IN ADDITION TO THE FOCUS ON EDUCATION AND REFUGEE INITIATIVES, HERE’S WHAT WE HAVE DONE.
Wheelchairs (seated tricycles). About thirty refugees in the southern camps and an equal number of people in the surrounding villages had paralyzed or missing legs and could only move about by crawling. This project provided each of them with a seated tricycle enabling them to move about the area in which they live. Subsequent grants were made for additional refugees as well as training, repairs and maintenance.
Border structures (including a well, pump and four latrines). Refugees from the CAR tend to cross into southwest Chad at two points where tracks suitable for vehicles cross the border. The refugees must then wait at the border, sometimes for weeks, until the UN can send trucks to pick them up. In early 2008, one of these crossing points had a structure to shield the refugees from the sun and rain as well as latrines and a well producing potable water. The other crossing, near the tiny village of Bitoye, had no facilities. Refugees lived in the bush plain and simple. CRF financed the construction by CARE of a shed, four latrines and well.
Medicines. On each trip to Chad we tried to hand carry medicines to the doctors in charge of health services in the camps or for the local population. In 2008, thanks to the generosity of Direct Relief plus a small amount of CRF funds, we were to provide $26,500 worth of medicines to Dr. Henry Mwambo Esame, a Cameroonian doctor working with COOPI in the Goré camps. In 2009-10, AmeriCares, an NGO in Stamford, CT, entrusted us with $79,000 worth of anti-biotics that we transferred to the District Medical Officers in Goré and Danamadji. It also provided us with $2,700 worth of non-prescription medicines and medical supplies which were delivered to a UN doctor, Aimé Namululi, in Danamadji and to the district hospitals in Goré and Danamadji. Additional contributions from DRI were transferred to the District Hospital in Goré in May 2011 and to CSSI in February 2012 and September 2013. DRI shipments in 2014 and 2015 were valued at $93,444. The total value of all medicines delivered to health authorities in south Chad is $280,050.
Protection of Women & Children. This project was intended to reduce discrimination and violence against women and children through improving understanding of gender roles and human rights, raising awareness of children's rights respecting abuse and neglect, educating both men and women about family planning, and reinforcing existing women's and SGBV (sexual and gender-based violence) committees. CRF financed a three-step program of the Association des Guides du Tchad (AGT) that initially trained women members of AGT from six areas in Chad in the rights of women and children and in techniques of female empowerment. Once trained, these volunteers sensitized women and children in the refugee camps about gender-based sexual violence and the rights of women and children. Finally, the instructors conducted extensive training of a smaller number of women so that they can continue the effort after the project is completed. Refugees trained by the Girl Guides have, in fact, continued the effort to reduce domestic violence.
Football field at the Beureh school. When students at the Beureh Secondary School were asked by CRF what they needed most, they replied “a football (soccer) field”. The field has been built and was inaugurated by CRF Board members in January 2010.
Oxen and plow units. The priority of the 13,000 refugees living at Yaroungou was to increase agricultural production. In cooperation with COOPI, an Italian NGO, CRF has enabled groups of farmers to buy oxen and plow units that increase production by bringing additional land under cultivation as well as making more efficient use of land already in production.
Mosquito nets. The refugees most vulnerable to fatal cases of malaria are children under 5 years of age. One way to protect those children is to protect their mothers when pregnant. In June 2010 CRF provided long-lasting impregnated mosquito nets to pregnant women in the three camps near Goré in cooperation with the Mentor Initiative (UK).
Solar power (Stage 1). This project provides solar power to the health clinics serving Amboko, Gondje and Dosseye refugee camps where the nearest electricity grid is many miles away. The clinics are open 24 hours a day, but the only light available at night was from kerosene lanterns.
The refrigerators were also powered by kerosene. Kerosene is expensive, dangerous and not always available. CRF, in conjunction with CSSI, a Chadian NGO, designed and constructed solar facilities that provide light for the clinics and power for refrigerators in which medicines and immunization materials are stored.
Solar power (Stage 2). The solar project was extended to provide power for lighting and refrigeration at health centers at Moula camp, at Yaroungou, an ex-camp, and Maro village. Our partner again was CSSI. When Yaroungou camp was flooded in November 2012 and its 13,000 residents moved to Moula (renamed Belom), the Yaroungou solar facility was moved as well and is now in operation at Belom.
Football field at Goré. Goré village has been the headquarters for the UNHCR and its NGO partners since 2002. One steppingstone in successfully integrating the CAR refugees into the local population, a long-term UNHCR goal, is providing some equity in outside assistance. In January 2010 the government official in charge of the district in which Goré is located asked CRF to build a football field in the village that would, unlike the field at the local church, be open to all children without charge. The field was inaugurated in May 2011 with CRF personnel in attendance.
Vitamin A and Multivitamins. For several years until the Chadian government assumed the responsibility, CRF in conjunction with Vitamin Angels, a Santa Barbara non-profit, and CSSI provided Vitamin A for 34,000 children in the three Goré and 2 Maro camps.
Football fields in the Haraze area. Two new camps (Moyo & Koy) were established by the UNHCR outside of the village of Haraze in southeastern Chad in 2010. No recreation facilities existed in these camps. This project funded the construction of three football fields, one each in the camps and in the village, plus equipment.
Haraze area education. The UNHCR's partner for education in the Haraze area is an Italian NGO, Cooperazione Rurale in Africa e America Latina (ACRA). CRF has joined with ACRA in a school improvement program in Moyo and Koy camps, and the surrounding villages, with three components -- a public relations campaign to persuade refugee parents to send their children to school and to keep them there, the purchase and distribution of school materials and texts for the 2,030 children expected enrolled in the camp schools in 2012-13 and a teacher training effort designed to replace formal learning by rote methods with interactive teaching techniques that support more creative and analytic thinking. CRF's share of the costs is $45,000. This joint program with ACRA was extended to 2014, 2015 and 2016 at a cost of $77,000.
Housing. Belom camp outside of Maro was built for 5-6,000 refugees. The transfer of 13,000 refugees from the flooded Yaroungou in November 2012 and the arrival of 5,600 new refugees from CAR in March 2013 meant that 23-25,000 refugees were living in a camp with inadequate housing, water points, sanitation, health services and educational facilities. Told by UNHCR that housing for vulnerable people (aged, disabled, blind, children on their own) was the highest priority need, CRF in May 2013 funded the construction of 405 houses at Belom built by its partner, the Lutheran World Federation.
Supplemental food. Among the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing the conflict in the CAR in 2013-14 are hundreds of people with special needs. Using an anonymous $15,000 donation from a multi-national company operating in Chad, CRF provided 5,000 kg of rice, 12,500 kg of beans, 800 kg of salt and 1,575 ltr. of oil to such people over a four-month period beginning in April 2014. An additional $15,000 grant in the summer of 2014 has enabled CRF to provide $25,000 for tools, seeds and fertilizer to 466 households in Belom camp (2,300 refugees) that enabled them to grow vegetables in the winter of 2014-15.