Education is key to Peace say Darfur Refugees

Sudanese refugees in the camps of Eastern Chad say that education is vital if they are to have a say in building a peaceful future back in their homeland.

Their views endorse CORD’s extensive education programme embracing 35,000 refugees from preschool age to young adults living in four camps near the Darfur border. "In Darfur it was a strategy of the government to keep us uneducated. They thought that if we were educated we would make more demands on them and they didn’t like that idea. That is why we say, they fight us with education. Someone who is not educated is like a blind man. How can a blind man show you the way?" says Yahya Mahamat Oumar, of Treguine Camp.

"To go back we need peace. We don’t want a conflict between us. But if you want to find a solution, if you want to do anything at all, you need to be educated." he adds.

31 year old Housna Souleymane, a member of Bredjing Camps strategic committee involved in CORD’s self study project agrees. "We know that it was ignorance that brought us here. We just want to educate ourselves. If we educate ourselves we can become people who will sort things out" she says.

Their belief in the power of education to affect change comes as CORD release new footage showing how schools in Treguine and Bredjing camps are used from dawn to dusk for a variety of classes from preschool to adult literacy and English learning.