More Information About this Project
Project Needs and Beneficiaries
The U.N. World Food Program reports that it is cutting food rations to Darfur by 50% due to a lack of funding. MADRE and Zenab are responding to this crisis in El Sieref and other refugee camps. Conditions are horrific: Women face a systematic campaign of gang rape; children fear for their lives; families lack even the most basic necessities, like enclosed toilets; and now they will have even less food than before.
Activities
MADRE is providing support for:
food and basic supplies;
programs to prevent gender-based sexual violence (including rape);
security and privacy for women and children; and
counseling and play therapy to traumatized children.
Funding Information
Total Funding Received to Date: $39,109
Funding Information
This project is now in implementation and no longer available for funding.
Received funds will be used to accomplish concrete objectives as
indicated in the project's "Activities" section. Updates will be posted under the
"Progress Report" tab as they become available.
Donors' contributions and pledges to this project totaled $39,109. The original project funding goal was $37,500.
Additional Documentation
This project has provided additional documentation in a Microsoft Word file (projdoc.doc).
Resources
Why this Project is Important
Potential Long Term Impact
MADREs decades-long experience has taught us that emergencies like this one will leave survivors in crisis for a long time. Thats why were supporting the efforts of womens organizations to provide trauma counseling along with emergency relief.
Project Message
"It was a great experience to be able to share this emergency relief with women and children and elderly people and do something to make them happy."
- Fatima Ahmed, Director of Zenab
When this Project was Updated
Last Updated
This project was last updated on April 12, 2007.
Date Added to GlobalGiving
This project was added to the GlobalGiving project catalog on April 28, 2006.
Latest Update from the Field
Darfur Crisis: A Report from Sudan April 2007
By Fatima Ahmed - Director of Zenab for Women in Development, April 12, 2007 09:52 AM
With the help of GlobalGiving supporters, MADRE and Zenab have been able to provide much-needed aid to hundreds of people in the refugee camps at Autach, Gereida, and El Sireaf and surrounding villages. We have constructed private latrines in two of the camps so far, and distributed sugar, dates, onions, oil, millet, and sorghum to hundreds of people. These items were especially important during Ramadan, in October of last year.
Women and young children who have been traumatized by displacement and war have benefited from the services of a local counselor, who travels to each camp to conduct day-long sessions. The sessions are not regarded as psychological counseling, which people in the camps are not familiar or comfortable with, but are offered in a way that encourages people to share their experiences and regain a sense of trust and community. Another activity that has been very successful in this regard is a new creative project, designed to empower women by supplying them with raw materials they can use to produce different types of artisanal products, to help generate income. The women were working with have found this to be a very useful type of support, and we were happy to hear how much they enjoyed it too. Together with four other local womens organizations, we have formed the Darfur Network for Creative Women, in order to arrange cultural and musical events.
Our biggest success so far was participating at the Annual International Exhibition in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan. We traveled with 30 women and a group of musicians from the camps, and rented a tent for them to display their art. The musical group performed every night in front of our tent, and we received many local and international visitors to what came to be known as the Darfurian Womens Creativity Tent. In fact, ours became a famous venue at the exhibition, and we were able to sell many of the womens wares.
Our plan is to continue our work in Darfur, and expand our distribution of food and aid to the south of Sudan. We understand that one of the latest reports states that food aid has decreased by 64%, and we see the tremendous need this has caused in the camps. Because of this, and so many other factors, the public health situation is also rapidly deteriorating, as the World Health Organization has documented.
In the coming months, we hope to buy milk and rice, in addition to other food items, to distribute to women and their children, and to particularly channel aid to pregnant women who are very vulnerable. Non-food aid will include clothing, sheets, blankets, and bed nets to prevent the transmission of malaria, one of our most pressing health concerns.
Thank you so much for supporting the women of Sudan with your resources and support. The relief and joy that comes from knowing that we are not alone, that we are not suffering in anonymity, is immeasurable. The world is full of injustice, and we cant fix it all at once, but your gestures from the other side of the world make a big difference.
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