Anthony Sibomana info@forgenow.org <i>(Note - This blog was written by Anthony, the refugee Project Facilitator for this project. As English is not his first language, there may be some minor grammatical errors in his writing. Care was taken to clarify any passages that were confusing, while leaving most of the blog untouched in order to preserve Anthony's original tone.),</i> <b>To what extent of living are we likely to be if we cannot be treated for a common cold?</b> One of my living days during which time we were running away, I eye-witnessed a person dying out of a thorn-caused injury! How the group and I failed to offer any aid to the injured girl still leaves me with an unanswered puzzle. But because I was young, what did my elder groupmates do? Who knew anything to do? Not only this, but for many other life experiences that really made an impact on our lives all along our journey from Rwanda and Burundi specifically to where we are here in Zambia, made me decide with a strong push to pay much attention to health knowledge-granting subjects at school – eg Sciences and Biology. These experiences also complemented on my career in which I have much desires to study medicine. A refugee life has left us with both external and internal wounds. Overuse of muscles while running away day and night eating unknown to us food, drinking stagnant water, sleeping outside uncovered, going hungry for several days, body swellings, traumatism resulting from guns and bombs noise and losing our beloved ones and many other horrible life experiences we met, pushes our community to answer the question: what kind of people make up the community? Nevertheless, we thank UNHCR and the international community for all that they provided to help make us feel unhumiliated by providing security, residence, etc. However, some services are limited to communities of the Meheba settlement. For instance, the community where I live has had no school and no operating health center. But then who would attend school? Ill or living and healthy children? Our community members suffer differently after all, passing through all the above difficulties. We currently have more than 20 mad (crazy) persons and many more are traumatized. The whole community is at high risk to getting communicable diseases. How good was it if they knew how to prevent them? Malaria has become our neighbor. The community members have been trying to make it to the nearest clinic 15 kilometers away. Many died due to failure to reach the clinic especially those in critical conditions and vulnerable. Many mothers have been experiencing miscarriages and there have been few people referred to higher medical attention for more than five years now. Should it have not been for FORGE’s quick response to our need and expression, I couldn’t be in a position to say all this. I therefore thank FORGE for the opportunity given. We also thank FORGE as a community for the consideration of our need. Thank you. 2008-07-24T19:19:49-05:00 86 26 2008-12-02T17:53:24-06:00