Helping CAR Refugees in Dembo

In addition to its activities in the Eastern and Southern parts of the country, LWF Chad collaborates with UNHCR and WFP to assist newly arrived CAR refugees welcomed in 5 towns in the Bar-Sara department. Because the host communities and refugees share a culture and numerous customs 2242 refugees were welcomed in foster families.

Martine a young refugee is one of them. Married at 13 years old in 2012, Martine, a young refugee girl had to flee the turmoils in her country and cross the border with her newborn and her husband.

Now 15 years old, she and her family have been welcomed in Mr. Boulo Kara’s household and are living in a hut. The hut is often flooded as it is made of mud and has a straw roof.

Refugees contribute to everyday tasks and work in the neighboring villages’ crops, like Martine and her husband, originally from farmers’ families, go and work every day in the fields in exchange for a small salary. In other families women sell the wood they fetched in the bush and young girls go into other families to do the housework.

Martine explains that they had to sell the NFIs from the first distribution in order to buy food and clothes for their child. This new distribution of tarpaulins, donated by UNHCR, and blankets, donated by the LWF, arrives just in time to protect the family against the rain and the cold. Until now Martine only had a small piece of fabric to cover her baby in this much cooler country.

To help targeted populations LWF Chad distributes food, NFIs, organizes the cash vouchers program and support agricultural activities in partnership with UNHCR.