Life Skills and Peer Education for Chadian Youth

Thank you for supporting our  Life Skills and Peer Education Project in Chad! During this year there have been huge number of activities and this report tells you some of the highlights. We do not this time only tell you about the latest developments but try to give you a picture of the annual programme.

Life Skills is a holistic prevention program for disadvantaged youth in the field of alcohol, drugs and HIV/AIDS. It promotes behavior change and the development of essential life skills. Peer Education is based on role modeling and the ability of young people to become leaders and agents of change through empowerment and support.

Blue Cross Chad runs the life skills lessons in schools and after school clubs (sports, theater, etc.),

They also target a specific group namely young motorcycle taxi drivers.

Through life skills lessons, Peer Educators and Club Leaders trainings, the level of knowledge and the sensibilisation on the effects and hazards of alcohol, tobacco, tramol, other addictions and HIV / AIDS in secondary schools and at motorcycle driver sites has been increased.

Half Year 2017

• 153 life Skills lessons among 15 schools and 12 motor taxi sites
•  14.881 youth reached
•  42 youth leaders trained
•  Project monitoring visit and capacity building conducted by IBC

The project staff are hostingcommunity awareness meetings with parents and teachers and with community leaders on community action (general public) about alcohol and drugs.

The activities of the communities have focused on awareness of children in primary schools and lobbying community leaders and politicians to take the Alcohol Law draft to the parliament.Participants were all excited of the opportunities that were given to them to speak out their experiences of problems with alcohol and smoking in the family.

The IBC’s Life Skills and Peer Education Programme in Chad is an example of one of our successes in this field, which is much appreciated by beneficiaries.

On the International Day of Women on 08 March 2017, BC Chad arranged a special promotion for the gender issues. It was organised a girls and boys football tournament.

In addition there was a special promotion of the World Breast Cancer Day on February 4, 2017. Girls from life skills programmes showed their engagement for a society without addiction and their commitment in the fight against breast cancer – a disease which is largely a consequence of tobacco and alcohol consumption.

On the 31st May 2017 the BC Chad has created an event to celebrate the WHO ‘World no tobacco day’. Two popular radio channels very listened to by young people nationally: National Chadian (NTR) and the Radio Oxygen; interviewed Blue Cross staff and youth at their broadcasts. There was a broadcast sponsored by the Ministry of Public Health with the financial support of WHO during four consecutive mornings. This lead to a joint declaration prepared by the WHO representative in Chad and the Minister of Public Health. They declared the health theme of the year 'Tobacco one threat to the development’'.

An important objective of the project is also the capacity development. In the first six months of 2017, a follow up training on data collection methods and statistical softwarehas been offered to the local staff by the local project coordinator with thesupport of IBC programme officer. In order to improve the quality of the programme further the IBC programme officer held several successful workshops on social accountability and development of local partnerships and fundraisingduring the project visit in January.

Furthermore, the local organization got to know and trained tools that focus on how to develop different kind of local partnerships (e.g. institutional partnership, financial partnership) and how to maintain and manage partnership to boost the sustainability of its project-work.

There are so many more success stories to tell and we look forward to reporting again! The Chadian youth are most thankful for your support. There is much to do in Chad, let’s do it together!