UNICEF and relief agencies make use of them to ensure smooth functioning of services in camps.
The Borgop Refugee Camp for Central African Republic, CAR, nationals in Mberé Division of Adamawa Region, is a vast site made up largely of Mbororo tribes people.
Located about 130 km from Meiganga, the divisional headquarters, and about 40 km from the CAR border, the camp is one of the six in the Adamawa and East Regions for Central African Republic refugees. To this day, some 150,000 CAR nationals are accommodated in these two regions, having fled the conflict back home since 2013.
Managing the thousands of people from different ethnic and religious backgrounds in each camp is a tall order. Reason why the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, and other relief agencies, make use of community relay or mobilisation agents to get their messages across. Ouseni Tawalda, 54, is a volunteer Mbororo community mobilisation agent for UNICEF in Borgop Camp.
Armed with a megaphone, his task in the last six months has been to go round households early in the mornings, reminding parents of the need to send their children early to camp Temporary Learning and Protection Centres, TLPCs and the local elementary school. “I begin work at 6 am and end at midday,” explains a smiling Tawalda as he clutched to his megaphone with a UNICEF sticker.
Bernard Neossi, Education Coordinator for Plan Cameroon for Ngam and Borgop Refugee Camps, explains that Ouseni Tawalda and others were selected by the refugees themselves as their contribution to managing the camp. About 125 km south of Borgop is the Gado Badzere Refugee Camp in the Lom and Djerem Division of the East Region.
Probably the largest of the six camps, Gado Badzere is just 25 km from the CAR border at Garoua Boulai, but 250 km from Bertoua, the regional capital. Here, Bouladje-Noudjoukoang Carine, 23, a Central African Republic refugee, serves as community mobilisation agent for the French Red Cross field hospital.
Placed on a stipend by her employers, Bouladje’s role, alongside over 50 other such agents, is to fish out malnourished and other sick children from the camp for consultation. “The Mbororo tribes people from CAR are not used to going to hospital.
If we do not go out to remind them that the situation of their malnourished or sick children demands medical attention, they might never come,” explains the diploma holder in hotel management. Her only tool as a non-medical professional, is a Mid-Upper Arm Circumference, MUAC, measuring tape used in telling if a child is suffering from malnutrition.
Meanwhile, all other activities in the refugee camps of Adamawa and East Regions demand intensive community mobilisation by volunteers or paid agents.
Without this, managing thousands of people from different ethnic nationalities, religious and cultural leanings – often with little exposure to modern life – is an arduous task for UNICEF and other aid agencies.
