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Kokott, 1 Connor Kokott 12/6/2013 GEOG 1300 Refugee Camp I was asked to set up a refugee camp that would

be sustainable for six months with a population of 10,000 persons. This population consists of 3,000 women, 1,000 men, 5,000 young and 1,000 children under the age of five. There are also many sub-categories of the group that requires special attention. These groups consist of 2,000 parentless children, 800 pregnant women, 1,000 whom are ill, 2,000 widowed wives, 500 with mental or physical disabilities and 2,000 elderly peoples. I have chosen to focus on three of the seven necessities in order to provide for a population in a survival scenario and it was up to me to decide on the location for this camp to be. My camp will be located in south east Kazakhstan, and more specifically, 200 km from the town of Karangandy. For it to most likely survive, I have chosen to provide water, clothing and shelter. Water, something not everyone takes for granted; something that is so very important to keeping you alive; something that can keep you alive for up to 40 days (Lieberson, 2004), but thats only if it is readily available. Many water supplies in Kazakhstan contain salt or are littered with bacteria. Luckily, I located a reliable water source within 50 km from my camp. Lake Balkhash is composed of two parts; the western part which is almost fresh and suitable for industrial use and consumption, and that of the eastern part, which has long been salty. (Abdullah). On average a camp is required to provide 20 liters of water per day to adults. There are 4,000 adults living here so 80,000 liters is reserved for them. The rest of the population including the young and children will receive an average of 8 liters per day. With that being said, 48,000 liters must be reserved for these 6,000 persons. This totals 128,000 liters per day. To transport this water there will be a main water supply line run from Lake Balkhash down 50 km of land to a tanker which allows up to 390,000 liters of storage. From there it will be dispersed into 30 watering ports with faucets to fill up your cup; allowing for multiple uses at the same time. There will also be a separate hose runoff to a hilly section that allows for bathing and a runoff for water that directs away from the living quarters. It is a huge bonus that the water here is readily available with little treatment; only to remove sediment. Water is definitely important, but in order to maximize the effects of water you must keep it inside your body, and in the heat of the semi-deserts of Kazakhstan it can sometimes be a struggle. The climate is dry with a mean annual precipitation of 160 240 millimeters. (Fund, 2013). This means the air around you literally sucks out the water in your body and immediately evaporates. The best shot these refugees have at survival would be clothing. Wrapping as much of your body as you can in wet clothing keeps you cool, which reduces water loss due to sweat. Now in a survival scenario in which a population is forced to leave town with almost nothing, they might not have any extra clothes other than the ones on their back. These clothes also will not last forever, so my solution is to have a clothing donation in the town of Karangandy and other local places. This will bring in a great deal of clothing. They will be able to wash these clothes on site at camp with our main water supply and there will be

Kokott, 2 drying stations set up to hang the clothes up. With infants in the camp, the diaper demand must be met. In order to get our hand on enough diapers for 1,000 infants, there must be a shipment of at least 2,500 diapers each day. Funding towards the effort will need to go towards this and companies across the world would need to make small donations. Also, bedding needs to be available. Whatever is suitable to sleep on will have to be used. This can range from sleeping bags, hammocks, cots, elevated platforms from wood, and etc. These will have to be arranged and only one source per family will most likely be available in most cases. The military is a possibility for receiving cots to sleep. You might be asking yourself at this point where everyone is supposed to fall asleep at night. Shelters are the biggest part of what make this camp, well, a camp. Shelters give people a sense of belonging, and often times motivation to keep on pushing. Shelters, however, dont come easy. When each family or group, at most, is expected to have 30 square meters of room, out of the box thinking is a must. This means that in a population of 10,000, there must be 300,000 square meters of available living space. On average, a tent found in a refugee camp is 150 square meters in size. Given that, there needs to be 2,000 tents shipped to Kazakhstan and set up in an orderly and organized fashion. This is where efforts from around the world step in. Humanitarian groups and volunteer services from America and any other country must help in the effort. These shelters must also hold up to the weather. With the dry climate and sunshine they must be made of a material that will not dry out and crack within the 6 months allotted. However, they must be temporary and simple enough to set up and stay up. Shelters that do not block wind or blow away in wind will not be tolerated. The amount of people in each shelter will have to be calculated as well. Given a 150 square meter tent, it will allow five families to live in it. Their beds will need to be moved into them as well. And fires for cooking will have to be within walking distance. The effort that goes into constructing a refugee camp is unbelievable. In order to get sufficient water the camp must be close to an adequate supply that can be accessible and provides a drainage away from camp. The water must be directed in many different ways allowing for traffic control and lots of water must be there. Keeping a fair amount of clothes on is huge in keeping the water inside of you and keeping you alive, especially in the semi deserts of Kazakhstan. The sleeping arrangements must be met and setup within the camp as well as diapers to keep the young clean. And lastly, shelter to keep you out of the elements and motivated to survive is critical. Shelter that lasts the time allotted, but temporary enough and a crew to set it all up is also a necessity. With so many natural disasters coming about on our lovely Earth, there must be plans made up to keep its inhabitants with us. We cant step back and watch the event unfold; we must do something for each and every attack; we must do something before it happens to us.

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Abdullah, M. G. (n.d.). Lake Balkhash. Retrieved December 7, 2013, from Encyclopdia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/50390/Lake-Balkhash Fund, W. W. (2013, June 15). Kazakh semi-desert. Retrieved December 7, 2013, from The Encyclopedia of Earth: http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/154001/ Lieberson, A. D. (2004, November 8). How long can a person survive without food? Retrieved December 7, 2013, from Scientific American: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-longcan-a-person-sur

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