What It’s Like To … Run a Library and Community Center in a Sahrawi Refugee Camp
Sahrawi women’s rights and climate activist Najla Mohamed-Lamin has built a haven for women and children, despite the unbearable conditions of the Sahrawi refugee camps in Algeria.
In 2023, Najla Mohamed-Lamin was named by the BBC as one of its 100 Women in recognition of her activism for women's and environmental rights.by Najla Mohamed-Lamin
“In the refugee camps, you are born into a conflict. You are born into a struggle. I don't remember any stage of my life when I was not politically aware,” Sahrawi women’s rights and climate activist Najla Mohamed-Lamin tells OkayAfrica.
She’s the founder of the Almasar Library Center in Smara camp, where she was born and raised. “From day one, you start to conceptualize and understand that the world is about your struggle, because you are in a refugee camp and everything in your life is shaped by this reality.”
Into this reality, Mohamed-Lamin has built a haven for children and women to read cherished books, try their hands at gardening, and learn about women’s health. In sequences edited for length and clarity, she shares the motivation and vision behind her work.
“My generation studied everywhere, because the refugee camps only have elementary schools. To go to secondary school or university, you had to go out of the camps. We studied in Libya, in all the cities of Algeria, Spain, Kenya, Nigeria, Venezuela, Russia, Syria, and many other places. You grow up with this international point of view, so the camps are a melting pot of many political ideologies that are all tied to the Sahrawi cause.” - Najla Mohamed-Laminby Najla Mohamed-Lamin
Najla Mohamed-Lamin: “Growing up in the refugee camps, there were no libraries. I read my first book when I was 15 or 16 years old, it was called Don’t Be Sad by Ayed Al-Qarni.
Without exaggerating, reading saved me in so many ways. To live in such a reality in the refugee camps is something that you can never take away; it's how the world sees you. With all the limitations, struggles, confusions, and questions, reading became a comforting tool for me. In my culture, we say: if you're having a bad day, you pray. I say: if I'm having a bad day, I pray or I read.
I decided to open the Almasar Library Center when I was 28 because I imagined what my life would look like if I had access to books earlier. All the stories, imaginary worlds, and connections, all the things that could be shaped and touched by what you read. It started as a library for kids, to bring this new habit to my culture. We [traditionally] transform knowledge into other forms, but only our knowledge.
The library was built sustainably, from environmentally friendly and repurposed materials.Najla Mohamed-Lamin
At university, I earned a degree in sustainability and realized that we’ve been suffering from climate change for so long, but we didn’t know that it was called climate change. Every summer, we realize that something is not adding up here, and we didn’t know it was a discussion outside where people are talking about climate change as something that is just coming. My people are experiencing it right now at this moment.
I wanted to bring this knowledge back to the camps and connect the dots, so we transformed the library into a community center with three objectives: the first objective is alternative education for kids through books and arts.
Through children’s book clubs, play time, and art sessions, the community center furthers kids’ education.by Najla Mohamed-Lamin
Our second objective is education for women, mostly related to health. In the refugee camps, we have been surviving on humanitarian aid for the last 50 years. It brings a lot of dangerous health challenges like anemia, malnutrition in kids, and very high numbers of cancer, especially breast cancer. So we started to do conferences and workshops about women's health, to empower women to go for early examinations or get help breastfeeding.
The Almasar Library Center is the only location that provides these services for women.by Najla Mohamed-Lamin
Our third project is teaching the basics about climate change. We teach kids about trees, water, and seeds. We empower them to plant, and at every event we have in our center, our gifts are always baby trees. I started a community garden with two other ladies to incorporate vegetables and leaves into our diet. But unfortunately, it was only successful for one season, because we have a water crisis.
In my family's house, the last time we got our water containers filled was the first of October, because the filtering station broke, some trucks are not working, and the NGO didn’t have money to fix them in time. It piles up, and before you know, it’s a crisis that takes months to solve.
If you don't have water, the last thing you think of is wasting it in your garden while you have a pile of your kids’ clothes that are not washed, and you have not taken a shower for one or two months. Now we are collaborating with a new NGO that gives us resources to make a garden that doesn't use a lot of water, and actually reuses it, so the water is not wasted in the ground. We started in November, and it's going really well so far.
My wish is that we’ll be able to create more gardens for families. One of the most tragic things in the camps is that we have no power over what we eat. We survive on humanitarian aid, and it is of the worst quality. You don't even give it to your animals, that's how badly processed it is. Plus, every year it becomes less.
Whenever NGOs cut funding, it is felt in the community in terms of food or other important resources.by Najla Mohamed-Lamin
My least favorite aspect of this work is having to ask for funds. I mostly do this work for free, but I have four ladies working with me, and all of them need some sort of income. It’s necessary to cover the expenses of the place, to buy books, to fund our events, but also to have a small salary for these women.
It’s impossible to do our work in the summer, because it’s just unbearable to do anything in the summer.
Everything else, I really love. I can see us doing more. My long-term vision for the center is to make it mobile and go to the other refugee camps. Instead of women coming to us, we can go to them with conferences, workshops, and seeds.
“When I look at my daughter, I am happy. I’m worried for her future, but I’m happy now.” - Najla Mohamed-Laminby Najla Mohamed-Lamin
When I'm being very realistic and honest with myself, all I want to do is crawl into bed and cry and be mad and scream. That would be a totally rational reaction. But I also ask myself: Is this going to serve me? Being realistic is taking me nowhere; it’s going to destroy me. And if I need to create an illusory hope that serves me to continue, I will.
Looking back at the past year, I don't remember being heartbroken. And it's not that I don't have reasons for it. But my faith, level of joy, and family are strong pillars maintaining my sanity. At the end of the day, we have each other.
Our generations were somehow robbed of this ability to believe in the non-materialistic outcome of things. We are always judging what we can see at this time as a translation of success or victory. That looks a little bit capitalistic to me: if I can't see it now, then it's not a success. I think that's a problem, because we build on things. Maybe we’re not the generation that will harvest the outcome of the revolution; maybe we’re just one pillar to reach the next generation. That's already enough for me, knowing that I’m a pillar in a revolution that will somehow reach its goals in the future.
“We have a saying in my culture that says, if the only thing you had in your hand was a rock to throw and you throw it, you are not a coward.” - Najla Mohamed-Laminby Najla Mohamed-Lamin
This center is like one of my children, that’s how much I love it. My absolute favorite thing is when I sit down with the children and we read a silly book. Mahmoud Darwish says, ‘we are here nurturing hope,’ and that is what I see when I’m with these kids. It’s my way of nurturing hope in them and in myself. I will keep doing it as long as I can. It’s the smallest and the most powerful thing I have in my hands right now.”
