every time asked to tell their stories.
Mental health sickness introduces himself to you, depression, becomes the uninvited visitor at your doorsteps.
A mother’s hope to re-enrol their child into school turns into 5 years in immigration appointments, appeals and visitation to lawyers.
A Refugee’s life is where one’s hopes go to sleep and the light starts being deemed, the cry for the human race to prove their right to exist in peace becomes impossible to archive, this is where greeting conversations of good morning sound like an insult when one’s soul has been broken.
Where a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster all that lives in them, Where waves of goodbyes become the morning tea, daydreaming of the happy family dinners, the grandparent’s voices besides the kitchen sink become a dream, your high school classmates turn into imaginary friends.
This is where life ends with hopes for a new rebirth, magical existence an erase of memory and hopefully a new beginning.
THIS IS THE WALK, THE LIFETIME DISTANCE OF TWO SEPARATE BORDERLINES.
Rita worked with women and children who were survivors of sexual-based violence and the 1994 genocide against Tutsi. She has also worked with organizations that fight against homelessness in Toronto. Rita hosted events to help people affected by natural disasters. She contributes to creating spaces where all youths of positive minds and change-makers can come together to join forces to work towards positive causes and that help support the community and thrive for better humanity in love and unity.