by Dr. Anita Schug
Dr. Schug is a Rohingya human rights activist and a trained neurosurgeon. Dr. Schug has acted as a spokeswoman for the European Rohingya Council (ERC) and currently works as a medical doctor in Switzerland. In her role as an ERC spokeswoman, Dr. Schug speaks out about the human rights abuses currently taking place in Rakhine State and Cox’s Bazar and has addressed the United Nations on the Rohingya crisis.
Humanitarian programs must be based on the needs of the people affected by conflict and disaster. They must be inclusive, fair, equitable, and non-discriminatory. They should address the needs of vulnerable target groups such as women, the elderly, youth, Indigenous, people with disabilities, and those with special needs.
The goal of humanitarian response is to be relevant, timely, effective and efficient.
There is substantial evidence that humanitarian action often fails to meet the expectations, needs, and priorities of crises-affected people. The Humanitarian Grand Challenge team thought carefully about this and strongly believes that voices of the affected community must be heard. Chris Houston, Senior Program Officer, says, “It is important to include them, because they have the best solutions to their problems and their needs.”
I was invited by the Humanitarian Grand Challenge team to share my experience at the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting in Berlin on October 17, 2018, about the importance of including people affected by conflict in humanitarian project design and evaluation. I took this opportunity to highlight Rohingya’s never-ending plight, to reveal the massive gap in the humanitarian needs, and to discuss how we are dealing with it.
I decided to describe the dire situation of Rohingya living in No-Man’s Land in my talk to the audience and the donors. No-Man’s Land is a strip of land between Burma and Bangladesh. I wanted to provide first-hand evidence from the Rohingya who have no access to proper humanitarian aid. I wanted to show how these innocent Rohingya children are robbed of the right to education. I wanted donor governments and the innovators to see how my community has no other option than to walk in their own faeces, because no one is thinking of them; a vulnerable group requiring urgent humanitarian assistance.
My Rohingya brother, Dil Mohd, is a community leader among 5,000 Rohingya living in No-Man’s Land since August 2017. Brother Dil Mohd was desperate to show to the world of their dire conditions. In the early morning on October 17, 2018, he took a 5-minute video in Burma for the event. Since finishing the short video recording, he has been struggling to find a proper spot for his old smart phone to have a good network connection to get on line. The video recorded was too large to be easily transferred. In a desperate attempt, he cut the video into smaller segments for the world to see. In search of proper internet connection his battery died and now he was struggling not only for good signals but also how to charge his mobile.
Dil Mohd was not the only one getting desperate. In Berlin, where the Humanitarian Grand Challenge side event was happening, I was getting nervous and I was losing hope of revealing how badly our Rohingya community has been hit by the man-made humanitarian disaster. The panels started to speak and then came open floor discussions. Then came coffee break and then I was given the floor to speak. During my talks my mind was still on brother Dil Mohd’s video, praying that it gets transferred. It was 5-minute left before the event´s closing remarks. Then a miracle sound echoed in the room; “BEEP BEEP” sound on my WhatsApp! Three videos of Dil Mohd came telling the world of the Rohingya’s dire needs for humanitarian assistance for the Rohingya people stranded in No-Man’s Land since August 25, 2017. Dil Mohd told the world that there are no schools for Rohingya children, nor antenatal check-ups for Rohingya pregnant women living in No-Man’s Land. As he spoke, one could see how appalling the conditions are that they live in, and the challenges they face. It was evident from the video that the temporary shelter they built would not survive one hour of light monsoon rains. The videos Dil Mohd sent were the most powerful message for the audience before the side event ended.
In summary, people who directly experience the problem and who understand their problems the best, fail to have their voices heard, are often ignored, or if they are included it is in minor ways.
For a successful humanitarian innovation, it is vital to include people hit by humanitarian crises and their communities in project planning and evaluation because they are the only ones who can actively contribute, provide a deep insight to their problems, and the barriers they face. They are the ones who can say, through their deep insight to their problems, if a project will meet their needs and if it can be successfully implemented.
Rohingya community leader Dil Mohd, Grand Challenge Canada, and I share one thing in common; facing and dealing with the challenge. For Dil Mohd and the Rohingya, the challenge is to survive daily. For me as a Rohingya medic and activist, the challenge is to bring Rohingya’s plight and our urgent needs to humanitarians and politicians. For the Humanitarian Grand Challenge team, the challenge is in finding and discovering innovations in humanitarian fields to bring big and lasting impact to people affected by conflicts and creating hope and resilience.
