‘Refugee Camp’ To Be Put Up In Central Park

Visitors to Central Park and Prospect Park this September will encounter an 8,000-square-foot tent city.The “refugee camps” won’t house any actual refugees, but are designed to help New Yorkers understand what it is like to live in one.The exhibit is planned by a humanitarian group, Doctors Without Borders, and is called “Refugee in the Heart of the City.”Use of Central Park for out of the ordinary activities has been a source of heated political controversy in the city in recent years. The artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude faced 26 years of opposition before finally mounting their “Gates” in Central Park in February 2005. And Mayor Bloomberg successfully fought a court battle to prevent a large anti-war protest rally in Central Park during the Republican National Convention in 2004.The refugee camps, however, have been granted permits and have so far apparently not been met with any objections.“This is something we are looking forward to having here,” a spokeswoman for the Central Park Conservancy, Jennifer Pucci, said. “We believe they will be very responsible to the park. It’s a permitted event and it is educational.”The Central Park location for the camps will be at Cherry Hill at 72nd Street. Ms. Pucci said the conservancy does not expect the exhibit to disrupt those who use the park for other activities.In Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, the camp will be situated at Long Meadow, near Grand Army Plaza.“We are looking forward to the exhibit,” a senior vice president of the Prospect Park Alliance, Steve Parkey, told The New York Sun. “Brooklyn is the home to many people and cultures. This is a great way to celebrate Prospect Park as a democratic forum where people can celebrate one another,” he said.The exhibit is scheduled to be in Central Park from September 13 to 15, and in Prospect Park from September 20 to 22. Both periods are weekends.The exhibit was developed 10 years ago in France. Visitors to the parks will get a firsthand walk-through by an “aid worker” from Doctors Without Borders.“It’s a very powerful and tangible way that we can explain what people are living and experiencing today,” the director of public education for Doctors Without Borders, Stephanie Davies, told the Sun. “We really want to try to convey to people about the realities of life for those who are displaced,” she said.The group is an international independent medical humanitarian organization that delivers emergency aid to people affected by armed conflict, epidemics, natural and man-made disasters, and exclusion from health care in nearly 70 countries. Each year, almost 2,000 doctors, nurses, logisticians, water and sanitation experts, administrators, and other medical and nonmedical professionals work alongside more than 16,000 locally hired staff to provide medical care.Inside the camps in the New York parks will be designated sites for food, water, medical needs, latrines, and mental health assistance. Visitors will get the opportunity to see how refugees live with limited resources.“The exhibit will show elements of survival you will encounter as a refugee,” Ms. Davies said. “You have to think about what to do for food and medical needs. If you have children, you have to think about malnutrition and the spread of disease. Imagine being given 5 gallons of water to wash and cook with. How would you get through your day with this much water?” she said.Central Park itself was a home for displaced homeless people during the Great Depression. A shantytown known as “Hooversville” was on the site that is now the Turtle Pond, a photographer and historian for the Central Park Conservancy, Sara Cedar Miller, said. “It was an abandoned construction site and the city did not have the money to create the reservoir.”Ms. Miller said there were 16 small structures in the area and the people living there wore suits, ties, and hats. “They were middle-class people who lost their jobs,” she said. “One was a bricklayer and he built a brick structure in the encampment.”The people were moved out of Central Park in 1933 and relocated to another part of the city.In today’s refugee camps, individuals may be stuck for 10, 15, or 20 years inside. Some have lived two to three generations inside the camps.“People see their grandchildren born in these camps,” the president and C.E.O. of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Lavinia Limon, told the Sun. “There are over 8 million refugees who have been in that situation for 10 years or more,” she said.Ms. Limon said that less than .5% are offered resettlement. “Any refugee in the U.S. has won the lottery,” she said.More information about the upcoming exhibit is available, at www.refugeecamp.org.

‘Refugee Camp’ To Be Put Up In Central Park

‘Refugee Camp’ To Be Put Up In Central Park

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