IMC

My timing with discussing Ann Curry’s blog links worked out perfect. Today, the last day of the semester, I am going to discuss the International Medical Corps.
IMC was founded in 1984. They are a nonprofit organization that works around the world where there is need of health care. They work to save lives and relieve suffering. Here is a list of the following things they focus on.

“IMC health care services include:
Primary health care (PHC) – basic preventative and curative services, with a focus on the most vulnerable victims of suffering: children, women, and the elderly
Mental health care – train primary health care providers to integrate mental health into their work so they can identify and treat mental health problems. IMC also sets up a variety of psychosocial programs for the wider community according to their needs
\\Maternal and child health care (MCH) – mass immunizations, well-child clinics, and training for midwives and traditional birth attendants to reduce maternal and child mortality
Health education and training – in the medical and managerial skills needed to serve local communities suffering from a breakdown in health services
Emergency relief and disaster response – vital emergency medical care, war and trauma surgery, nutrition, and water/sanitation assistance provided at the very onset of a humanitarian crisis
HIV/AIDS – diagnosis, treatment and prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STI) and opportunistic infections, as well as training for HIV/AIDS caretakers, distribution of appropriate drug therapies, and public education
Reproductive Health Care – a full range of services for women to promote better health, particularly during the child-bearing years;
Water and sanitation – to control the spread of waterborne diseases amongst vulnerable communities
Reconstructive and rehabilitative surgery – to improve the physical and psychological health of victims of warfare, including women and children
Nutrition services – supplemental and therapeutic feeding programs for populations affected by famine and food shortages, particularly small children
Microfinance – community-based initiatives to help restore economic self sufficiency and help finance local health programs
Gender and sexual based violence – training for local health care workers to increase awareness of gender-based violence and establish treatment protocols”



There is a very detailed description of what IMC does in Darfur listing the type of medical aide they are giving in the area. They also teach people how to use technology and other medical practices that will benefit them. They also work in Chad. There is also an interesting slideshow of photos of IMC assistance in Darfur. Some of the pictures are shown below.

NY Times Article from today

Today there was a very interesting/ exciting article in the New York Times titled, “Sudan Drops Objections To U.N. Aid in Darfur.”

Apparently, as of yesterday, Monday, April 16, Sudan has “dropped objections to large-scale UN assistances to the overwhelmed African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur.” This would possibly allow for UN peacekeepers to enter the area.

President of Sudan, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, has been VERY resistant to allowing any other nations and especially the UN into the country to assist. He feels as though it’s a threat to his country’s security. Due to this past attitude, the UN is still skeptical about the situation.

Back in August, the UN had created a plan with UN force to enter the area and work with the African Union to help establish peace in the area. But the UN would only enter Sudan with the consent of the Sudanese government.

Bashir, who is now saying he will allow the UN’s assistance, is still objecting the original plan. There is some shady area where Bashir will not allow for helicopters to enter the area.

Hopefully this is not another negotiation that Bashir is going to back out of or attempt to further change the circumstances. I think everyone would love to see the UN get in there and establish some sort of peace. I think it would also hopefully bring about some more answers and hopefully stop the government from supporting the atrocities.

Concern USA

Concern USA is an organization that works worldwide to provide emergency relief and long-term support. They work in Africa, Asia, Central America and Eastern Europe. They do a lot of work in the Sudan with specific projects in Darfur.



I thought that the information given about Sudan and the conflict in Darfur was brief, but also very informative. And unlike anything I’d really heard before. The beginning of the background read as follows:
“Sudan began exporting oil in 1999, and has large areas of cultivatable land, gold and cotton. While Sudan has also implemented sound economic policies and invested in important infrastructure, an ongoing conflict involving interethnic hostilities in Darfur, a large region of north Sudan, continues to worsen, and is now considered one of the world's most urgent humanitarian emergencies.”

The rest of the page also gives information about other areas of Sudan and some statistical information about those being affected.

The two programs they have established in Darfur are:

Darfur - Local NGO Training and Development
Darfur - Emergency Response

The first of these programs does the following:
“In 2003, Concern determined that working with local NGOs was the most effective way to make an impact in this region. An exhaustive process designed to identify local NGOs with the skills necessary to execute plans was conducted resulting in the identification of five partner NGOs:
CLOSAT, ANGATO, NDO, ZAMZAM and SUDO”



For each of the areas, staff is organized and trained. Technical opportunities are also implemented in the areas as a way to help assist.

The NGO groups then create small projects in which they assist specific groups of people and villages.

The Emergency Response program they have in Darfur is slightly different.



This program does the following:
“With the Darfur situation still unpredictable, Concern will continue to provide life-support programs focusing on nutrition, water, sanitation and distribution of essential non-food items to vulnerable people. Once the situation stabilizes, emergency relief will shift toward rehabilitation.
The sanitation program will provide 10,000 latrines.”

Almost a year ago, in May 2006, this program also started to take on aiding refugees in a Western Darfur camp from Chad.

