10 Aug 2011 • Humanitarian crises Sudan

Sudan. Opening new centres for children

- Published by Hornemann, Sarah

Terre des hommes has been working in West Darfur since 2004, in three camps in the region of El Geneina with 57,000 internally displaced persons. The child protection network from Tdh includes now 38 centers for children and teenagers. 8,000 children and adolescents benefit from daily activities in protected locations: they can relieve their fears and make a fresh start through games, dancing, drawing and sport.

In 2010, Tdh began to set up seven new child friendly spaces in the town of El Geneina and not only in the camps. This step was taken to integrate the displaced people better in the host community, itself extremely vulnerable. The new centers are now run by Tdh partners: five by the Ministry of Education, one by a local Child Development Foundation (CDF) and the last one in April 2011 by the Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA). For the first time, Tdh and the authorities work so closely in the management of a center and the psycho-social activities. In this case, Tdh is playing the role of technical advisor through the daily presence of a supervisor that supports MoSA team in the conduction of the activities.

Last year, armed conflicts caused again the displacement of more than 100,000 people. This is why Terre des hommes has planned set up new spaces for the youngsters in three additional camps. Instead of building new centers it was decided to provide the same activities through open spaces or through structures already put in place by the communities. Up to now the place for the activities were selected, the staff was hired, and the activities with children are about to start in August.