Health missions
One of the main challenges as a wildlife conservation NGO is to succeed in combining the needs and expectations of local populations with conservation activities. Based on its experience, Sahara Conservation has been able to develop initiatives that link its efforts to safeguard both wildlife and the people sharing their habitat.
Sahara Conservation works in remote areas, and the isolation of certain populations deprives them of access to healthcare services. This field expertise in Niger was used to collaborate with local doctors and humanitarian and healthcare associations to give a chance to these isolated populations to benefit from basic medical assistance.
Itinerant medical care missions
In 2009, Sahara Conservation joined forces with ESAFRO (Education et Santé sans Frontières), a non-profit organization working in Niger, as well as with local healthcare authorities, to provide basic health services to nomadic and remote communities, living far from urban areas and for whom accessibility to health centers is difficult. Doctors and nurses examine and treat patients during itinerant medical care missions.
Based on the need for oral hygiene, dental care missions are also organized once per year with dental surgeons from Zinder National Hospital.
These missions are often paired with the distribution of children’s winter clothes and the team always make sure to raise awareness on basic hygiene and care, to help improve daily practices and overall health.
At the same time, Sahara Conservation staff also engage with the population to raise awareness about the protection of existing biodiversity, explaining the health missions are part of a broader approach, including wildlife conservation.
Since then, the partnership has successfully about 50 healthcare and dental missions, which has benefitted more than 13 000 people living in some of the remotest areas in Africa. Initially realized in the Termit Tin Touma National Nature Reserve, the partnership now operates in the Gadabedji Biosphere Reserve and the Aïr and Ténéré National Nature Reserve.
In Chad, the first local health mission was organized in 2021, in the framework of a broad “One Health” program, involving farmers, nomads, transhumant herders, agropastoralists and sedentary populations from the Ouadi Rimé – Ouadi Achim Faunal Reserve.
We pursue our efforts to have the greatest number of people benefitting from the initiative but also improve daily hygiene practices for a longer-term impact.
Our partners
