A voice for refugees
Yilma Tafere Tasew has firsthand experience of the plight of refugees
His latest work, Outcast: The Plight of Black African Refugees, launched in Wellington last week, is a compilation of essays written by refugees, scholars, activists and professionals about refugees and their lives. The book also includes his own experiences as a refugee at the Kakuma Camp in northeast Kenya and as a transport assistant for the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Nairobi.
Born in Ethiopia, Tasew was a teacher before he was arrested and held in prison for being a sympathiser of the opposition political party. In 1991 he fled Ethiopia for Kenya, and for eight years struggled to survive in refugee camps. At the Kakuma Camp he became a community leader, producing the world’s first refugee-run news bulletin, Kanebu, and helping to publish a book of stories and poetry featuring the work of 28 of the camp’s refugees, including himself.
In Nairobi Tasew’s main job was to organise the transport of refugees, from and to camps, from protection, to resettlement and social services. He witnessed firsthand what he says is the dark side of aid operations. In Outcast Tasew details the corruption and bribery within aid agencies working in Africa.
“The kind of people who created the situation in Africa are now surrounding the aid agencies,” Tasew says.“The biggest problem is people who approach aid agencies try and use it as a springboard for their own interests, to rub shoulders with politicians rather than fight for refugee interests.”
Tasew says many of the agencies don’t involve refugees but rather dictate to them.
“It should be a partnership between the agencies and refugees. They should plan together and make decisions together equally. It shouldn’t be like an employer and employee.”
Outcast is Tasew’s fourth book and the first of a series looking at African refugees. He’s planning another looking at refugee post settlement and a third about his life in Ethiopia before his exile.
Tasew has also published several volumes of poetry.
“Poetry gives me psychological relief,” he says. “ I can cry with my pain. I laugh. I share my loneliness and I share my philosophy on life.”
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