Strengthening Communities in Chad

Story by Katie Machell and photos by Katie Machell and MounbayeNgodroi, Issa Ali and Abakar Hassab (Concern Worldwide)

“While faced with instability itself, Chad is also a host community for refugees from neighbouring countries including Nigeria, Sudan, and the Central African Republic. In addition to these refugees, Chad also hosts numerous returnees who fled to Sudan (Darfur), the Central African Republic, Cameroon and Nigeria during different periods and are now back in Chad. The provinces bordering these countries, already characterised by extreme vulnerability, are all affected by these population movements.” (Concern Worldwide)

Responding to this is a consortium comprising three national and three international NGOs, who work together with communities in the Ouaddai, Sila and Salamat provinces of eastern Chad. The four-year programme aims to improve the living conditions and resilience of indigenous, refugee and returnee populations in host areas, through support for inclusive local development to minimise the factors contributing to intercommunity tensions, instability and the risk of increased forced displacement and conflict.

Zakouma National Park, where the flight made a short stop to pick up a staff member who needed a medical transfer to the capital.

As the project enters its final year, some consortium staff recently flew with MAF to Am Timan, provincial capital of the Salamat, for a four-day visit.

“It was a support and evaluation mission,” explains Consortium Coordinator Bella, “to see where the teams are doing well and where we need to improve; to see how the collaboration between the local and international partners is doing; and to focus on planning and strategy for the final year of the programme, particularly the exit strategy.”

A humanitarian worker who has been in Chad for four years, Bella has significant personal experience of life in the eastern region.

“I spent almost two years living in Goz Beida [provincial capital of the Sila]. I think it gave me an excellent grounding for the work I now do in starting to understand something about this part of the country, the way the culture works and the way people live. Having spent time there, seeing the needs and seeing what has worked in response and what can be improved on, I’ve had an excellent foundation for the coordinating I now do from N’Djamena.”

Houses built right next to the airstrip at Am Timan.

The presence of refugees and returnees embedded with local communities for over a decade has contributed to a drain on resources in these areas, which impacts all who live there. It has also led to tension and conflict between the different groups.

“One of the main programme objectives is to reinforce and develop social cohesion,” explains Bella. “We work in intercommunity dialogue with local associations around peace, conflict management, and living side-by-side.

“Another objective is to improve livelihoods through income generating activities,” she continues, “as well as initiatives such as cash transfers and cash for work. Identified vulnerable beneficiaries work on building sites that have come out of local development plans, for example expanding a reservoir for livestock to improve access to water, or repairing roads to provide access to health centres that might be blocked off during rainy season. So, the outcomes benefit both the individual workers and the wider community.

“There’s been a huge amount of progress in that area,” Bella reports. “Beneficiaries have been trained in identifying the income generating activity they want to do and have been receiving the resources needed to implement those activities.

TT-BER at Zakouma National Park, where the flight made a short stop to pick up a staff member who needed a medical transfer to the capital.

We also do vocational training where we work with the state so that the beneficiaries will have a certified qualification once they finish.”

Although the project was, of course, impacted by the pandemic, Bella is proud of the commitment and adaptability shown by the consortium staff to keep everything going.

“Although it was very tough for our teams, throughout Covid we never had a day when we weren’t working. All my colleagues continued to work however they could; obviously we couldn’t assemble big groups of people to do mass trainings or anything like that, but we learnt to adapt and have smaller groups, to do things more frequently. There’s been a huge concentration on managing activities and not putting beneficiaries and communities at risk, so it’s taken a lot more time, but it’s worked out.”

Apart from this trip, Bella’s role has necessitated similar visits to the other provinces where the consortium works, all of which are far from N’Djamena.

“Travelling by road can take more than a day and can make it very challenging to do our missions and offer the support needed to our teams and to the programmes,” she says, “and however fit you are, it’s tiring and consumes a lot of energy as our schedules are quite packed.

“So it’s been such a relief to be able to fly this time. The flights have given us the opportunity to contribute to the teams and have the time we need with them, and it would have been potentially not possible to do that if we had to go by road. It’s been great, and it’s also meant that we can do a joint mission with one of our partners, so we can go in and look at things together and discuss things ‘in the moment’, rather than having to catch up later back at HQ. So that’s been really beneficial.”