A forgotten crisis life in Nduta refugee camp, Tanzania

The chance to be a child again

Our cross-party delegation spent several days in the region, visiting Plan International’s programmes.

We met adolescent girls attending one of the camp’s secondary schools and spent time talking to unaccompanied minors and their foster families, as well as visiting the child-friendly spaces we run in the camp.

These spaces offer an amazing set of services, from counselling and psychotherapy to training courses on IT and classes on how to write job applications.

They also provide playground equipment and football pitches, offering young people much-needed opportunities to play and be children again, amid all they have been exposed to.

A forgotten crisis

During the trip, what really stood out for me is just how forgotten this crisis is. These camps have been running since the 1990s, and yet many people I spoke to about the trip seemed surprised that there are any refugee camps in Tanzania at all.

Today, the camps are only receiving 12% of the funding they need. This means that up to 88% of the children and their families living in the camps are missing out on live-saving health, education and protection services – and are therefore being denied their basic human rights.

Without a shadow of a doubt, all the services I saw in the camp were critical to ensure that the children and their families are physically and emotionally healthy.

It serves as a stark reminder how vital it is that governments and donors around the world continue to support and fund all crises where vulnerable people are fleeing persecution and violence.  

Aid works

While travelling around the camp, one of the most obvious things I observed was that aid works. Despite being a poorly-funded crisis, there is still an amazing amount of work being done that offers a lifeline to some of the most vulnerable people in the world.

For this reason, the UK Government’s ongoing support to the aid budget is more important than ever, so that this life-saving work can continue.

It’s also vital that we recognise the work of the amazing aid workers delivering services on the ground.

I lost count of the number of staff we met who were hundreds if not thousands of miles away from their children, partners and homes.

It never fails to amaze me how passionate and hardworking these people are, despite being based in an incredibly remote part of the world, working extremely long hours in intensely difficult settings.

Education must be seen as life-saving

One thing I will never forget from the camp was our visit to the Hope Secondary School, where we met a group of adolescent girls who – against all the odds – had just finished their secondary education.

It was so inspiring to talk to them. Every single one had high aspirations: to become doctors, lawyers or journalists. From our brief encounter, I am confident that with the right opportunities they are all capable of doing just that.