January 31, 2018 The Skanner Page 3
News
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On Jan. 23, the gradual
repatriation of the Ro-
hingya from Bangladesh
to Myanmar was set to
begin, after an agree-
ment was signed back in
November. It’s since been
postponed amid fears
that the return of the ref-
ugees would be neither
safe nor voluntary.
The same day, several
U.S. Senators, including
Oregon’s Jeff Merkley
and Ron Wyden, in-
troduced a bipartisan
Senate resolution con-
demning the Myanmar
campaign
of
ethnic
cleansing against the Ro-
hingya and calling for
the “safe, dignified, vol-
untary and sustainable
return” of the refugees.
Pfeil – whose work as
a midwife with MSF has
taken her to South Su-
dan, the Ethiopian-Soma-
li border, Haiti, and Papa
New Guinea – spoke with
The Skanner on her ex-
periences with Rohingya
refugees in Bangladesh.
This interview has been
edited for space and clar-
ity.
at the Kutupalong refu-
gee camp?
Aerlyn Pfeil: It’s a
stark contrast. The camp
is an ocean of plastic
sheeting and bamboo
sticks and feces and mud.
It kind of looks like hell
on earth, honestly. And
then you have the beau-
tiful landscape of the for-
est and Myanmar moun-
tains. My first couple of
days I spent out on the
berm – this narrow strip
– waiting for the border
to be opened for people
to cross over. There were
about 14,000 people over
that period of a couple
days. It was a piece of
land about as wide as one
car lane and a mile and a
half long, and it was just
packed with thousands
of people with nothing,
because most everyone
fled with whatever they
had on.
For a lot of them, it’s the
first time they’ve ever
had healthcare, so there’s
a big education gap in
understanding the free
services. Certainly, there
was sometimes a lack of
awareness that we even
existed at the camp. Part
of that was due to how
large the camp is and
how hard it is to navi-
gate. When we imagine
a refugee camp, we often
think of a flat expansive
area with rows of tents.
The Kutupalong camp
doesn’t look like that at
all. It’s these steep hill-
sides that are all sand.
The tents are stacked up
on each other and the
pathways go all over the
place. There’s no real
organization. I got lost
in the camp a couple of
times; so did colleagues.
Patients were afraid to
leave their shelters be-
cause they feared they
wouldn’t find their way
back again.
The Skanner News:
What was your first im-
pression when arriving
Read the rest of this story at
TheSkanner.com
more than 60 nations. In
Bangladesh, Pfeil spent
two months offering
services to incoming ref-
ugees and survivors of
sexual violence.
The United Nations
have called the brutali-
ty against the Rohingya
a campaign of “ethnic
cleansing” – yet almost
six months into the cri-
sis, little has been done
in the way of interna-
tional intervention.
BLM
Political activist, author and scholar, Angela Davis will speak at this
year’s 2018 ACLU of Oregon Liberty Dinner, which will take place
March 9 at the Oregon Convention Center. An influential figure of
the civil rights movement and co-founder of Critical Resistance,
Davis came to be a prominent leader of counterculture activism
in the 1960s. She continues to be a leading voice in conversations
about feminism, social consciousness, and resistance. The Liberty
Dinner includes a dinner and an auction, along with powerful
conversations around the theme of Reimagining Justice. ASL
interpreters and open captioning will be provided. Wheelchair,
scooters, and hearing devices available upon request.
TriMet
cont’d from pg 1
(either at stores or through a
smart phone app) an electronic
card they tap at MAX kiosks or
upon boarding a bus.
Eventually, the agency plans to
replace the paper tickets sold at
kiosks with single-use tickets that
can be scanned the same way —
enabling access to the system for
out-of-town visitors and others
who might be unfamiliar with the
system.
TriMet is touting the system as a
more seamless, flexible program
that allows riders to pay as they
go. It can also save riders money
in some cases. Anyone who taps
their card twice in one day will be
granted a day pass by the system,
where previously riders had to
guess in advance whether to use
a day pass or a ticket for a single
trip.
“Previously, I would go in, I
would lay down $100, get my pa-
per tickets and would leave,” said
TriMet spokesperson Roberta
Alstadt. “The next month [using
HopFast Pass], I could lay down
$100, and then I could have $97
[less $3 for the pass itself ] loaded
on that card. It’s kind of the same
experience than leaving the pa-
per ticket. What’s different with
Hop is you can lay down $20, you
can go home and register it, you
can set up auto-reload. You don’t
need that upfront $100 for a pass.”
