Djibouti

Djibouti City, Djibouti

In the Fall of 2021, The Unforgotten announced a new program supporting wastepickers at the Chabelley Trash Dump in Djibouti City, Djibouti. More than 100 children survive as wastepickers in Chabelley. They spend their days shifting through trash for pieces to sell or food to eat in order to survive. Most have never attended school. It is a harsh environment for young children under the age of eight. The older teenage children will often bully the younger ones in order to keep the best wastes for themselves. These younger children have to survive on what the older children leave behind. These children live within the trash dump itself in makeshift shelters. Temperatures in Djibouti are often well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and trash is burned in the open, creating an unsafe, apocalyptic environment.

 

Projects

While schools are not close by, The Unforgotten’s Country Coordinator, Isman Hadi, has created a partnership to send these children to school with an Italian NGO, Crew for Africa, which supports a local school, École Privée Miriam. Classes are taught in French and cost a nominal fee (about $17 per month per child). There is also a small bus that takes these children to and from school (around $500 per month). Outside of their education, our program supports the children with school supplies, clothing, and a small stipend for snacks while at school.

We have 15 children enrolled and are actively looking to expand our efforts. Currently, we support children under the age of 10. However, in a later stage, we plan to add job skills training for the older children, as well as WASH projects.

Our total budget for expanding our program in Djibouti to 20 children is around $1,400 per month. We are seeking support to help us provide funding and programming support in Chabelley.

Recently, two of our Board Members Ron Risdon and Michelle La Duca visited our program in Djibouti. They were able to meet with the school administration team, teachers, as well as the parents of our kids involved in the program. In conversations with the parents they told them how thrilled they are to see their children going to school and having an opportunity for a better life. One mother told them how one of them cried with joy, inconsolably when her daughter went to school the first day. With big smiles and bright clean faces one child told how he wants to become a pilot, another wants to be a teacher and another a nurse. It is simply amazing to see how with so little we can give so much to the nearly forgotten among us.

For more information about the project, please contact our Country Director for Djibouti Michelle La Duca
at (  : michelle.laduca@unforgotten.org )