Rebecca Anne Goldenberg
MALD ’05
Upcountry Tanzania
The Kigoma region appears to emanate peace. From the highest plateaus one can look out over the lush rolling hillsides of misty Burundi, or one can watch the sun cast its red glow onto the lake shore of the Congo. But it is the proximity to these seemingly beautiful and peaceful countries that causes this region of Tanzania to home more than 250,000 refugees who fled genocides, and unspeakable horrors.
These photos capture life in and around the six Congolese and Burundian refugee camps of the Kigoma region. As part of a three person team of consultants to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) suboffice Kasulu my work focused on creating programs geared toward the healthy development of children in situations of disadvantage; therefore many of my photos are of kids.
Children abounded in the camps. I was told once that the refugees were trying to repopulate their countries by giving birth to as many children as they could while within the relative safety of the camps. It seemed as though every family had more than 12 children – unusually high even for East Africa. The children ran barefoot and ragged after me wherever I traveled inside the camps, and always greeted me with smiles and giggles. It didn’t take much to have them strike a pose, so I snapped away. The digital photos always produced the greatest response with the instant gratification of seeing the photo on the camera’s screen.
Although my position entitled me the chance to provide smiles onto children faces, and to truly add a bit of happiness into their otherwise distressing environments I never felt like I was helping enough. One down side of working in such environments is that often one feels inadequate in the level of assistance they provide. The program I helped run could only reach so many people, but "some" of 240,000 is not that many, so I frequently felt like I'd offered so little to people that have been given so much struggle to live through.
Upon this experience I have opted to focus on international negotiation and conflict resolution, and international security studies here at The Fletcher School. My hope is to play some role, even if small, in helping people on an international level resolve their issues so that the peace which radiates from the land describes the life of the people as well.
