As the coordinator for Darfur Dream  Team Sister Schools program, I recently traveled to eastern Chad with Enough senior advisor Omer Ismail  to conducted a rapid assessment in Djabal and Goz Amer, twin refugee camps located near the town of Goz Beida in eastern Chad. We spoke to Darfuri refugee populations, including sheiks, elders, parents, and youth, about the life and conditions in the camps.  We also had in-depth discussions about the humanitarian emergency needs in the refugee camps with U.N. officials and various non-governmental organizations such as INTERSOS, Jesuit Refugee Service, or JRS, Oxfam Intermon, and HAIS, the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.

All the humanitarian organizations are actively collaborating to fulfill the dire humanitarian needs in the camps; however, the humanitarian-development gap continues to grow. Although UNCHR and its partners initially envisioned their humanitarian response to the crisis in Darfur to be a short-term endeavor, the Darfuris have now lived in the refugee camps for the past six years and require more than just short-term humanitarian assistance. The Darfuri refugees are in desperate need of access to educational and income-generating opportunities.

Health and education continue to be two of the most ill-funded sectors by donors. A UNHCR nutrition survey conducted in January 2009 found that 12.3 percent of  refugees were severely malnourished. The education sector in the Darfuri refugee is facing a similar uphill battle. For example, in Djabal and Goz Amer, the ratio of students per class is 85:1 and 93:1, respectively. The school infrastructure is dilapidated and in need of repair. Furthermore, although school enrollment is high, the dropout rate is increasing each year, especially for girls. From our discussions with the refugees and humanitarian organizations alike, we have aggregated a top five list of reasons for the continued rise in the primary school dropout rates:

Top five reasons for the rise in the high school dropout rate

1. Young Darfuri girls are required to assist their families at home with chores such as cooking, cleaning, and taking care of the elderly. Darfuri girls also get married at a young age so girls disappear more quickly  than boys from the school system in the refugee camps.
2. Recruitment and conscription of young boys by rebel groups and the army. Rebel groups move freely within the camps and weapons are readily available. Oure Cassoni Camp located near the Sudan border has the highest boys drop-out rates because of the large Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) presence in the area.
3. Lack of accesses to secondary education causes young Darfuris to become disillusioned with the education system. The Darfuri refugees only have access to distance learning offered by the Jesuit Refugee Services (JRS). The Darfuris that complete the JRS program receive a certificate that is only accepted by handful of Arabic universities in Sudan.
4. The incentive to make money and gain respect in the community.  Like other teenagers around the world, young Darfuris want to earn a little pocket money for personal expenses.
5. The caliber of education in the camps is presently fairly low. Some Darfuri refugee parents do not see value-added from the type of education provided in the primary schools. Students are also not motivated to attend the primary schools because the certificates they receive are not accepted by all school systems in Chad and Sudan.

Check out a slideshow of photos from the camps here.

At the end of May, the STAND chapter of Harwich High School in Massachusetts hosted a talent show that no one in attendance will soon forget, and which carried a far broader impact than just providing an evening of entertainment. Harwich students combined activism with talent to present twenty diverse performances, interspersed with information about the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan. The students impressed the audience with entertaining acts, including poetry recitations, acoustic performances and ballet routines as well as the audience favorite gymnastics routine.

The Harwich High School STAND chapter used the talent show to raise awareness about the on-going crisis in Darfur and to raise funds for their Darfuri refugee peers who are part of the Darfur Dream Team’s Sister Schools Program. Throughout the evening, Harwich students presented videos about the conflict in Darfur and showed a clip of 3 Points, a film which chronicles Houston Rockets basketball star Tracy McGrady’s 2007 journey to Darfuri refugee camps in Chad.

The Harwich STAND chapter succeeded in raising an impressive amount of money for their sister school by using their talent and involving their community. Visit the Darfur Dream Team website for more information on how you can join the Sister Schools Program and host an event like Harwich's talent show.

Photo: A member of Harwich's STAND group delivers welcoming remarks in Arabic.

We revently traveled to Djabal refugee camp in eastern Chad for the Darfur Dream Team’s Sister Schools Program. Djabal is one of two Darfuri refugee camps in southeastern Chad and is only accessible by plane or by unpaved roads. The six-hour commute from Abeche -- the central NGO-hub in the country -- makes Djabal a rare destination for most. We traveled to Djabal in order to develop video profiles of Darfuri students living in the camps. The students we met in Djabal were in primary school levels 3-6, the equivalent of 3rd through 6th grades in the United States.

Several internally displaced person (IDP) camps surround Djabal. The IDP camps are home to local Chadian groups who have been displaced from their villages due to inter-ethnic violence. From an aerial view, Djabal camp is organized in communal zones, but is quite spread out compared to other refugee camps. Although there is additional room available in Djabal, the refugees are prohibited by the local militias from cultivating the land or setting up other means to earn a livelihood.

With no opportunity for agricultural production, the Darfuri refugees living in eastern Chad are forced to explore other, sometimes dangerous, means of survival. Darfuri women, in particular, engage in the early morning ritual of collecting straw and firewood, despite being under threat of attack from local militias. Women who gather excess firewood often walk to the nearby town of Goz Beida in the hope of selling the wood and earning enough to purchase vegetables or meat.

Over 60 percent of the 20,000 refugees in Djabal camp are children. The camp currently has six primary schools, Obama, Ocampo, Sudan Djedid, Sultan Tadjadine, Ali Dinar A, and Ali Dinar B, which serve a total of 3,530 students. A shortage of teachers and safe buildings, as well as a lack of supplies make it difficult to give these children the education they desire. Through the Sister Schools Program, the Darfuri refugee children will finally have access to quality education. Below is a photo slideshow of Ali, one of the children we met in Djabal.

The authors are members of i-ACT, an advocacy organization that harnesses the power of video and the internet. As part of the Sister Schools Program, i-ACT will travel frequently to eastern Chad to set up the video connection between U.S. schools and the Darfuri refugee camps schools.

ESPN recently profiled the Darfur Dream Team’s Sister Schools Program in a special segment that aired on SportsCenter and Outside the Lines. Basketball star Tracy McGrady of the Houston Rockets and Enough’s Omer Ismail and John Prendergast were shown in footage from their trip together to eastern Chad.