{"id":110,"date":"2011-08-01T04:06:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-01T08:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/2011\/08\/01\/midpoint\/"},"modified":"2011-08-01T04:06:00","modified_gmt":"2011-08-01T08:06:00","slug":"midpoint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/2011\/08\/01\/midpoint\/","title":{"rendered":"Midpoint"},"content":{"rendered":"
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We\u2019ve now hit nearly the midpoint of this South African adventure, and today I got to take part in a meeting between the Department of Home Affairs and ARESTA.  <\/span>The goal of the meeting was to simply hash out for the newest members of the staff there what ARESTA\u2019s purpose was and what they should and should not be doing while working at the refugee receiving center.  <\/span>I will spare you the gory details of the 2 and a half hour meeting, but one of the things that struck me the most was the location of the meeting.  <\/span>We had been collecting interviews out in the waiting room all morning (we\u2019re trying to do a study on the state and treatment of refugee children) and when the time came for the meeting, we were escorted up a set of temporary-looking steel stairs that led to the second floor.  <\/span>If you remember, the refugee receiving center run by Home Affairs is like a giant warehouse you might see on a chicken farm.  <\/span>We were led into a conference room with a large wooden table and windows all along the back.  <\/span>The windows were open and the sound of shuffling and mumbling filled the room to the point that it became difficult to hear what everyone around the table was saying.  <\/span>When I looked out the windows, I realized we were not looking outside, but rather over the vastness of misery and nervousness stirring below.  <\/span>From the window, you could see both the waiting rooms (hundred of people smushed onto benches in each) and all the cubicles where those people would later be escorted to meet with the immigration officials.  <\/span>It\u2019s hard to describe the scene, but it was a dark, anxious energy that was emanating from below. Most of the thousands of people I could see from this factory manager-type spot were refugees waiting to hear whether their application for asylum would be approved or not.  <\/span>It was a strange sensation.  <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Despite the vastness of South Africa\u2019s problem with receiving refugees (they are now the world\u2019s number one receiver of refugees- most likely because it\u2019s only separated by warn torn areas by a land border), I have great hope in the people who are advocating for change.  <\/span>If you could\u2019ve heard the passion with which DHA and ARESTA staff debated across the table about how to handle certain asylum issues, you would probably feel this way too.  <\/span>There\u2019s also a magic in being in the midst of a topic I\u2019ve been intensely studying for a year, and watching the people on the ground who deal with it every day fight for the rights of those they don\u2019t even know.  <\/span>One of the volunteers at ARESTA whose background is in law is really passionate about refugee rights because he spent his first two years in South Africa not knowing how to properly file his asylum paperwork.  <\/span>After he finally learned how to navigate the system, he decided to dedicate his life to helping people file for asylum here.  <\/span>He usually spends 4 days a week standing at the front of the those huge waiting rooms answering questions that range anywhere from \u201cWhere do I get a form to fill out\u201d to \u201cI got kicked out of school because they won\u2019t recognize my asylum paperwork, how can I get the right papers so I can continue my education?\u201d  <\/span>He\u2019s just one example of the dedicated staff here at ARESTA- just one example of the people I\u2019ve been meeting everyday that inspire me to step up my studies to the next level.   <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ve now hit nearly the midpoint of this South African adventure, and today I got to take part in a meeting between the Department of Home Affairs and ARESTA.  The goal of the meeting was to simply hash out for Continue reading Midpoint<\/span>→<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wds_primary_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fs.wp.odu.edu\/efrydenl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}