Chad

Chad
Attendees at Chad National Bahá’í Convention, 1973.
Location of Chad
National Assembly		Chad
Statistics:
Total Population
-	UN 2021	17,179,740
Bahá'í pop.
-	Bahá'í source
-	Non-Bahá'í source	138,462
History: Firsts
-	Local Bahá'í	Cleophas Koko Vava Ernest Ndouba
-	National Assembly	1971
How to contact:
-	Email	nsabfchad@yahoo.fr
Official Website		https://www.bahai.org/national-communities/chad
Related media
Categories: Chad • People

The Republic of Chad is a country in Northern Africa. Its official languages are Arabic and French, and Islam and Christianity are the predominant religions.

The region was colonised by France in the early 20th Century with the area being incorporated into French Equatorial Africa by 1920. After the Second World War Chad was designated a French overseas territory and granted the right to elect its government and in 1960 it became independent.

The Bahá’í community of Chad was established in the late 1960's with rapid growth and administrative development occurring in a short period. In recent years the community has made efforts to contribute to the social and economic development of the country.

History

The first Bahá’í pioneer settled in Chad in 1961, however they departed after a short time with the country being re-opened to the Faith in 1965 by two Bahá’í youth from Khartoum, Sudan. In 1967 Dempsey and Adrienne Morgan pioneered to Chad settling in Fort Lamy and through their efforts over one thousand people had become Bahá’ís by December 1968. The first person to declare in Chad was Cleophas Koko Vava, who was from Togo and declared in late 1967 or early 1968, and the first native Chadian to declare was Ernest Ndouba in 1968. Counselor Mehdi Samandari visited Fort Lamy in 1969, and in 1970 Rúḥíyyih Khánum visited the city and surrounding villages during her teaching tour of Africa spending two weeks in Chad.

In 1970 the Bahá’í community of Chad submitted an application to become officially registered with the government of Chad however the request was denied on the grounds of no new religion being recognized since Chad became independent. The decision was appealed with Bahá’í literature being submitted to various Government ministers and Aziz Navidi visited Chad in January, 1971, to assist the community making a presentation of the Faith to government officials. Through these efforts the Faith was officially recognized as a religion by the government in February, 1971.

In April 1971 Chad established an independent National Spiritual Assembly with Enoch Olinga representing the Universal House of Justice at the occasion. The Universal House of Justice had made the establishment of a joint National Assembly for Chad and the Central African Republic a goal of the Nine Year Plan with the establishment of Chad's independent Assembly representing the Faith's unexpected progress in the country, with over ten thousand people having declared in the country by 1971.

As of 1971 a Bahá’í Youth Center had also been established in Moundou, and in 1972 fourteen Bahá’ís of Chad donated land to the Faith to serve as National Endowments. Also at the 1972 National Convention, which William Sears attended, delegates called for Bahá’ís to pioneer to establish the Faith in more regions of Chad and to support fledgling communities across the country. As of 1972 an Auxiliary Board member for Propagation assigned to Chad had been appointed, and in 1973 the Chad Bahá’í community sponsored its first public presentation with a celebration of United Nations Day which received media coverage in radio and print media and was attended by fifty people.

In 1973 the National Spiritual Assembly of Chad oversaw the translation of a selection of Bahá’í prayers into the local languages Massa, Ngambaye, and Kanouri. In 1976 a National Teaching Conference was held in N'djamena which was a satellite conference of the Kenya Intercontinental Conference, and during that year Bahá’í teachers proclaimed the Faith across twenty-seven villages in southern Chad resulting in five hundred and fifty declarations and seventeen Local Spiritual Assemblies being established. In 1977 Chad held its first Bahá’í Women’s Conference which resulted in over one hundred declarations, and the same year the Bahá’í National Committee for Women and Children prepared a children's class curriculum.

In 1979 Chad began holding National Bahá’í Youth Conferences with the second Conference in 1980 being one of the largest Bahá’í events ever held in the country. During the second Conference an Auxiliary Board member and a member of the National Youth Committee were able to meet with the Vice-President of Chad. In 1982 the Bahá’í community of Chad began to dedicate focus to consolidating Local Spiritual Assemblies, and in May that year it established the Samandarí Teaching Institute. In 1984 a teaching campaign was held in Chad dedicated to the memory of Shoghi Effendi which secured nine hundred declarations. The same year another teaching campaign based in Moissala resulted in two hundred and fifty declarations and ninety-five Local Assemblies being established.

Since at least the 1980's the Bahá’ís of Chad have made efforts to contribute to social and economic development. As of 1984 a kindergarten, named Anís School, had been established in Moissala by the Local Spiritual Assembly although unsettled conditions in the area complicated its functioning, and in 1989 the Moissala community also established the Tahirih Farm as a social and economic development project. In the mid 1990's the Minister of Social Affairs and Promotion of Women in Chad requested Bahá’í input in the organization of a program for Pan-African Women's Day.

In 1996 a regional Bahá’í Congress was held in the Moissala Bahá’í Center which received national press coverage, and in 1998 a Bahá’í booth was set up at a celebration of International Women's Week in N'Djamena which was visited by approximately four thousand people. In April 1999 another National Bahá’í Youth Conference was held in Chad which was the first to be held in over a decade, and in June that year a teaching project resulted in three hundred and forty declarations.

In the early 2000's the Institute Process began to contribute to successful teaching in Chad with over one thousand people declaring in 2000 through the efforts of graduates of a training institute. In 2013 a major Youth Conference was held in Sarh at the direction of the Universal House of Justice which was attended by one thousand two hundred youth who discussed plans to work towards the spiritual and material development of their communities.

In 2019 the Bahá’í community began collaborating with traditional leaders across Chad and in 2021 a conference was held in Baro which gathered thirty traditional chiefs to discuss the future of their communities. In 2022 local grassroots conferences were held across Chad for Bahá’í communities to consult and government officials, traditional chiefs, and religious leaders also attended some of the conferences.