Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps is the next organization on Ann Curry’s links. This is the description in the “about” link of what Mercy Corps does:

“Mercy Corps works amid disasters, conflicts, chronic poverty and instability to unleash the potential of people who can win against nearly impossible odds. Since 1979, Mercy Corps has provided $1 billion in assistance to people in 94 nations. Supported by headquarters offices in North America, Europe, and Asia, the agency's unified global programs employ 3,200 staff worldwide and reach nearly 13.5 million people in more than 40 countries.”

Seeing as Darfur over-qualifies for a disaster, a conflict, and consists of a majority of suffering persons, Mercy Corps is contributing to this crisis. The Darfur crisis has it’s own series (pictured below), based out of the Sudan section. This is an overview. Included there is a ”photo essay” that depicts life in Darfur in a very powerful way.



The following is a brief less detailed description of what Mercy Corps is doing in Darfur:

“Mercy Corps has been providing lifesaving humanitarian assistance - and protection - to displaced families for more than two years. We currently have nearly 200 veteran aid workers in Darfur, where they continue to help people meet their most basic needs. The agency's focus includes improved sanitation systems, clean water, distribution of relief items and building safe spaces where children can learn and play…
… One of the agency's responses has been to reduce the amount of firewood that women must collect to heat water and cook food. Mercy Corps is continuing to teach determined women how to construct and use fuel-efficient stoves that require about half the wood as a campfire would. This limits the amount of time women have to spend collecting wood outside the camp boundaries, where they are more vulnerable.”

The second part of these contributions was the most heart warming to me. As I continually am running into horror stories of women being raped, most frequently they are out collecting firewood when it happens. This seems like such an effective yet simple way of eliminating these horror stories from happening so frequently.



When clicking on “Sudan,” one of the many countries Mercy Corps is assisting in, you get an overview (pictured above) of the help being given there. I found this to be slightly similar to the site yesterday, but still each program has different focuses and concentrations. There are stories from the region not only focused on Darfur that are inspiring and heartbreaking. I especially liked this one about sports. It discusses a program established in southern Sudan that educates the youth about AIDS. The program is called Sports, Youth and Life. The article discusses Nike’s involvement in the program and also how you can help buy purchasing a “soccer kit” that benefits the program and the enrolled.

Like yesterday’s site, they also have a sanctioned out way of viewers to donate among many other links. The site also has links to stories, publications and a year in pictures section. In which some of the most devastating sights from the countries they are assisting are captured. The picture below is from Darfur.

Africare

I am finally going to start discussing Ann Curry’s links. I am going to give a brief over view as to what each other sites provide. Today’s website is Africare.

Africare does not specifically concentrate on Darfur; they are an organization that has been helping the general devastations to the African continent. They focus their attentions on strengthening and helping to maintain the supply of food, security, agriculture, and health, specifically HIV and AIDS.

Some pretty impressive statistics from the website follow:

“Africare now reaches families and communities in 25 countries in every major region of Sub-Saharan Africa, from Senegal to South Africa and from Chad to Mozambique.
Since its founding in 1970, Africare has delivered more than $590 million in assistance — over 2,000 projects — to 36 countries Africa-wide.”

Africare also has a special section and project dedicated to AIDS/HIV. This section gives an overview of what Africare is doing and in what areas. There is a map with highlighted countries that Africare has established projects fighting AIDS/HIV. There are also other links specifically within this section, including links to articles, success stories and history of the project.

The website also allows you to help donate. Not only that, but there are links to specific projects that you can help donate too. I really like this aspect of how they broke it down. The links, located with information about each program, read as follows:

“We invite you to explore the opportunities to help Africare meet the complex needs of the emerging nations of Africa. Here's how you can —
Combat AIDS
Reach out to Africa's children
Offer help where it is needed most
Join Africare as a Life Member
Become a Corporate Partner of Africare
Make a planned gift that will help for years to come
Attend the annual Africare Bishop Walker Dinner in Washington, D.C.”

Throughout the website there are also articles that discuss the progress that is being made.

This section gives statistical information about Sudan and the work being done by Africare there. This feature is available for all the countries Africare is doing work in.

Religious Aspect

I want to discuss some of the religious aspects that are involved in the Darfur crisis. I am pointing out this article from the Washington Post because it explains this very well. The article, entitled "5 truths about Darfur." It's very informative and clears up some of the confusion and speculations about the crisis.

The first truth is "nearly everyone is Muslim." (For more information about the Islam religion, visit this wikipedia site)

An excerpt from the Washington Post article follows:
"Darfur is home to some of Sudan's most devout Muslims, in a country where 65 percent of the population practices Islam, the official state religion.
A long-running but recently pacified war between Sudan's north and south did have religious undertones, with the Islamic Arab-dominated government fighting southern Christian and animist African rebels over political power, oil and, in part, religion.

"But it's totally different in Darfur," said Mathina Mydin, a Malaysian nurse who worked in a clinic on the outskirts of Nyala, the capital of South Darfur. "As a Muslim myself, I wanted to bring the sides together under Islam. But I quickly realized this war had nothing to do with religion.""

Emily Wax, the reporter, also discusses her travels and seeing destroyed mosques. This last quote surprised me. I thought religion was an aspect of the war, but as Mathina Mydin says, it has nothing to do with it. This makes it even harder for me to understand the reasons for these atrocities to continue.

France

I am finally bringing attention to this article my aunt sent me a month ago now! This is a Boston Globe article that discusses a recent settlement between African nations in France about the crisis in Darfur.

This article was a little confusing for me. Sadly, I don’t understand politics all that way. For example, I had no idea that Sudan, Chad and the Central African Republic were accusing each other for supporting rebels.