Hop FastPass launched quiet-
ly in 2017. Transit activists have
been skeptical about the program
since TriMet announced in 2016
that it would be launching an elec-
tronic fare program. They worry
that TriMet’s shift away from pa-
per tickets — and possible shift
away from cash fares altogether
— will disproportionately harm
transit-dependent populations.
Activists also raised questions
about how the new fare program
“
Activists also
raised questions
about how the
new fare pro-
gram will work
logistically
will work logistically, especially
for low-income riders.
Nicole Phillips, a member of
Bus Riders Unite and a represen-
tative on TriMet’s equity adviso-
ry committee, said some transit
agencies have electronic fare pro-
grams that allow users to manage
multiple accounts from one card
— so a parent boarding with sev-
eral children can swipe one card
and have the system deduct fares
for each passenger in her group.
Hop FastPass, on the other hand,
requires each passenger over the
age of seven to have a separate
card and unique account.
“Chicago does have a multi-
ple-account card system,” Phillips
said. “You just have to have the
operator push a button for every-
one in their group. It’s possible
that the system [TriMet has] cho-
sen doesn’t accommodate that.
They’ve acknowledged that it is
an issue and said that they will
consider adjustments in the fu-
ture.”
Another problem? The new
passes aren’t quite as easy to find
as paper tickets or passes were.
TriMet’s website — which used
to sell paper passes and tickets
to riders and could deliver them
through the mail for a slight sur-
charge — allows users to register
their Hop FastPass cards and add
more money to their accounts.
(Accounts can also be managed
using a smart phone app, or with
cash payments at retail locations
that support the pass.) But it
doesn’t sell or mail the passes.
Instead, riders need to go to a
retail location or to TriMet’s tick-
et office in Pioneer Courthouse
Square.
Read more at TheSkanner.com
cont’d from pg 1
“Vancouver Public Schools has al-
ways celebrated Black History Month
and heritage commemoration months,
but this year we’ve formalized what
we do in collaboration with the Van-
couver chapter of Black Lives Matter.
Together, we’ve collected resources
for teachers and schools that can be
used in the classroom and are appro-
priate for students at all levels. These
resources include information about
notable African-Americans and links
to documentaries and articles,” said
Vancouver Public Schools spokesper-
son Amanda Richter in a statement to
The Skanner.
“We celebrate and honor a variety of
groups, national holidays/observances
and causes within our schools, includ-
ing special celebrations and communi-
ty service activities around the Martin
Luther King, Jr. holiday, as well as sev-
eral of our secondary schools’ longtime
work with the local NAACP chapter,”
said Evergreen Public School’s spokes-
person Gail Spolar. “Ms. Towner has
agreed to provide additional age-ap-
“
There was noth-
ing schoolwide,
districtwide -- and
there was no track-
ing of what they
were doing
propriate Black History resources to
our district that will complement the
diversity and equity focus we already
provide in our schools that happens
not only in February, but throughout
the school year.”
Washington state’s social studies
standards do require lessons on the
Civil Rights Movement and slavery, but
still fall short, according to the South-
ern Poverty Law Center, which gave
the state a “D” grade in its 2014 Teach-
ing Tolerance report. Last year Ore-
gon passed a law requiring the state to
implement an ethnic studies curricu-
lum by 2021, and the NAACP’s Seattle
branch is urging Seattle schools to do
the same.
The Vancouver chapter of Black Lives
Matter is relatively new – they held
their first meeting in January 2016.
Towner, a recent transplant, is hopeful
the celebration will be a positive expe-
rience for children of color in Clark
County, where 76 percent of residents
identify as White and just 2 percent
identify as Black.
“One of the goals is simply to do this
and have it be a positive experience for
all concerned,” Towner said. “It’s not
that big a deal. It’s not meant to be that
big a deal.”
PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTO VIA WIKIPEDIA
“
Most ev-
eryone fled
with what-
ever they
had on
Angela Davis to Speak
at ACLU of Oregon
Dinner
PHOTO BY COLUMBIA GSAPP (CC BY 2.5) VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Midwife
This photo shows the entrance of Skyview High
School in Vancouver, Washington. Vancouver and
Evergreen Public Schools have partnered with
Black Lives Matter Vancouver to more formally
celebrate Black History Month this year.
