This transition occurred quite quickly for me, after twenty-three years of full time parenting of five children – together with my husband who is an Anglican minister.

Only our thirteen-year-old daughter went to Bangkok with us.

I had training in social welfare and political science and the two skills were brought together in the variety of work I undertook.

The frontiers were literally geographical, but also cultural, religious, social and economic – as we plunged into the challenging life of accompanying and advocating for refugees, with the Jesuit Refugee Service.

These frontiers once crossed proved to be liberating in terms of my self perception as wife and mother to adventurer – walking across mountains, sleeping in refugee camps, and, among many other things, sitting amidst the numbed silence of a village after a battle hard fought between ethnic soldiers and the Burmese military.

The Karen soldiers and civilians, young and old, were in a state of shock, trauma and exhaustion. As we sat and waited in the deep heat of the afternoon on a verandah of a village house we did not move, conscious of the deep silence around us.

People gradually came and spoke with us about those who had died in the fighting, and the voices of their women they heard that day.

As they were advancing towards their enemy, they heard their own women who had been captured by the military and who were being pushed into the front lines call out to not worry about them but to keep on going.

Unknowingly I was journeying
towards new frontiers

“Do not worry about us brothers, we are ready to die”. Words were inadequate to express the inexpressible that day.

So, unknowingly, I was journeying towards new frontiers of academic work and overseas assignments. Both of these involved understanding more about transitions to democracy and the needs of women and children as they try to recover from conflict and violence.

Academically, I was able to research the role of Aung San Suu Kyi as a public intellectual who mobilized and unified a country behind the calls for democracy and freedom in Burma. Despite being elected as the Prime Minister in 1990 she has spent thirteen of the past eighteen years under house arrest.

While studying for my Ph.D (AN1), I was invited by Oxfam Great Britain to work in Kosovo following the conflict between Serbia and NATO forces and the return of one million refugees to Kosovo.

I was facilitating community services for women and men and also those with disability.

Primarily, it was a coordinating role between UNHCR and non-government organisations to provide food and shelter to those who were most vulnerable.

 

I went a second time for six weeks to the Gjilane region to manage an office which focused on women’s programs.

It was deep winter. There were sub-zero temperatures (29C degrees below freezing), an 8pm curfew, continual electricity shortages, and at first no telephone access except for a satellite phone which didn’t work from my office.

The area was heavily patrolled by American troops. There was sporadic fighting, nightly machine gun fire and overall a heightened sense of insecurity. And this was six months after the fighting ended and refugees returned.

There was sporadic fighting,
nightly machine gun fire and a heightened sense of insecurity

I lived by myself in an apartment which was comfortably furnished but because of power shortages was often dark except for a hand held fluorescent lamp. I attempted to cook on a single-flame camp stove, hand-washed my clothes in the bath and listened to the American Armed Forces radio station on short-wave – which was incredibly anti-Clinton at that time.

But what of the women refugees? They had returned to their homes in this rural area, most hiding for three months in the forests surrounding the region. They were very conservative Muslims who, once married, did not usually go outside their compounds.

They had been self-sufficient farmers but now they had no crops, no seeds to plant, no animals or farm machinery. They had never voted or had a voice and had lived under repressive Serbian rule for the past eleven years.

Our programs attempted to look at their strategic needs, such as registering them to vote, as well as their practical needs and how these could be linked.

There were also Serb women and Roma (gypsies) who were now in the minority and tragically isolated.

Our mandate in humanitarian work is to be impartial and respond on the basis of need – not gender, race or religion – but women are often the most needy.

Young Kosovan women were our community mobilisers. They were educated, long suffering after years of oppression and ready for the challenge of changing women’s lives in their new post war reality.

This snapshot does not tell half the story of the challenges facing women following war, ethnic conflict or natural disasters.

As a worker and later as Manager of Oxfam Australia’s emergencies unit, focusing on vulnerable women and children and bringing their short term and long term needs together was a major priority.

We worked under a rights-based framework to enhance their survival, security and quality of life so they would have a voice in their future.

Listening and accompanying them was my small gift.

Trembling it crosses the frontier at dawn
From non-being to being
Carrying a small banner
Bearing a message.

From ‘Over the Frontier’ by Rosemary Dobson

Denise Nichols conducts training and evaluation for several international aid and development organisations. Recently in the course of her work she has been to the Solomon Islands, Pakistan, Vietnam and Cambodia.