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    October 27, 2011

IFRC to Launch 5-Year Social Inclusion Initiative in S. Africa

   Delia Robertson | Johannesburg
   African migrants, displaced by anti-foreigner violence in Johannesburg,
   warm their hands around a small fire, May 2008 (file photo).
   Photo: Reuters
   African migrants, displaced by anti-foreigner violence in Johannesburg,
   warm their hands around a small fire, May 2008 (file photo).

   In late 2009 the South African Red Cross launched a study of
   Johannesburg communities affected by a 2008 spell of anti-migrant
   violence that left 62 dead, hundreds injured and thousands displaced.
   Even though one-third of those killed were South African, the events
   highlighted the xenophobia lingering in apartheid's wake, long after
   African migrants had streamed into the country, moving into
   traditionally poor black communities on the fringe of informal
   settlements, exacerbating shortages of housing, clinics, schools and
   other municipal services.
   Few migrants sought to normalize their status by applying for asylum or
   establishing legal residence.
   Reviewing the episodes of violence that eventually erupted, Winnie
   Ndebele, National South African Red Cross and Red Crescent Society's
   acting secretary-general, says he found that South Africans were
   feeling increasingly uncertain and threatened.
   "We were surprised to get what people were telling us, how much they
   were threatened themselves," he says, explaining that there were
   perceptions among people in these deprived communities - sometimes
   based on fact and sometimes not - that they had to compete with
   foreigners for already scarce resources. "And then we could see that
   ... they were either victimized by foreign nationals or they were
   victims of the whole circumstances."
   Based on these new insights - that it was these tensions coupled with
   high levels of crime that sparked the violence - The International
   Federation of the Red Cross Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) wants to work
   with communities across southern Africa to emphasize the positive
   aspects of mass migration while also seeking to counteract its negative
   effects.
   Known as Ubuntu, the planned five-year program that is set to be
   launched in South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland and Zimbabwe,
   is named after a South African humanist philosophy described by Nobel
   Peace laureate Desmond Tutu as the essence of being human.
   Founded on the belief that people are fundamentally interconnected and
   cannot exist in isolation, Ubuntu, says IFRC's Ken Odur, perfectly
   encapsulate what the aid societies hope to achieve in communities
   receiving or sending migrants: that being socially inclusive can bring
   benefits.
   "Some big economies in the world today were actually built by the
   expertise and capital of migrants," he says, adding that the aid
   societies plan to use community-based volunteers to facilitate social
   inclusion. "So there could be a mutually reinforcing argument here to
   say, 'look, if migration is well managed, it can be beneficial.' "
   Odur says that because IFRC societies were established in the targeted
   countries via acts of parliament, they have unique relationships with
   their respective governments, which can greatly benefit the initiative.
   "So we will do social mobilization at various levels, at the community
   level and also at the highest levels of government," he says. "I think
   our best advocate is our work. When disaster strikes, governments
   realize that they have a key partner in the Red Cross and through that
   it opens doors for more dialogue. Governments realize that we have a
   role to play and they have been engaging with us on a number of
   occasions."
   Odur says Ubuntu should begin yielding positive results within a year,
   but that benefits will accumulate over time.
   Ndebele says volunteer training and local community programs are
   already underway in South Africa, but that the primary objective is to
   help other countries start doing the same.
   "We want to do it in collaboration with other countries, so that we
   have one message that is very effective to our people who are
   victimized through displacement," she says, emphasizing the fact that
   humanitarian issues arising from mass migration are rarely restricted
   to only one side of a border.

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