Darfur Women Network Visits Touloum Refugee Camp in Chad
Published August, 2014
Exciting News: We have distributed over 200 safe stoves and started Income Generating Projects in Touloum, the Darfur refugee camp in Chad.
Darfur Women Network (DWN) is a non-profit organization, founded by Darfuri native, Mastora Bakhiet. The DWN, whose mission is to empower and protect the women and girls who are the survivors of genocide in Darfur, Sudan, worked with the refugees to determine their needs and how to meet those needs via education, awareness, and empowerment. The refugees were forced to flee their country starting in 2003.
The refugee camp is located in Touloum, Chad, and is home to over 29,000 survivors. 80% of them are women and children. Recently, DWN visited the refugee camp to work with the refugees and investigate how an effective stove would reduce the risk and vulnerability of refugee women and girls to rape, abduction and murder. Our goal is to help the refugees ensure that their voices are heard. One way DWN currently helps enhance the security of families, specifically women and girls, is with a fuel-efficient stoves project that was started with the distribution of over 200 stoves on August 25, 2014, and continues to help entire families in the camp. With these stoves, the women and girls are able to reduce the frequency of their trips to collect firewood, sometimes taking 17-18 hours to return.