Blogging Experience Assignment

One of our last assignments for our blog was to write about our blogging experience.
In general, I really enjoyed blogging. I am very fascinated with Africa in general, and I like learning about areas of conflict. Well, I don’t exactly like learning about them, I wish they weren’t happening, but I like learning things that I cant’ learn via our main news sources. It frustrates me tremendously that we hear more on Iraq daily than Darfur. Not that Iraq should be ignored either.
Anyway, the whole blogging experience really opened my eyes to how vast the Internet is. And how much information is available on it! I was surprised at how much was available on Darfur, and when thinking about that I really came to terms with how much information is out there and so easily and quickly obtainable.
I had a lot of fun, usually, when finding new sites and seeing the multimedia coverage. My two favorite posts were the ones about the Washington Post page and the Google Earth. They were my favorite because I thought they did the most to bring light upon the atrocities occurring. Interestingly enough, they weren’t the most “fancy” and elaborated websites in their words. They just came out and said, “Look, this is what’s happening in this place in the world.”
Aside from the seriousness and horrors of the topic, I sometimes disliked having to blog every day. I enjoyed blogging, but some days when I was really busy I just felt like I had no time to blog and would have liked to expand on the subject more. I would suggest that the number of blog post not be as important, but the material and length of each blog post.
I hope to continue blogging about Darfur, only not as frequently. It keeps me well informed on the topic and also reminds me when I’m having a bad day that there are people out there who have it 100 times worse.
I think Blogs in general are a great Internet invention. I also think they can be a horrible way of getting news at times. But, as a guest speaker in one of my classes said the other day, blogs are bringing us back to the beginning days of journalism. When everything written was opinionated and, well, essentially, unfair. I think it’s good that we still have objective news via the television, print and news. And I hope that those mediums remain our main sources of obtaining the news. But I also like the idea of blogs. That someone can see some ones opinion on the matter. It gives a new light and different way of looking at a subject that the news mediums today can’t give you.
On a final note, I would like to say thank you to my family. I’m pretty sure they are the only ones who read my blog besides my teacher and my roommate when she was bored at work. Everyone was very impressed and encouraging about my blog posts. Especially my grandfather. : ) Thank you for waiting for my new posts every evening. I love you all! And a big thanks to professor Matson for showing us all, with great patience, how to blog!

More on Darfur tomorrow!

The IRC (GREAT podcasts!)

The International Rescue Committee is an organization that “seeks to bring attention to forgotten or neglected crises and to pressure governments and international organizations to take action to help and protect refugees, displaced people and other victims of conflict.”



The are working in several countries across the world, including Iraq, Uganda, Darfur and many other areas. They have a huge concentration of their program and work going into the Darfur crisis. They have a very informative statement that gives a great background on the crisis in Darfur. It also is informative on how the problem has escalated.



The site also has a very modern version of spreading news. Podcasts. There are great stories from Darfur. I highly suggest listening to some of these podcasts, they are very intense, and VERY moving. One is a translation from a 20-year-old woman who arrived at a refugee camp and in the meantime has had a child. They are both now starving and homeless.

Google Earth

My grandfather, being the extremely helpful and generous man he is, called me last night to inform me about a news broadcast he’d seen on ABC. (There is now an online story as well.) It was about a new program google is doing in association with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum to demonstrate the atrocities in Darfur.

This is by far one of the most interesting things I’ve come across so far. I’m sure many people have heard of google earth. A program that allows you to zoom in on any place in the world almost. It’s like a giant map at your finger tips! I have often used it just goofing around, but I spent a while looking over the new set up they have with Darfur.



There are now icons on villages in Darfur that have been burnt down and destroyed. The falme icons allow you to zoom in on the area. But also, the US Holocaust Museum have set up little bubble of information that pop up as well. There are statistics about that village and also links to obtain more information.



I highly suggest everyone checking this out. It’s free to download and fun to use. However, the sights I saw in the Darfur villages were troubling, to say the least. Especially when I can then type in my address in Maine and see where I live. To compare neighborhoods isn’t even possible. Nothing is the same. And yet these are two places that co-exist in the

Oxfam International

Oxfam International is another program that sends out aid workers worldwide. However they do it a little differently.
“Oxfam International is a confederation of 13 organizations working together with over 3,000 partners in more than 100 countries to find lasting solutions to poverty, suffering and injustice.”
To read more about what exactly Oxfam does, visit the about us page.

Included in one of the emergency sections is for the Sudan. The web page is not very colorful, however there is a fair enough of information complete with news updates and press releases. The brief introduction to the website reads as follows:
“As of March 2007, we are providing vital assistance to more than 500,000 people affected by the crisis, both in Darfur and eastern Chad. We provide access to clean, safe water and sanitation as well as basic necessities such as blankets, soap and jerry cans for carrying water. We carry out public health education programs to try and prevent the spread of disease; and, as the crisis continues, we are implementing projects to provide livelihood opportunities to help people find some alternative to the reliance on external aid.”

The most recent news update, March 19, discusses the increase in violence and attacks on aid workers and the hijackings of their supply trucks. The article also mentions that Darfur has become more “lawless and volatile.” It also discussed a recent incident in one of the aid camps at Gereida, South Darfur where workers were beaten and one woman was raped.

There was also a recent statistic given; “In the first two months of 2007, more than 80,000 more people fled the ongoing violence.” This clearly shows that the violence has not only increased for the aid workers, but also in the Darfur area. I think these aid workers are some of the most courageous people in the world. To go into a violent area while everyone is running out takes some guts.

The end of the page gives some great statistics as well as information about what exactly Oxfam is doing and what their objectives are.