Building Futures in the Spaces Between
It has been said that there is not one small corner of the planet, no matter how remote or how barren, that has not been considered by someone to be the most beautiful place on earth. That place is their place, a place they call home. But for millions of people across the globe, home is now a fading memory, or a distant dream. These are people who have lost their place, or simply never had one: refugees, migrants, the displaced and the homeless.
We are all familiar with the classic images of ragged files of men, women and children trudging grimly along roads to nowhere, with nothing but the clothes on their back and a few precious belongings, mementos of disrupted lives. Or stark images of the starved and the broken, wasting away under dirty canvas in dusty and desolate camps. These images are real, and too many lives have ended on roads or in camps such as these.
Less dramatic, but far more common, is the experience of countless individuals and families who, under pressure from relentless poverty, have pulled up their roots from ancestral landscapes to create new lives distant from the soil that once nourished them. They migrate from the land to towns and cities, from devastated landscapes to frontier territories, and across borders to seek opportunities that have eluded them in their own lands. A world on the move.
Many social scientists believe migrants, refugees, and the internally displaced represent the new modern condition, and that we are all, in some way or another, travelling between worlds, between here and there, never really arriving anywhere at all. However, these places, the spaces between, are often very firmly rooted in actual locations. Along the Burmese border in Thailand, where Inter Pares works with a variety of local refugee organizations ranging from ethnic women's groups to mobile health workers, there are over 140,000 people in largely self-governing refugee camps, and one million more dispersed throughout the country. These people, forced to flee violence in their own communities, have managed to cross the border into relative safety. Their place, dictated by war, geopolitics and history, is refuge.
Far from being temporary homes for uprooted and transitory populations, refugee camps and other groupings of displaced and migrant people are often spaces where foundations are built and roots are put down. When we look at these settlements, we tend to see just the surface, forgetting that only through ingenuity, cooperation and self-reliance can migrant communities maintain and govern themselves. Forming within such communities are the roots of new economic and political systems, flourishing despite state structures which control their movement and ignore their interests. In Latin America, Inter Pares works with Project Counselling Service (PCS) to build on the initiative of local displaced communities to determine the course of their lives. In El Salvador, Peru, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Mexico and Colombia, PCS, through local staff and local organizations, assists refugees and the internally displaced to participate as active citizens in changing the circumstances that caused their displacement, and in having a strong voice in the creation of a future based on peace, security and justice. ACORD, another Inter Pares counterpart, has been working with refugee and internally displaced populations in Africa in much the same way, strengthening the capacity of local organizations to care for their own communities. In Mali, ACORD continued to work in remote areas of the country even at the height of the Touareg rebellion, long after most other international organizations had left, ultimately playing an active role in resolving the conflict.
In a world on the move, these spaces between - between one country and another, between conflict and peace - are often places where people's determination to build better lives for themselves takes center stage. Those of us who are fortunate enough to work alongside and offer support to these courageous people have much to learn from their efforts.
Looted Land, Proud People
Canadian Friends of Burma has published a booklet detailing the history and the human costs of the military dictatorship in Burma. Written by Ottawa writer Clyde Sanger, the booklet reviews the tragic history of Burma since independence and the suffering of Burma's peoples under military rule. The booklet also reviews Canadian trade and investment relations with Burma and calls for stronger Canadian action in dealing with the regime.
Looted Land, Proud People is an excellent resource for Canadians interested in Burma.
Available for $10 from: Canadian Friends of Burma
145 Spruce Street, Suite 206 Ottawa, Ontario KlR 6P1
(613) 237-8056 cfob@cfob.org 
www.cfob.org
ISSN 0715-4267
221 Laurier Avenue East, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1N 6P1
Phone (1-613) 563-4801 Fax (1-613) 594-4704
Inter Pares works overseas and in Canada in support of self-help development groups, and in the promotion of understanding about the causes, effects and solutions to under-development and poverty.
Charitable registration number (BN) 11897 1100 RR000 1.
Financial support for the Bulletin is provided by the Canadian International Development Agency.
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