Category: Ouaddai

Executive Summary

Tawisa 3 was a project that ran from July 2019 – July 2020. The project has completed mapping and survey for the Chokoyan Canton of the Ouaddai State of Eastern Chad. This included mapping and surveying over 184 villages and their improved and unimproved water sources. Printed maps are being shared with all stakeholders in the region and detailed data has been provided to the government to use in its geospatial database.

Additionally, a pump repair program was initiated in three villages within the Chokoyan Canton. These villages had existing broken pumps. Service au Sahel ran a two-day water committee training, introducing cost replacement schedules, record keeping, management of a cash box and savings goals for maintenance and repair, in each of these villages. After the training the pump was repaired. Monitoring visits have been conducted each month post the repair, tracking and working with the village to implement the training received. These monitoring visits are continuing into the next Tawisa project until the full year of monitoring is completed.

Additionally, water committees and villages who received new wells during the previous Tawisa 2 project were monitored on a quarterly basis, encouraging them to save for future repairs that will be needed for their new well. The Tawisa 3 project finished within budget, having spent 92% of total funds.

The project report is attached.

The latest update on the Tawisa 3 project is now available. A summary is that

• Data collection in the Ouadi Hamra region has been finished. A final map has been printed in N’Djamena.
• A total of 27 pumps have been located in the region with 25 of them broken when surveyed. All villages with broken pumps have been invited to participate in the program.
• Villages who received new wells and water committee training in the previous Tawisa project were followed up with again during the 3rd quarter.
• The SAS compound has continued to be maintained and improved.

The latest news from the Tawisa 3 project being run in Hadjer Hadid are in the below report.

• Data collection has started slowly in Ouadi Hamra
• Pump repair has been delayed until late October / early November
• Follow-up with Tawisa 2 water committees has shown some successes but also some challenges
• The SAS compound in HH has been reorganized for more clarity

Chad is located in Central Africa. The country is one of the poorest and most underprivileged in the world, ranking 184 out of 188 on the 2015 Human Development Index. The population of 11.5 million is rapidly growing and is very young (45% of people are under 15 years).

SAS’s project is in the Hadjer Hadid region. These communities have multiple needs. There is high infant mortality (124 per 1,000 births) and low life expectancy 51.6 female/48.6 male. Over 30% of children suffer from chronic malnutrition. Around half of girls receive no primary school education. Factors contributing to these problems include:

• Low rainfall which limits the availability of easily accessible groundwater. People are therefore forced to use unclean water sources. Less than 20% of the region has access to safe drinking water.

• A prevalence of waterborne diseases, diarrhoea, cholera, hepatitis and typhoid associated with drinking unclean water

• A lack of basic hygiene and sanitation practices (over 75% of people defecate in the open). This results in widespread disease transmission and high infant mortality rates.

• Girls do most water fetching. This often takes several hours’ daily, making school attendance impossible.

SAS has projects running in Hadjer Hadid, Eastern Chad. This is located in on the edge of the homeland of the Masalit people, who historically have spanned the Sudan-Chad border. The 2003 Darfur War resulted in widespread displacement and the arrival of over 400,000 refugees in Chad, located in 13 different refugee camps along the Darfur border. Several of these refugee camps are located in near to the town of Hadjer Hadid (population approx. 10,000) where SAS have their operational base in the East.

These camps have existed for over ten years in what has developed into a protracted refugee situation (PRS), and they now more closely resemble mid-sized towns rather that camps. Furthermore, worsening circumstances in Darfur mean that there is little prospect of their return being feasible.  There is therefore a critical need for development initiatives within these refugee camps such that they are transformed into viable, resilient, peaceful & sustainable communities. Furthermore, surrounding Chadian villages have taken on additional burden of accommodating refugee communities and they too are struggling with subsistence livelihoods and chronic vulnerability, which requires action to address.

For more detail on our work, see the map of the region surrounding Hadjer Hadid.