Chad

The Situation in Chad

According to OCHA, 5.5 million people in Chad or nearly one in three people, need urgent humanitarian assistance. Food insecurity and malnutrition are affecting the most vulnerable, with an estimation of 2.2 million in severe acute malnutrition in 2021. These challenges are exacerbated by agro-climatic hazards, affecting the communities.

The violent conflicts, the limited access to basic social services coupled with the COVID19 health crisis and the emergence of several epidemic diseases has aggravated the vulnerabilities of local communities, and refugees in Chad and causing displacements. 

RET’s Interventions

Since 2005, RET’s programs in Chad have aimed at mitigating the risks and vulnerabilities brought forth by the large-scale displacement of populations during the Darfur War in Sudan. The conflict in Darfur has been a major source of instability for Chad and the region. The violence originated in Western Sudan, but rapidly extended beyond the Sudanese border into Eastern Chad and the Central African Republic. This conflict resulted in the displacement of thousands of Sudanese and Central Africans to Chad. These refugees are, however, part of a broader displacement issue, which includes Chadian internally displaced people (IDPs) having fled the internal armed conflict, inter-ethnic violence over land and resources and attacks by bandits against civilians. 

For over a decade, RET has provided relevant learning opportunities to young refugee women and men in eleven refugee camps of eastern Chad and N’Djamena, Abeche, Hadjer Hadid, Goz Beida, Koukou, and Aradi. The programs included accelerated, accredited primary education, literacy, numeracy, and formal, accredited secondary education.  In 2011, in partnership with UNHCR, RET also started supervising tertiary education scholarships for refugees.

RET’s expertise, accumulated over more than  a decade of presence in eastern Chad, has enabled critical interaction with refugee learners providing essential insights into the nature of their needs and the gaps in existing interventions benefiting Darfur refugees.

RET implemented projects in the six refugee camps of Treguine, Bredjing, Farchana, Gaga, Goz Amir, and Djabal. As part of a long-standing program going back thirteen years, targeting Sudanese refugees and the Chadian host community members, RET proposed meaningful and relevant education, capacity building, and livelihood programs. The latter focused on providing formal secondary education and French literacy, numeracy for refugee youth while building capacities of host community secondary schools given the eventual handover of camp schools to Chadian authorities.

Between 2006 and 2010, RET used the internationally recognized Secondary Education Distance Learning (SEDL) program from the International University of Africa in Khartoum to give youth who had completed primary grades access to a secondary education program. One thousand two hundred seventy-nine people participated in this SEDL component in Chad from 2005 to 2015. Many graduated students could work as teachers at primary and secondary levels, raising teaching and educational standards within the community and introducing the formal secondary system in 2010 in the refugee camps. 

Institutional Capacity building and strengthening activities were incorporated in RET’s approach, focusing on educational structures such as Students and Parents Committees (APEs), Girls Committees (CSF), Boys Committees. These committees were trained to act in complementarity to RET during the program and eventually take over the planning and management of Education Activities after RET’s departure, creating a lasting durable impact in the Chadian community. Also, Parents-Teacher Associations have been provided with small-business support to strengthen the income generation scheme for schools.

In 2016, RET set up operations in southern Chad (in the Maro and Goré districts) to encourage the peaceful cohabitation of host populations and refugee communities from the Central African Republic.

The influx of Central Africans fleeing the violence in their country into an impoverished agricultural region of southern Chad has increased the competition for resources, making peaceful coexistence between host and refugee communities challenging. RET implemented a multifaceted approach in Chad, promoting youth-led projects to mitigate tensions between the host and refugee communities. These programs allowed young people to become responsible citizens and actors of positive social change through active participation in peace club programs and youth-led community-based projects such as sports for peace, theatre for conflict resolution, discussion groups, and networking events. RET also provided literacy and numeracy classes. 

The program has reached out to more than 3,000 youth with a comprehensive Peace Club program, 400 adults and youth for series of Discussion Groups, over 3,000 community members through sporting events and theater productions for conflict resolution, and 1000 youth through literacy programs. Also, young people created and implemented 300 Quick Impact Projects to demonstrate positive community engagement. The program was complemented by several publications and disseminated locally-relevant materials for peace, including comic books, banners, and posters, amongst many other youth-friendly materials. Finally, RET supported “Income Generating Activities” through 30 Youth Cooperatives and implemented a successful Literacy/Numeracy/Life Skills package for peace, which further developed leadership skills, confidence, and communication skills. 

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