For the past 3 months, FORGE Project Managers in Meheba Refugee Settlement, Zambia have been hard at work overseeing FORGE’s shift from centrally-planned projects to community-planned projects. With the guidance of a carefully-developed Collaborative Project Planning Process, they have facilitated the creation of three new projects developed by refugees in three different “Blocks” of Meheba Settlement.
Today, FORGE is announcing the outcomes of this first-ever Collaborative Project Planning Process. The three projects developed by the refugee community are now listed on our project page: The Mwangaza Education Centers, the Block H Reliable Seed and Market Program, and the FORGE Health Service projects were each carefully designed out of a comprehensive process of community needs assessment, intervention analysis, and project development.
Each of these new projects serves a particular need for a particular vulnerability of each community. Block F, which is located far from the rest of the Settlement, developed an education program to ensure that the Congolese and Angolan refugees who live there get the access to Early Childhood Education and adult language and literacy skills that they would otherwise lack. Block H, a largely agricultural group of Angolan refugees in the most impoverished part of the Settlement, has chosen a Seed and Market program to bolster the security of their primary food and revenue source, thus increasing their health and the likelihood that they will be able to support their children to go to school. Block G, a group of Rwandan and Burundi refugees isolated at the very back of the Settlement, opted to create a Health Services program to fill the gap of health needs in their underserved community.
These three new projects represent a whole new horizon for FORGE – one in which people affected by war are empowered with the tools, skills and courage to rebuild their lives, revitalize their communities, and ultimately contribute to shaping a peaceful and prosperous future for their countries.
Please help us in this quest by contributing whatever you can to the initiatives deemed most important by the residents of Blocks F, G, and H of the Meheba Refugee Settlement.