R2E: Human Rights Mobile Library
Providing a space and the materials for refugee students to learn about human rights and their right to education!
UPDATE: Djabal Mobile Library lost in a camp fire
We’ve learned via our social network Pazocalo that the original Human Rights Mobile Library was lost in a house fire. Rahma, the R2E librarian, was storing the library in his home which was completely destroyed by the fire. Human Rights Watch Student Task Force has generously stepped forward to help raise funds for a new Right to Education Mobile Human Rights Library in Camp Djabal. Many things were lost besides the library and it’s important that we support a R2E librarian who’s worked hard to make the program a success.
We are currently raising funds to help Rahma replace some important items, such as bedding, clothes, books, and what he will need to rebuild his structure.
About R2E
R2E is a chest full of learning tools, including e-readers loaded with books and documents, maps, utensils, and other resources and curriculum — focusing on human rights. Per requests from the refugee students, it will also include English learning material. Along with the chest, the mobile library will include tables, chairs, and mats to make a comfortable learning environment. The library is mobile (two donkeys can carry it all), so it can move to the different schools and classrooms in the camps.
R2E libraries are currently in two of the 12 Darfuri refugees camps, Camp Djabal and Camp Goz Amer, in Chad, close to the Sudan border. Each library serves six schools in each camp.
HRW Student Task Force
Thanks to the efforts of Human Rights Watch Student Task Force members, we have launched two libraries in refugee camps Djabal and Goz Amer. They researched appropriate resources and created materials to help their refugee student peers explore the meaning of human rights and feel connected to the world. The refugees are grateful and inspired to learn more while they are living in the camps, a situation where education might actually be a matter of life and death.
Be Part of R2E:
- Help us continue to send educational materials for the human rights mobile libraries to be delivered to the camps. We are looking for funding for Talking Dictionaries and Arabic/English Dictionary (plus rechargeable batteries), Kindle Keyboards, notebooks and pencils, and specific books researched by the HRW schools.
- Help us raise funds to keep a librarian in both camps. It’s only $75/month!
Recent News:
Rahma, Djabal’s Librarian
i-ACT first met Djabal’s librarian in January 2008. Gabriel was filming in a classroom and he asked if there were any students who wanted to sing a song. Rahma’s hand shot up in the air. He first sang his version of B-I-N-G-O, and his second number had a little dance. In this video Rahma shares [...]
Goz Amer R2E Mobile Human Rights Library Update
Hello Mr Gabriel, Mrs Katie-Jay, how are you? I am mr. yagoub abdohadi [crombo] and i am a friend in lebrary in camp goz amer. I join in this lebrary since tow monthes ago. In july, i had two monthes to learn how to know about all this materials of the lebrary. I had my [...]
Library begins in Goz Amer!
From Umda Tarbosh: Hello how are you friend? Yes the schools are open and our library is moving to schools according to our programe. The library friend is {yagoub abdlhadi} who has been training for all the materiales for acouple of monthes ago. Realy this guy is very polite and respectfull. Thank you MR gabriel, [...]
Thank You
Thank you so much for the appreciations from the members of STF about my acceptance to be one of the teachers for the human rights. I believe that when there is hope to have the world of freedom, justice, and respect of others rights the dawn will break.Then the history will remember those who fought [...]
Video Updates from Djabal’s Human Rights Library!
Hello my friends Student Task Force, How are you doing? How is your schools going? Here are videos of students studying in library. Really they use the library by good way. but we missed kindles. I hope that you will bring us kindles to support our library so as to make our job better. Thanks. [...]
R2E Library Update!
Rahma gives an overview of what the refugees use the most in the R2E Human Rights Mobile Library and Gabriel delivers the second library to Umda Tarbosh of Camp Goz Amer.
i-ACT12 Kicks Off!
Although I’m not going on this trip, I know it’s going to be one of the most exciting. I think we probably say that every trip. However, this time, and with Darfur United, we are bringing the opportunity for the refugees to be “part of the world,” as one refugee said during the i-ACT11 Expedition [...]
The Life of Darfuri Women
Dear Gabriel, here is the report about the women’s rights in my community. Women in my community suffer discrimination, negligence and injustice, although she is the most productive part of this community. From the first day of her birth to the family, some families have not celebrate as they do for the baby boys. After [...]
The Dilemma
Eight years in the refugee camps in Chad. The refugees are from an Arabic and English speaking nation. Chad is a French speaking country. The communications between UNHCR and the refugees is only through the interpreters. Refugees education is the Sudan education system. The refugees thought that their children must study Sudan education hopping that [...]
Kindle 101: How to use a kindle in a refugee camp
Here is a great exchange between Rahma and students at Burbank High School! Hello my friends Task Force students, Here is another video I want show you haw I am using the Kindle but we need kindle will include many another programs. Thanks yours Rahma HOW COOL! Some students at Burbank High School use the [...]
Valentines Day in a refugee camp
Valentine day in Jabal refugee camp. They are not sending postcards or flowers to friends or the beloved ones. But watching plays by a man. We wish them to celebrate it the next year in Darfur, the beloved country. Adam Moussa
Rahma’s last R2E update before exams!
Rahma takes the library back to school. Next week there will be a break as “students take first term examinations. The secondary school is starting it’s examinations on February 13th. So our mobile library will be on leave until february the 20th.”
Adam Talks About Growing Up in Sudan
I’m Adam Moussa from west Darfur state. My village was called Bendis. It’s horrible to flashback to my childhood. It was full of sorrow and bad luck. I grew up an orphan child with none to help. I suffered hunger and malnourishment. Our father died when I was seven years old; my brother was four [...]
Rahma takes the Human Rights library to OBAMA School!
Hello my friends how are you? Here are a video of our team work with students of OBAMA school. We are working hard in our library program. Really the students are using the talking dictionaries and electrical books in good way. You can see this video. -Your friend Rahma
UPDATE: Human Rights Mobile Library
Adam and Rahma are the librarians for the R2E Human Rights Mobile Library. They take the library from school to school in the camp, spending about a week at each. Here is what Adam reports about the use of the R2E Library.
Refugee Mud Hut Building
Darfuri refugees in eastern Chad make mud bricks to build their homes. Their UN issued tents have long ago been damaged by time and weather. Since there is little vegetation in the area, they build shelter from the ground they live on.
Rahma on Education
Rahma and Gabriel discuss education.
Camp Mile: Final Day of i-ACT 11
The team spends their final day in Camp Mile. Tomorrow they begin their journey home.
We Roll With It
I have been saying this quite often, where it has become something of a mantra for this trip. In Tchad (as you see Chad written out here), you have to roll with it. Things seldom go the way you would like them to or even the way you expect, even if you don’t like what you expect! [...]
10 Things I’ve Learned
(in no particular order) 1. Being bright and intelligent can make you feel even more trapped and desperate, when you dream of higher education and a different future, and the camp walls close in. 2. Refugee camps, with tens of thousands of people each, are not supposed to be permanent places of residence, especially in an environment that cannot [...]
