Imagine a life living in constant fear. Your country is rampant with civil war. Rebel groups are all over your country committing extreme atrocities. They are kidnapping and converting youth all over the place. So what options are available available to you and your family? The most logical option would be to travel to the nearest refugee camp. Not only do you have to cross hundreds of miles of jungle and hazardous land with possibilities of being attacked and eaten by large animals, you may even encounter members of a rebel group on the way to this camp. You will have to survive on wild fruits, roots, and dirty water (Ochieng). All these dangers will be worth it once you finally reach your temporary home of the refugee camp.  Now, one could argue that there are many reasons why refugee health is compromised in camps. Those reasons could include poor sanitation, a lack of clean water, inadequate allocation of resources, or even lack of refugee education. The reality is that there is a vast array of problems with refugee camps. Each of those problems goes back to one central problem. That issue is largely a lack of education. This lack of education is not only portrayed through the refugees who live in the camp, but also through the workers and agencies who are in charge of the camp. The issue reaches both sides of the spectrum.  While the agency staff of (for example) the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, a global humanitarian organization, are providing the refugees with necessities, they are truly uneducated on what it is that the refugees actually need. On the other hand, because access to adequate education is not readily available in the camps, the refugees cannot become educated not only academically, but also with life skills and important information about their health and wellbeing.  The "health" I am referring to goes beyond physical health. The refugee youth have been through brutal and horrendous experiences which quite possibly could have left them suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, to an extent or with some sort of built up anger. School and education is a good way to divert the attention of easily influenced children on educating themselves rather than resorting to joining these rebel groups. By educating these children, you are enriching their brains. Imagine if an entire generation of a country missed out on a vital opportunity for mental growth because they were busy being child soldiers or they were just not provided with the means to get an education in their place of refuge. That would leave their country of origin with no one to rebuild the corrupt system they once fled from. Health and education go hand in hand when such a large community of people's futures are at stake. We can aid in improving the health and well being of the refugees and workers by contributing to refugee agencies and providing proper education.

The lack of reproductive health knowledge and the lack of reproductive health services are both very prevalent in refugee camps across Africa.  Many refugees are aware of contraceptives, but are wrongfully educated on the subject. Living in refugee camps increases the need for contraception use due to the high amount of rape, being trapped in a relationship because they need money or food, and the young age at which children begin to have sex in the camps.  There are also many misconceptions about contraceptives which lead to many unintended pregnancies. Condoms are usually free in the camps; however, in a study done by the African Journal of Reproductive Health, the majority of sexually active refugees said they did not use condoms because it reduces sexual pleasure.  They found out that 67.2% of refugee women, half of them being mothers, do not use condoms and were not intending to get pregnant. One even quoted saying, "I didn't know it would happen. I wasn't ready to have a child at that time. I still regret not using contraceptives then because the baby I gave birth to is suffering in the camp," (Okanlawon). Some women even believe that taking birth control pills puts their lives at risk, showing the lack of education surrounding reproductive health (Okanlawon). While women are uneducated on the topic, they also believe they need to stay in relationships because the man provides for them. 

"The only type of contraceptive I like is condom because I have heard so many negative things about the other contraceptive methods and so I'm afraid of them. But unfortunately, my boyfriend doesn't like condom at all. He objects anytime I mention it. He says he won't enjoy sex if he uses condom. He prefers to do it naturally so that's why he doesn't use it and if I should force him to use it, he may leave me and go for another girl and I don't want to lose him because he really helps me by giving me money" (Okanlawon).

If the refugee camps and agencies provided the women with proper necessities, they would not be subject to such situations as commonly.  When in a relationship of dominance and inescapability, the woman is likely being raped and forced to do things against her will. Not only are women raped in those relationships in camps, they are also at a high risk for rape when they preform the woman's task of going to retrieve firewood in the forest. Because of cultural taboos, men will not get the wood even though females are 75 times more likely to be raped in a community of 100,000 refugees (Cad).  Among many other problems, a big social issue with this is that many rapes will go unreported because in some cultures the husband will divorce her and she will be unable to remarry (Cad).  When contraceptive use is not popular and rape is rampant, that leaves a community in desperate need for family planning services.  Because birth rates are so high, pregnancies are poorly spaces and cause complications with child bearing.  Not only family planning in the sense of how many children one wants to have, but in the sense of access to health education. It is imperative that the mother knows how to properly nourish her body during a pregnancy, knows about delivery procedures, knows how to manage complications, and even post-natal care meaning knowing what health care services are now available fore her child (Okanlawon). For refugees to become properly educated on what services are available to them, they need an education system that is "culturally sensitive and responsive to the perceived needs of the community," (Okanlawon).  Even someone who is exceedingly educated on family planning should not just go into the camp and teach the refugee about contraceptives and family planning, someone who is accustom to the culture should be the educator. If not, you run the risk of the education process being quite unsuccessful. 

