N’Djamena, the capital of Chad, is the country's largest city with its 1,2 millions inhabitants (Africapolis). N'Djamena has followed the evolution of sub- Saharan capitals. In fact, there has been a significant urban growth over the last 4 decades in parallel with the demographic explosion. But due to a lack of means and technical capacities, the public authorities have not been able to control this urban growth (Hemchi, 2015).

Implementation period : 7 days
Time life of the project : 1 week once a year
Achieved / on going : achieved but is replicated each year
Cost : N/A
Status of land : public
Type of place : streets

Stakeholders

• Civil society : local population, inhabitants, local associations The project was initiated by Nair Abakar.
• Local public stakeholders : the communes provided the equipments (rakes, brooms, shovels), neighbourhood leaders were involved in the concertation process
• Local private stakeholders : donations from companies and banks

Target audience

• Citizens of N'Djamena, especially young inhabitants

Type of actions

• Event : it was a 7-day event
• Participative process
• Temporary immaterial change

Citizen participation

• Co-design and concertation : the project initiator emphasized that the idea was really to co- design the project with the citizens in order to find solutions to their daily problems. Regarding this, they went in every parts of the city to discuss with the neighbourhood leaders and the communes. There was a concertation between these three actors.
• Appropriation : public figures were involved in the project especially in communication videos on social networks as a tool to set an example so that the local population feels concerned and participate in turn.

Type of intervention

• Street intervention : cleaning of the streets and waste management.
• Waste and environment : each citizen were asked to collect waste and to plant trees in their home.

Innovation

• Activities and practices : in N'Djamena, it was the first even of this type where citizens of all social classes took part.

Results

The project had a big success thanks to the large participation of citizens. Together they managed to clean up several areas of the city and collect waste. After this first edition, Nair Abakar created the association "Citoyens Sans Frontières" which was in charge of the next editions of the Citizenship Week. The focus of the second edition in 2019 was on road safety (see picture above) and, since gatherings were banned in 2020, the third edition's focus was on raising awareness about the Covid-19 pandemic.

Contact

Nair Abakar - initiator and founder of the association “Citoyens Sans Frontières”:
abakarnair@gmail.com

Association "Citoyens Sans Frontières":
citoyensansfrontierestchad@gmail.com
+235 68 76 10 10

Resources

Page Facebook, "Citoyens Sans Frontières" :

https://www.facebook.com/citoyensansfrontieres