OCHA Sudan starts Darfur Hotline awareness raising campaign

The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) is conducting an awareness-raising campaign to promote its Darfur Hotline among the displaced in eight North Darfur camps from 17 August to 9 September.

The Darfur Hotline is a tool designed to identify and respond to gaps in existing camp services by bridging communication channels between the camp population and humanitarian organisations through mobile phones, OCHA reported in its weekly bulletin last week.

Displaced people can call the hotline number free of charge when they need to report a gap or a problem in an existing camp service regarding health, education, nutrition, water and sanitation or veterinary support.

The hotline is only meant for reporting new gaps caused by new arrivals or damage from natural disasters. Upon receiving a call, a referral officer first verifies the reported gap with someone on the ground -this can be a sheikh, community leader, NGO, teacher, medical staff or police officer from Unamid- before notifying sector leads who then implement the appropriate response measures in liaison with partners or government authorities as necessary.

This camp referral system provides a more timely and accountable way to ensure the needs of camp residents are being met, OCHA states.

Awareness-raising campaigns previously took place in all five Darfur states when the Hotline started in September 2013. This latest effort will target women’s groups, sheiks, community leaders, teachers and school children in Zamzam, Abu Shouk, Al Salam, Shangil Tobaya, Tawila, Mellit, Korma and Kutum camps in North Darfur.

Awareness-raising activities include distribution of explanatory leaflets and on-the-spot demonstrations of how the hotline works as well as explanation of the purpose of the project.

During the first year of implementation, the hotline helped to identify a total of 180 gaps across all five Darfur states. The greatest number of reported problems concerned the water, sanitation and hygiene sectors, for example broken hand pumps and latrines. The highest number of gaps was reported in North Darfur’s Zamzam camp.