The Humanity for Development and Prosperity Commences a Community Protection Project in Gereida – South Darfur State

In Gereida on August 4, 2022, the Humanity for Development and prosperity commenced several activities under the framework of the comprehensive project launched in Gereida, which is 105 kilometers away from Nyala.

The Organization carried out many activities in Gereida, Dhaka, and Um Rakuba.

Funded by the USAID and followed up by the International Organization for Migration, the Humanity for Development and Prosperity is implementing this integrated project.

The project includes community protection, protection of “women and children”, combating gender violence, environmental sanitation, providing food and non-food items to the most vulnerable groups.

It also includes building 64 toilets, training youths in diverse fields, establishing four offices for children and women, launching environmental sanitation campaigns, distributing soap and 300 baskets for women in which each consists of 21 items

The Organization intends to hold open workshops in markets, camps, and the city in order to raise awareness through 16 campaigns in the areas of environmental sanitation, and combating cholera, Covid-19, malaria and transmitted diseases.

In addition, it aims to reinforce the work of community protection networks, especially the protection of women and children.

In the same context, the Humanity for Development and prosperity implemented six training workshops, five of which were in Gereida, and the sixth workshop was in the village of Dhaka, located about half a kilometer northwest of the city of Gereida.

The workshop in Dhaka targeted the committees that were formed to carry out the tasks of water and environmental sources sanitation in the village, where five youths and three women were trained.

It also carried out two cleaning campaigns in the village.

Four workshops also targeted social protection networks and the protection of women and children in addition to training 40 men and women.

The sixth workshop targeted the water and environmental sanitation committees, as well as voluntary and emergency campaigns. Eight people (six women and two men) from Hay al-Rahman (A and B) were trained on environmental sanitation and carrying out voluntary and emergency campaigns.

Further, the Organization and the International Organization for Migration jointly held a meeting with the committees on water, environmental sanitation, voluntary and emergency campaigns, which were formed by the citizens of the village of Dhaka.

The meeting took place at the headquarters of the Sudanese Armed Forces in the city of Gereida, where the representative of IOM listened to the citizens’ opinions regarding the integrated project that the Humanity for Development and prosperity has started in Dhaka, Gereida and Umm Rakoba.

Gereida witnessed in the years 2015, 2017, 2020, and 2021, bloody acts of violence, which claimed the lives of dozens of people, as a result of conflicts and competition of tribes over resources and land.

This led to increased suffering of the local citizens, because of these unfortunate events, knowing that several areas still suffer from acute shortage in services such as food, health, education, clean water, shelter, and other essential services for humans.

Last week, the Organization, as part of the integrated project plan funded by the United States Agency for International Development and the International Organization for Migration, organized a workshop for communities and local authorities to introduce the project.

The organization’s country director, Ahmed Daw Al-Bait Omar, said: “I visited this locality in 2005, when a great number of citizens were displaced from different areas, during the war that began in 2003 in Darfur.”

He explained that the project would last for two months in the locality of Gereida, and it consists of two parts: the first relates to community protection, the protection of “women and children”, and the second part relates to environmental sanitation.

Sixty percent of the activities benefit the displaced in the village of Dhaka, and 40 percent benefit the citizens affected by the conflict in the Al-Rahman neighborhood (A and B), in addition to the citizens in the village of Umm Rakuba.

He continued, “The protection project consists of several activities, namely the establishment of four community and child protection centers, two in the city of Gereida, and two in the village of Dhaka, as well as the formation of protection networks, and conducting three open awareness sessions about Covid-19, cholera, malaria, and transmissible diseases because the region is now in the middle of autumn.”

“The project also targets people with special needs, the handicapped and the most vulnerable, and provides psychological support by specialists in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Welfare, and offers the necessary assistance,” he added.

In addition to providing 300 cartons of health items to women of childbearing age in the city of Gereida and the village of Dhaka, the project conducts water test by taking samples.

It also raises awareness on waste disposal, seeks to establish 64 latrines, maintain and rehabilitate 80 latrines in the city of Gereida, in addition to distributing soap and training a number of young men and women to raise community awareness about child and women protection, environmental sanitation, and combating transmitted diseases.

He added that more than 50 percent of the project has been implemented in full coordination with the security authorities and the joint forces in the region, as well as the Water and Environmental Sanitation Authority, and the civil administration. Also, it was implemented in cooperation with the Humanitarian Aid Commission in South Darfur, Gereida, the Ministry of Social Welfare and the Ministry of Health in the locality.

Additional Information:

The Humanity for Development and prosperity is an international non-governmental and non-profit organization. It operates in the field of humanitarian work. Its headquarters is in the Ugandan capital Kampala and has an office in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and in the city of El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State, and Gereida locality in South Darfur State. It implemented a project in the Shakra area in North Darfur State.