Living in a place of poverty and overpopulation, a refugee runs the risk of contracting wide spread diseases such as cholera, Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), or measles.  Resources are not allocated effectively or quickly when poverty is mixed with emergency which creates an ease for those diseases to spread.  In HIV situations the only way to combat it is to promote the use of contraceptive through culturally sensitive education. With cholera and measles, cultural sensitivity is not such a large factor. Instead fast working public health professionals are needed to combat and control the spread of the disease. Once it has been controlled then the educators can come in and teach them how to properly clean their water or even where to find clean water in the camp, to go to the doctor if you have measles (or any disease) like symptoms, and how to properly nourish their bodies to prevent diseases. "There has been a tendency to respond to the refugee and displaced person emergencies with clinical services, doctors and nurses, field hospitals, outpatient clinics, medicines and so forth, at the expense of the more vitally needed and more effective preventive and control activities," (Dondero). This means funds are being wasted on ineffective services that do not benefit the refugees in the long run. One of the most important aspects to educate refugees on is the "provision of soap, along with education on hand hygiene and cleaning water storage containers," (Mahamud). This show that the agencies are not educated on what the refugees seriously need. Providing then with quick fixes will not prove to be effective after that healthcare service is not as available as it once once. The only way to fully get rid of mass disease outbreaks is to educate the refugees about how to take care of themselves and prevent the spread of germs. To put it in terms of a person living in a developed country, it is strongly recommended to get the flu shot, but everyone is still educated on how to prevent the flu. That is what needs to be done in refugee camps.    

There are many issues with many types of education in the camps. After health education, the next most important form is formal education. Formal education ties communities together through common knowledge and allows the opportunity of people to create change. The issue with educating refugees is that because refugee camps house currently nationless people, which curriculum should they be taught by?  It is easier when the camp houses predominantly one nationality of people. They can be educated in their own language and with information about their home country so that one day hopefully they will be able to return and change the political system they once fled from (Waters). When many different nationalities and ethnic groups being congregating in one camp complications arise. Which curriculum should be chosen? Should majority rule in this case? The country in which they now reside should be the decision makers on how they should become educated. Because they also provide the service of housing them, they should have the power to also decide what and how the refugees get properly educated. The next step in ensuring proper education is making sure the students are somewhat satisfied with the education they are receiving. In a camp that has relatively good schooling showed an array of feelings about the education received. Some wear very satisfied with the education they were getting, some were not, and most of them were very grateful that the education was free. Unfortunately, "many of these students dreamt of becoming professionals and the education they were receiving seemed inadequate to meet their goals," (Mareng).

So how can adequate education be provided for refugees? The first aspect in providing education is funding. Sadly, the UNHCR lacks many funds right now and is at risk of going bankrupt in the near future. For example, in South Sudan, the UNHCR asked for $1.63 billion and were only granted $0.9 billion.  In 2010 11,000 people were displaced by conflict per day. Just last year there were 42,000. The unprecedented amount of displaced people vastly exceeds what it once did, and with that comes the need for an extreme amount of funding. 

"The budgets cannot be compared with the growth in need. Our income in 2015 will be around 10% less than in 2014. The global humanitarian community is not broken  --  as a whole they are more effective than ever before. But we are financially broke," (Grant).

Not only has education been cut this year, but food rations have gone down as well. They have even been threatened to go away entirely (Grant). Without proper nourishment, people cannot learn to their best ability (Dondero). But damage done by these major cuts will be nearly impossible to reverse. 

Dr. Michelle Gayer, the director for emergency risk management at the World Health Organization said,

"the decision to cut services was hugely difficult. "We are never 100% funded so we are always having to prioritize, but it breaks your heart when you end services for 3 million people. There will be no access for trauma like shrapnel wounds, no access for children's health or reproductive health. There will be no surveillance of things like cholera. A generation of children will be unvaccinated,"" (Grant).

People will suffer from psychological impairment because there is no money for mental healthcare, not to mention the amount of people who will suffer and even die from malnutrition and disease. Some refugees are only allocated $13 for food each month which has been caused by recent cuts by the World Food Program. Situations have become so unbearable that some refugee families even consider returning to their home country. Though this refugee crisis is so immense, none of the fees paid by member nations of the UN are going to the UNHCR or Unicef. 

It would be logical for money from UN member nations to go to places of major crises.  If this is not happening, there needs to be more visibility in everyday life promoting the UNHCR and Unicef. Most funds granted to Unicef have been given to them through volunteer contributions or private donations. Yes, it is possible to gain a portion of the necessary amount of money from these; however, it is not reasonable. There needs to be on campus organizations who donate money while it should also be promoted in politics in our everyday life. It is simply unacceptable for things happening on such a drastic scale to be going on and have us sit idly by. 

