Candlelight for Health, Education & Environment (CHEE) is dedicated to improving the quality of life of the Somaliland community through the provision of education, the promotion of basic health care, providing training environmental conservation and creating employment opportunities through viable income generating activities.
Major areas of focus include:

-       Running and supporting youth vocational training centres in Burao, Erivago and Hargeisa

-       Running and supporting formal education

-       Promotion of girl-child education through provision of scholarships for displaced, poor and orphaned girls;

-       Conducting motivational speeches in the schools

-       Advocacy on gender awareness and education;

-       Provision of primary education for pastoralist children through mobile schools, camel library and audio radio teaching program.

-       Increasing employment opportunity through creation of small business for students

Education Progammes

Candlelight has its separate natural resource management department that carries out the different environmental and livelihoods programmes.  The department is run by a team of experienced staff with multi-disciplinary skills, such as community trainings, soil and water conservation, gender mainstreaming in environmental activities, climate change, sustainable agriculture, energy etc.

Major areas of focus include:

-       Community trainings on climate change adaptation and environmental protection,

-       Training sustainable agriculture practices with provision of seeds, hand tools and farm tillage hours to resource poor farmers.

-       Training on fodder production and livestock management practices

-       Soil and water conservation techniques

-       Mainstreaming gender and environment

-       Promoting alternative energies

-       Roof water harvesting methods

-       Nurseries management and reforestation program

-       Construction and rehabilitation of water sources

-       Construction of sub-surface dams

-       Construction of shallow wells

-       Construction of feeder roads

-       Income generation/diversification activities with focus on pastoral and agro-pastoral communities. This includes bee-keeping trainings and material inputs, farmer’s assistance packages etc.

-       Research & documentation

Environment Programmes

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) is one of this  Health sector programme which is a violation of human rights of women and girls. Even if not intended as a violent act, the practice is de facto crime. FGM/C is also a critical reproductive health issue which must be approached with clear understanding of the cultural context in which it is practiced.

The practice is rooted in cultural understandings of gender, marriage and family. These understandings influence how it is viewed and tolerated in different contexts.Despite the diversity found across and within the villages/sites intervened in the projects, the experiences reported confirm that in communities where it is practiced, FGM/C is viewed as a necessary step to raise and protect a girl and often to make her eligible for marriage. It operates as a social convention and a social norm, and is held in place by reciprocal expectations within those communities.

Major areas of focus include:
-       Awareness raising program on FGM/C, HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)

-       Community education on the effects of Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/FGC),

-       Design and production of IEC materials

-       Conducting sensitization training for teachers, CECs, youth and religious leaders etc.

-       Training for Trainers (ToT) training on FGM/C

-       Television debates

-       Posting articles on FGM/C implications on social networks

-       Support to the mentally sick patients of Hargeisa Group Hospital

-       Training on hygiene and sanitation in pastoral and agro-pastoral communities

Humanitarian interventions during emergencies
-       Unconditional cash relief program for disabled and marginalized groups

-       Cash for work for increasing employment opportunity

-       Water trucking to affected communities during drought periods

-       Human and livestock health interventions

-       Distribution of food and non-food items (NFI’s)