Thanks to Caritas this year, Jean Baptiste Kinda is preparing to harvest his tomatoes, aubergines and other vegetables, and sell them in the local market in Fada to buy some of the things his family have waited for throughout the lean season.
West Africa's Sahel region faced devastating hunger in 2012 after drought left a huge swathe of countries short of food.
This year Gaba is fully engaged with the emergency assistance project of Caritas Switzerland and UNAD (Caritas Chad) that helps people from several regions of Chad who are severely affected by the drought. Help is mainly provided in form of food and new seeds.
Balama was a village once located on the shores of Lake Chad, in the east of the county. Since the 1960s, the lake has been greatly reduced. A changing climate and uncontrolled use of water for irrigated agricultures combined with population pressure, has led to the receding of the lake to 10 percent of its original surface.
It is only natural that the women work together in the field in Hadj al-Dérib. All 120 women of the village are members of a committee, which takes care of the cultivation of various crops as well as the granary and the mill. Each committee has a president, a vice-president and a secretary.
In August 2011, when it stopped raining during the days of cultivation of the land, not all grain was sown. The amount of grain that grew during the following weeks was a lot less than during a normal year. Cornfields have also been plagued by the locusts just before harvest time.
Bishop Miguel A. Sebastián of Laï of Chad sent Caritas a letter (in French) about the flooding in his country.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouEAssoeG1Q]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB2g-pASdCc&feature=plcp] The film is also available in French and Spanish
More than 18 million people in West Africa’s Sahel region don’t have enough food.
A bad harvest last year and high food prices have caused a widespread food crisis across Niger, Mali, Mauritania, Chad, Senegal, parts of Nigeria and Gambia.