Chad Farming Project is Helping Local Sudanese Refugees
In a large green field planted with vegetables in this village in eastern Chad, Achta Abdallah Biney was busy pulling up weeds from her plot and harvesting her best turnips for market the next day.
She fled war at home in Sudan and today is one of nearly 500 refugees and locals who farm this land together as part of a project smoothing the integration of long-term refugees into host communities, and giving women more financial independence.
Called Seeds for Solutions, the programme was developed by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). It helps find the farmland and provides tools, seeds and advice, so that the farmers can grow their own crops to sell at market and to eat at home.
Biney, who is 37 and has five children, fled into neighbouring Chad from her village in Sudan’s western Darfur region as fighting closed in during 2003. First, she lived in a refugee camp near the Chadian town of Goz Beida.
USAID/Catholic Relief Services