Non-Profit Founded by UCSB Faculty Members Brings Relief to Refugees in Chad

Were Mead alive today, she might be referring to the Chad Relief Foundation (CRF), a non-profit organization with roots in UC Santa Barbara’s Masters in Global and International Studies (MGIS) program, and founded by UCSB faculty member Richard Appelbaum and former faculty member William Felstiner. Over the last five years, CRF has completed 15 projects in south Chad, totaling nearly $500,000, and improving the lives of tens of thousand of refugees who have crossed the borders from the war-torn Central African Republic.

The organization’s first project provided tricycle wheelchairs to approximately 60 people — refugees in the southern camps as well as individuals in the surrounding villages — all of whom suffered paralyzed or missing legs, and could do no more than crawl to get around. Other projects have focused on border structures, secondary schools, medicines and nutritional supplements, protection of women and children, education programs, ball fields and sports equipment, oxen and plow units, mosquito nets, and solar powered lighting and refrigeration in rural health centers.

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