Touloum Refugee Camp

The Touloum Refugee Camp, located in Chad on the Sudanese border, houses more than 23,441 Darfur refugees (2009), mainly women and children. After setting up a large solar cooking project in the Iridimi Refugee Camp in Chad for Darfur refugees, the KoZon Foundation, Tchad Solaire, Jewish World Watch, and Solar Cookers International constructed a manufacturing plant and storeroom in the camp in March 2007. Roughly 5,000 women were trained to use the solar cookers, and 16,000 cookers were distributed. (See also .) Replacement cookers were provided for the families, which are made up of 5-7 people per tent, often one woman as the head of household, with up to three of her own children and three orphans.
In early 2005, solar cooking was introduced to Darfur refugees living in the Iridimi Refugee Camp in Chad by Dr. Derk Rijks of the KoZon Foundation. Jewish World Watch’s Solar Cooker Project (SCP) adopted this endeavor in 2006 and expanded it to provide solar cookers and training to three refugee camps.
The area is devoid of vegetation and receives very little rainfall—between 3” and 5” (7.5 - 12.5 cm) annually; though there is abundant sunlight. 
The main food distributed is maize meal, and it is sometimes accompanied by a maize-soya-meal mixture, if available. The pulse plants most frequently distributed are yellow and red lentils, white and red beans, and sometimes pigeon peas. These require cooking for about three hours, depending on the clarity of the sky. The heat from solar cookers is slow and gentle, so while the food stays longer in the pot, it does not stick to the walls or need to be regularly stirred, which is an advantage over the potential to burn food with fire. This also provides women the opportunity to do other things while the food is cooking, such as pursuing economic and education opportunities.
Additionally, there is not the lingering smoke as there is with a fire, which reduces the incidence of respiratory illness and eye infections. Solar cookers are also able to be used to pasteurize drinking water, reducing incidence of water-borne diseases, especially in children.
 
The SCP’s partners have included Solar Cookers International, which has provided technical assistance, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which manages the camps and coordinates NGO activities, and Tchad Solaire ("Solar Chad"), the NGO that previously operated the SCP on the ground in Chad.
Organizations providing financial support for this project have included: Netherlands Refugee Foundation, Jewish World Watch, as the North American Coordinator of the Project, the Darfur Assistance Project, the Dora Levit Family Fund, and the Hesed Fund. Additionally, logistical and communications support from the UNHCR and CARE was invaluable to project operations.
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*February 2025: Haines Solar Cookers LLC Selected to Provide 6,000 Solar Cookers to Darfur Refugees - The new Haines Pop Open Solar Cookers, which harness concentrated sunlight to cook food, will be distributed in Touloum Refugee Camp in Eastern Chad. Conditions there are harsh, and resources are scarce. The project is managed by FairClimateFund, a Netherlands-based social enterprise with extensive experience in implementing clean cooking programs that generate carbon credits. “We are proud to be part of this important initiative that not only provides refugees with a cleaner, healthier way to cook but also supports broader climate goals,” said Roger Haines, President and Founder of Haines Solar Cookers. “We hope to expand this project to other camps in Chad with FairClimateFund. The project will make a tangible impact in the lives of refugees while also contributing to climate mitigation through the generation of carbon credits.” 
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Haines Pop Open Solar Cooker diagram.jpg
Haines Pop Open Solar Cooker.jpg|Haines Pop Open Solar Cooker
 