I am glad they had a meeting to make an end to this violence, but it seems a little sketchy and unrealistic, especially since now there hasn’t been much more news on it. Then again, there never is that much news on Darfur.

I did not like this sentence,

“France and other powers fear the Darfur violence is spilling over and could engulf the entire region.” I thought it was an ignorant statement because this is already started to happen.

However, I did like this statement by United Nations in New York, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon,

“’I am very much disappointed by the decision of the Sudanese government,’ Ban said. ‘I urge again that the Sudanese government fully cooperates with the unanimous decision of the Human Rights Council’ to send a fact-finding team to Darfur.”

I agree with this statement, but I think action should be taken to enact it.

Washington Post

The Washington Post multimedia package professor Matson told me to look at broke my heart. It is by far the most informative package I’ve seen on the crisis. Though it is based on areas in Chad, outside of Darfur, it captures the atrocities at their worst.

I like this site because it is simple but very informative with 360 views of the camps that you can zoom in on to see the specific details. There are also three video packages from areas that are highlighted on the map. The sights and stories are horrific which, ironically, in my mind makes the footage great. The bottom also has links including one that gives you updated information. The pictures above are the ones that hurt me the most.

I liked the first video the best. I loved how there was no narrative; the pictures and the people’s stories told enough. I loved the singing in between by the children too. It amazed me how these people can still have so much passion and love for their country when these horrible things are going on. It makes me look at the U.S. a little differently.

The first woman in that first video talks about having to protect her children, and which ones she can. Can you imagine making that choice? And then living on without your husband in a trashy camp?

Seeing the next woman’s story literally made me cry. The woman in this story is clearly disturbed and ashamed to show her face. How she even lives from day to day amazes me and will have my praise for the rest of my life. She was held down by 11 men and raped by nine. She keeps repeating, “they raped me, they raped me.” And then proceeds to say, “it would have been better if they killed me.” How can any human being do that to someone? What kind of sick twisted people are in this world? And why why why aren’t we stopping it?!

The next woman in the video was struggling to save her baby. She has to feed him “animal food” and doesn’t know if he’ll live or not. How do you find the will to carry on? I don’t think I ever could.

Scenes like this upset me so greatly and I know I ask a lot of questions. I know they’re not going to be answered but I just wish more people would ask them. I get especially upset when I tell people about my blog for Darfur and they laugh or have no interest in it what so ever. How do we live with ourselves without doing something? To let people live in those conditions? I’m having a hard time doing so.

On a final note, in one of the other video’s they discuss how the U.S. government calls Darfur genocide. While Darfur isn’t receiving a significant amount of aide, these areas are hardly receiving any. If we call Darfur genocide, what do we call Chad?

SPRING BREAK! ....is over :(

So this post actually has nothing to do with Darfur, back to that tomorrow. Our assignment for class is to write a "what we did over sping break post." Now I know the phrase, what happens in Mexico stays in Mexico is commonly used, but I'm willing to share some of the g-rated highlights.

My flight left Boston at 6 on a Sunday...not so great. I went on my trip with my sister Sarah and her boyfriend Lonnie. We had a little trouble getting down to Mexico with our flights. But it all worked out okay. It was worth it to get there.

The picture above are of the mountains flying in.
We were staying at the Villa del Palmar in Puerto Vallarta (that’s a site that allows you to view the hotel, and incase, after you see it, you want to make a reservation, you can) Our room was so amazing we didn’t want to leave it.
By day we were poolside or beach side. Julio was our friendly bartender that brought us ice-cold sodas every day. : )

By night, only because my mom (above) was also in the country, we experienced some of the nicer restaurants in the area. One, the Vista Grill, looked out over all of Puerto Vallarta and was one of the most gorgeous sights I have ever beheld.
Other highlights were :
jet skiing hours before we left the country!

Getting to see my dad! (unfortunately only for two days)

And of course, the gorgeous sunsets!


Try not to be jealous!

More on Darfur and professor Matson’s article suggestion tomorrow!

Ann Curry (rape victims)

On this dreary rainy day I thought it would be appropriate to talk about, in my opinion, the worst of the atrocities occurring in Darfur. Women and brutally raped as part of the Janjaweed’s terror. This is another Ann Curry article that I think give a simple but drastic enough cause of what’s going on. I couldn’t get the main video on this page to play, but there is also a set of three video excerpts at the bottom of the page. These pictures are from that video.

The video clips are of Darfurian women singing. What they are saying is to the right of the video. The courage and brevity they sing is so encouraging, yet at the same time you can see on their faces and in their eyes how much pain and grief they suffer from.


This is an excerpt from the story that affected me the most:
“Human Rights Watch estimates thousands of black women and girls have been systematically raped in the last three years.
"Often, women are scarred," says Eric Reeves, a Sudan analyst at Smith College in Northampton, Mass. "They have tendons cut, so as to mark them as having been raped. And, thus, unsuitable as brides and compromised as mothers and wives."

In the first sentence, the words “thousands” and “systematically raped” disturbed me the most, for obvious reasons. The worst part about the rapings, is that in the cultures in the region, a woman is shunned for being raped because she some how “brought it on herself.” When women are raped in the US, not that I’m saying that it’s good women get raped any where, there is so much support. Often that’s a major factor of how rape victims get through the experience. Not that I can relate or say someone’s experience is better than another’s.


I think of how I was at 17, rebellious and trying to do everything to get out of chores. My chores were typically cleaning my room or emptying the dishwasher. I try and think what it would be like to be putting dishes away and instead of worrying about what my friends were doing, worrying about getting raped. That’s clearly not a possibility or even a fathomable thought to have ever crossed my mind.

To leave this disturbing blog on a happy note, for me anyway, I am going away on spring break to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico! I will start blogging again when I return on the 11th!