Cameroon |
The United Nations
says humanitarian needs in refugee camps in Cameroon are increasing,
exceeding the means available to take care of the growing number of
refugees.
But some of the refugees have empowered themselves by making
use of resources around them to earn a living for their families. At
Gado refugee camp in eastern Cameroon, 200 refugee women have developed a
fish pond by a river and are supplying fish not only to people in need
in the camp but to surrounding villages.
More than a hundred
women sing here on the side of a river at Gado near the United Nations
refugee camp. It is a day of harvest and many refugees have come to buy.
Among the fish farmers is 31-year-old Christine Mboula, a Central
African Refugee who has been living in the camp for two years. Her
laughs are indicative of how happy she is to raise money from the sale
of the fish and then carry some of her catch home for her family.
Mboula says she has
come to the river to collect and sell fish so as to help her family.
She says the activity has kept them going.
Christine says she
had been jobless and poor and could not take care of her three children.
She lost her husband in the fighting in C.A.R. and relied on food aid
from the United Nations, which she says was never enough.
Boniface Nyado,
head of the World Food Program office in the eastern Cameroon town of
Bertoua says the inland fish aquaculture program was started in the area
in June 2017 by the World Food Program to attend to the needs of C.A.R.
refugees and their host communities.
He says they
initiated the project when they noticed that the locality had high
fishing potential and at the same time there was insufficient food and a
deficit in protein needed by the host communities and refugees. He says
they brought groups of 200 refugees and host community members who work
in the fishing area for six months, harvest and sell the fish and then
create their own fish ponds to help them raise revenue and protein.
The refugees and
host community members receive business training, emphasizing savings
and loan best practices, technical support that includes how to produce
low-cost fish food pellets, and other innovative ideas from the World
Food Program.
The host communities are involved in efforts to stop any potential conflict that may arise from using water and other resources.
The W.F.P. says the
savings and loan program in Gado is part of a new response to the
massive displacement of people from C.A.R. to Cameroon and the effects
it has on host communities.
Barely 1,000 C.A.R.
refugees were here at Gado at the beginning of 2017. Today, close to
25,000 people are seeking refuge and trying to survive as tensions in
the central African state continue.
Allegra Baiocchi,
resident coordinator of the UN system in Cameroon says the aquaculture
program was initiated to support the refugees and empower them rather
than have them be dependent on resources that are overstretched and slow
to come.
"Our response is
underfunded. We need to remember the refugees population and the impact
this has on the host communities and we need to do more," she said.
"Overall, the humanitarian response in Cameroon is 40 percent funded.
When it comes to refugees, that figure comes down to 20 percent. There
is not more we can do with 20 percent of the funding. After three years,
what the people are asking us is to give them more long term support.
To start putting them on the path of recovery and of development."
The United Nations
raised only $148 million of the 390 million dollars it needed up to the
end of last September. The UN says by January, the needs of the refugees
will increase to 498 million dollars.
C.A.R. plunged into
turmoil in 2013 when the government of the majority Christian nation
was overthrown by Muslim rebels, setting off a wave of sectarian
fighting.
Christians, fearing reprisal attacks from the Muslim ex-rebels who controlled Central African Republic, fled for safety.
At least
two-point-two million are finding it difficult to feed themselves and in
May of this year, the U.N. refugee agency said that there were more
than 500,000 internally displaced persons in the country.
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