*June 2017: Derk Rijks, a longtime participant in solar cooking projects in refugee camps, reports that there is an ongoing solar cooking project in this camp.
*May 2013: Solar cookers preparing food for 130,000 people daily at the refugee camps in Chad - Derk Rijks, a volunteer with the KoZon Foundation, recently responded to Jewish World Watch with this note of appreciation. "Last week I was at the Touloum Refugee Camp. The chief of the workshop, Fatimé, told me there were new arrivals. We walked over to the last of the dunes and there was one woman who had just walked in with four kids, sitting in the sand. Her village was bombed one week ago, and she had fled to escape the Janjaweed, walking for seven nights. Fatimé looked at me, I nodded, 'yes', and in the next few hours she had her cooker and started her solar cooker training, even before she had a shelter. No words needed, no paper needed. That is the way your contribution works." He also explains that in the six camps where they work in Chad, and in the villages of the population around the camps about 29,000 families now do solar cooking, and about 130,000 people are eating solar cooked meals. In this part of the world solar cooking works about 300 days a year. From the empty bags of the food shipped in by the World Food Programme, and the snippets of aluminum foil and cardboard left over from the manufacture of the cookers, the refugees make "thermos baskets" to keep the food, cooked between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m., warm until the evening meal at 5 p.m. or 8 p.m. They do not have to search for wood so much any more and there are far fewer conflicts for that reason. As one of the elected representatives of the women refugees said: "Solar cooking brings us justice and peace".
*January 2012: Jewish World Watch has created a manual that details what has been learned that will assure a successful refugee project: Solar Cooker Project: Best Practices Manual
thumb|400px|TAHA CHAMCHIHA Solar Cooking in the Sahel
*July 2011: A Goedhart Film production, TAHA CHAMCHIHA Solar Cooking in the Sahel, documents daily life for the Sudanese refugees living in camps in bordering Chad. Tchad Solaire has trained over 12,000 women in the use of simple solar panel cookers. These CooKits have provided the women additional free time normally spent searching for scarce firewood. Within each camp there is a workshop center where cookers are made for distribution to the other residents. Though the cookers are somewhat fragile, the women have appreciated being involved with the process of making the simple CooKits. The film also shows how the companion Guffah heat-retention cooker baskets are being assembled to use with the panel cookers to keep the food piping hot for dinner served in the early evening.
* January 2010: Chad Solar Cooking Project Evaluation photos and commentary - Karyn Ellis
*November 2009: TchadSolaire Project Evaluation, Touloum Refugee Camp, Chad - Final Report
*June 2009: Wietske Jongbloed reports that all refugee families in the Touloum Refugee Camp now have solar cookers.
*February 2009: Simple Tool That Saves Women's Lives - Parade Magazine
*May 2008: In Touloum Refugee Camp, 5,000 women have been trained in solar cooking, and several thousand await training; 500 women continue to be trained to solar cook each month. Forty refugee women work part-time as auxiliary trainers alongside the Tchad Solaire team. Currently 24 women have been trained as solar cooker assemblers, thus providing the women with a new skill and an opportunity to generate income for their families.
== The Benefits of Solar Cooking ==
*Solar cooking helps reduce the need for frequent firewood collection outside the relative safety of the camp, reducing the risk of violence towards women and girls.
*Two solar cookers can save one ton of wood each year.
*There is no need to tend a fire so women are free to do other tasks while food is cooking.
*The production of the solar cookers provides income-generating opportunities for female refugees.
*Solar cooking, as part of an integrated cooking method, reduces the amount of wood necessary for cooking, helping to alleviate tensions between the refugees and locals, whose already slim wood supply was suddenly impacted by thousands of refugees.
==Resources==
===Project evaluation===
*January 2015: - Patricia McArdle
===Articles in the Media===
*February 2014: Surviving Genocide in Sudan and Congo - Tikkun Daily
===Audio and video===
*July 2010:
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*March 2010:
::thumb|400px|none|VIdeo shows hundreds of CooKits in use at the Touloum Refugee Camp in Chad.
==Reports==
*January 2010: Solar Cooker Project Fact Sheet
*November 2009: TchadSolaire Project Evaluation, Touloum Refugee Camp, Chad - Final Report
==See also==
*Refugee camps with solar cooking projects
*TchadSolaire
*KoZon Foundation
*Jewish World Watch
*Iridimi refugee camp
*Gaga Refugee Camp
*Farchana Refugee Camp
*Oure Cassoni Refugee Camp
*Chad
==Contact==
Category:Chad
Category:Refugee camps