So last Friday we went to the Koro IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) Camp about a 20 minute drive from where we live. Like our visit to the Unyama Camp the previous week, we had to go meet with the district leaders to get permission to visit the Camp and again, we were granted permission given the "work we were going to do as an NGO".

The reason I put "working" in quotes is because we were not really working. We were going to the Camp for the first time to meet the people that we would be doing our Skills Training and Agriculture Income Generating Activity with. We knew that our first time at the camp would just involve be meeting the people, preparing the nursery bed for the seeds, planting the seeds, and not getting too much in the way. Yet, we were told that we would be working with 20 youth (around secondary school ages, such as 17-20) who did not know much about agriculture and of which half would be women.

Instead, we found a group of under 15 people, which consisted of a few women, a vast range of agricultural skill levels (including working on a farm from the time a man was six), and ages that ranged from 17-35. Our Program Coordinator with Chaford, who contacted the youth leader at the Camp to identify and form a group of 20 youths, said that it was very difficult for the youth leader to attract youth to do agriculture. This was not our only concern with the project as we felt like we were getting in the way as the "youth" knew what they were doing and the people at Chaford would speak to us in English about the preparing the seed bed and planting the seeds. We are here to learn, but we also want to contribute our assets and learn without hindering the benefits of those we are working with. We also felt that this was a project that Chaford could largely do without us (and had set up without us) and that we were essentially simply contributing funds, something else we did not come here just to do. Finally, the language barrier and gap in agricultural knowledge between us and the participants were too large. Many of us were frustrated due to all of this and met to discuss ways that we could contribute to the Camp in a different way or to work on another project entirely.

As a result, we will still contribute funds for the Agriculture project and we will visit the Camp once a week to help where we can. We are planning to work with a local high school to educate teachers and students about computer skills (which we all have) from typing to Powerpoint to Word. We will also work with this school to see if they are willing to allow us to bring kids from the Camp to the school and to train them as well. We will also pursue side projects, such as an arts initiative at the Camp or coaching a youth sports team.

I will keep you posted on how these projects go and in my next post, I will talk about the three different NGOs we have visited thus far. Talk to you then.

Adong Maber (stay safe),

Nicky Anywar