2005 Oahu Fall Conference
Displacement of People
Hawaii Tokai International College
Saturday November 19, 2005

Keynote Address

John Robert Egan- Adjunct Professor of Law, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Professor Egan is an attorney who formerly served with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in South Central Africe, Mozambique, and Malawi. He talked about the differences between refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs), the reasons many people are forced to leave their homes, and the numbers of displaced people around the world. He illustrated his talk with many examples from his own experiences and explained some of the challenged faced when dealing with such large numbers of people who have no place to go. He also talked about some of the organizations that help displaced people, and the specific considerations that go into providing aid to refugees and IDPs. Professor Egan’s keynote speech helped students to get a good overview of the topic, and prepared them to learn more specific information from the afternoon workshops.

Workshop Summaries

Keala Kim, Angel Siu, and Mimi Nguyen

Ms. Kim and Ms. Siu both work with refugee and immigrant clients at Children and Family Services. They talked about their organization and the different services they provide to the refugee population in Hawai'i. They presented updated statistics about the approximate number of refugees that have settled in Hawai'i and which countries they came from. Then, they talked about the history of Ms. Nguyen’s family and listed a timeline accounting the events that led to her coming to the United States. Ms. Mguyen is a refugee from Vietnam who recently came to America in 2004. With her limited English skills, she was able to talk about her experience as a refugee and what it took her to resettle in Hawai'i.

Toby Clairmont

Mr. Clairmont is a healthcare and emergency management professional and a team leader for FEMA’s Hawaii Disaster Medical Assistance Team. He shared his experience doing relief work in Louisiana in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. He explained how such a tragedy can occur in Hawai'i. He then presented a personal photo slideshow of how he and his team assisted many displaced people and how they saved the lives of many household pets and animals. His personal account illustrates the level of devastation caused by the hurricane and how it can completely change the lives of those left displaced and homeless.

Robert Shultz, MD

Dr. Shultz presented general information on the reasons for displacement and statistics of refugees around the world. His expertise lies primarily in preparing aid workers to assist in these types of displacements. The physical preparations include getting passports, mental health training, immunizations, and coordinating with other involved parties like the military. Dr. Shultz cited instances of the kinds of physical and mental health issues that aid workers face and the kinds of coping mechanisms they can employ. He also described the conditions of refugee camps and the sociological effects that displacement has on cultures as evidenced by the number of child soldiers that exist in parts of the world.

Shinji Salmoraighi

Mr. Salmoraighi is a case manager at CARE Hawaii, who shared his experience doing relief work in Darfur, Sudan in a village called Feina. He provided commentary to an accompanying photo essay. Affiliated with the Global Hope Network, his group provided medical services to almost 800 people in the village. He talked about the varying medical treatments they provided, their living conditions at the time, their cooperation with another relief group in the area, as well as the dangers they faced providing medical treatment amidst the presence of rebel militia fighters. He explained the political situation whereby the Sudanese People's Liberation Army is an opposing force to the ruling Arabic dictatorship government and its violent militia arm called the Janjaweed, which has been responsible for the ethnic cleansing of over a million people in Sudan. He reported that 6 million people have been displaced in Sudan due to the government's ethnic cleansing policies.

Nancy Faraj

Ms. Faraj is a research assistant with Pacific Telehealth and Technology and a registered dietician. During her presentation, Nancy shared some of her internship experiences working with Burmese refugees in Thailand. Her work involved gathering data on the nutritional health of Burmese refugee children who were under the age of five. Stunted growth was found among a large number of the children. As a result of the research, fish and fortified foods were added to the rations at these camps. Today, there are still many internally displaced refugees in Burma, however, each year about 1000 new Burmese refugees enter Thailand, a neighboring country that has allowed them to set up camps along its border. Due to the low nutritional quality of their food rations, many of the refugee children suffer from malnutrition.

Bobby Ray Gordon

Mr. Gordon, Humanitarian Operations Advisor of the Center for Excellence in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs (COE), led a discussion workshop about international protection and the role of protection officers in refugee and IDP situations. After an overview of the concept of protection with relevant terms and the parties responsible for protection, he covered the activities of a protection officer which included: preventing refoulement and refugee status determination, education and capacity building, advocacy, finding durable solutions, care and maintenance, and physical presence. Students then read a case study and discussed what they would do to solve the problems presented at the end of the case study.

Kay Hansen

Kay Hansen, UH Manoa Master's in Public Health student, shared her experiences from a year at a Cambodian refugee camp in Thailand and 10 years working on maternal-child health projects in Cambodia. Her presentation included an overview of the recent history of Cambodia, what life what like for the refugees, and pictures from and impressions of her time in Cambodia. She brought to life hardships the people faced following the invasion of Cambodia. She talked about how people would sometimes eat rats and thousands died of malnutrition and disease which spread easily in the crowded camps, she talked about the lack of safety and security in the camps whether due to shelling or from fighting between factions. One of the public health projects she was involved in was immunization, where they were able to see the rates go up from 5% to 98%.