I don’t know what it is about being out here in eastern Chad, but so far at the end of each day in the camp I find myself battling a headache, fighting to keep my eyes open, and willing myself to eat and drink something. For lack of time and appetite, I barely eat while we’re in the camp. But I don’t mind or notice. On this trip, I see it as my half attempt at solidarity with our friends and colleagues as they fast for Ramadan every day.
Today I conducted a refresher training with our refugee Assessment Team. It’s the same group of 12 individuals that we’ve been working with since our first Little Ripple evaluation in 2013. They patiently spend five hours in a Little Ripples classroom with me as we sit in a circle and diligently go through each question of the assessment survey and practice the process and measurements over and over again. We start in the morning and end early afternoon. By 2pm, the women need to go home to prepare a meal to break their fast and, in general, I imagine it’s hard to maintain focus with such a lack of nutrition.
Tomorrow we begin a follow-up assessment of the 45 children attending the first Little Ripples in-home Pond and a control group – a critical component to showing the impact of our work. In addition to measuring the impact of the program on the children, the assessment will also provide us an up-to-date snapshot of life for families in camp Goz Amer. Through the survey, we’ll learn about child mortality, the daily life of children and their caregivers, and the level of food security in the camp.
Right now, I’m still battling that headache, so good night from eastern Chad and thank you for following our iACT24 journey.
With gratitude,
Sara-Christine
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