Darfur Athlete Profile: Mahamat
Download this profile to print
Mahamat
Future Athlete
Camp Oure Cassoni
Nationality: Sudanese
Mahamat’s story is one of thousands of Darfuri children. Unless we act to return him to his home, and, as his mother says, keep a fire under Bashir, he will never know another place but the run down schools and fields of Oure Cassoni. Someday soon, his home might even be one of those whose has been swallowed by the harshness of the desert, forcing him to move once again.
The present and future athletes below the age of 18 make up 62.9% of those struggling to survive at Camp Oure Cassoni. These athletes are the future of Darfur.
Two-year old Mahamat, like many, was born in this camp, and has never seen his homeland. For him, his life has never been different from the blazing heat, idle waiting, lack of water, and a shoeless and hungry existence. He has never known a home not organized and run by an aid agency, or food not handed to his mother once a month. He has never seen his mother self-sufficient.
Last month we provided a glimmer of hope for Mahamat, and all the refugees living in Chad and Darfur. Moreno-Ocampo’s announcement brought joy and rejoice to the desert camps living at the end of the earth. But like the international peacekeeping force, the announcement and it’s response by our leaders also ushered disappointment. If you were Mahamat’s mother, how would you feel about providing such a life for your children?
These future athletes, and supportive parents, need us, the audience, to spread the word quicker than the sand takes their homes. They need us to ensure peace, protection, and justice. If we don’t, we are letting these athletes down, as we would our own children.
Share the stories of those left behind — Bring the Dream to Darfur
Darfur Athlete Profile: Husna
Husna
Head of Household
Camp Oure Cassoni
Sudanese
Husna carries the blue UNHCR card which states how many family members are registered, and therefore, how much food they will recieve this month for 5. Who knows how many unregistered people she has to feed.
Every month she lines up with her empty oil jug, and several reused food distribution bags from the past. She must patiently wait at the start line, until her name is called and she she signs with her finger print. The race for food, and life, begins.
Only one women per family is allowed to go through the line, so she must balance the bags carefully so as not to spill what is supposed to last a month. Salt and sugar first, since they are the smallest. A large wooden box of soy-wheat cereal with a flour-like consistency is next, she holds her bag open while it is scooped inside. Women pass by, knocking her from behind and stepping very close to her bags. She hands her empty oil jug to the women with the cylinder tin USA oil. She screws the lid on tight sealing the 13oz. 5 scoops of yellow lentils into her last bag. UNHCR card punched, one more bag to collect, the heaviest of them all. Once outside the busy, tight line morphs into a larger crowd of women, children, food piles, and donkeys. Names shouted by an aid worker indicate the last pick up of the day, about ! of a bag of sorghum, dragged on the ground by Husna and other women. If they are lucky, the have a donkey to help carry it home.
When Food Runs Out at the end of the month, they drink tea, and neighbors try to share what is left. Many have traded some of their rations, in a saturated marketplace, for a little meat or vegetables. Right now they receive less than 2000 calories a day.
Share the stories of those left behind — Bring the Dream to Darfur
Darfur Athlete Profile: Coaches and Teachers
Coaches and Teachers
Camp Oure Cassoni
Sudanese
The Coaches and Teachers of Darfur have a tough job. The schools in Camp Oure Cassoni are in shambles. Steel poles and wooden sticks provide the frame for each classroom. Mix matched tarps are strewn together in an attempt to create four walls and a roof. But many have holes where water floods in when it rains, and yet they are still expected to teach, and their students to learn. Many of the sides of the tents are frayed, and none are secured to the ground allowing for the wind, and rain to come through. Since the classrooms are tarps, the heat is almost unbearable and one begins to sweat immediately. How would our teachers be able to cope?
Resources for the teachers, and their students are slim to none. Only a handful of classroom tents have benches, and even then it is only two or three. Chalkboards can be found in much of the same state, scattered throughout the school, leaning against random tents.
Outside of the tents is where the teachers transform into coaches, helping choose teams, and facilitate games, when they are given a resource to do so. At one time, a humanitarian organization built a basketball court, and raised soccer goals. But they don’t have balls to practice with and their swings sets are empty.
How does a coach or teacher share his or her knowledge under such conditions? Almost everyone has had a coach or teacher that has been a role model to us, how would our role models feel if they were faced with these conditions?
Share the stories of those left behind — Bring the Dream to Darfur
Darfur Athlete Profile: Abdulsalam
Download this profile to print
Abdulsalam
Refugee in Camp Oure Cassoni
Nationality: Sudanese
Abdulsalam lives in a camp of 27,000 people. He and his friends have one soccer ball to play with. Behing him you can see their soccer pitch, one of sand and hard earth. The harsh environment of the desert, and the hot sun prevent them from playing unless it is the early morning hours. Whenever they play, they take their shoes off, since most are sandals. Even if the ground is burning hot to the touch.
Children and athletes, and their spectators, would not allow for such deplorable conditions. In China, for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, athletes from around the world will be playing in brand new stadiums. The Darfur Athletes will not get this same chance. Not as long as we, the interntional community, allow peace and justice to be obstructed by the very man who commits genocide against his own people.
Food
As an aspiring athlete and growing young man, Abdulsalam needs his nutrition. But in this camp, like those in Darfur, food rations have been cut, and more and more they are spread to feed more people. Previously, one bag of sorghum was to feed 4 people, now it needs to feed 6. A family of five people receive around one cup of salt, when it’s available, around six cups of sugar, 3 bowls of a soy-wheat cereal, five liters of dried lentils, and a few liters of oil for an entire month. When it runs out, some people can share with neighbors, but many drink only tea or water until the next food distribution day. Like many in his camp, Abdulsalam plays sports, and smiles even though he is hungry. Would we?
Share the stories of those left behind — Bring the Dream to Darfur
Darfur Athlete Profile: Maht
Download this profile to print
Maht
Attends primary school
Refugee in Camp Oure Cassoni
Nationality: Sudanese
Maht lives in the furthest zone of his camp. Although there is sand everywhere, the refugees who were resettled here, feel the sand encroaching on them each and every day; more so than in other zones. Houses, built of water and sand to create more protection than a tent, often melt away in rain and fly away as the wind shifts the desert sand. Some who settled in this part of the refugee camp, have already been moved to another part of the camp because the desert has swallowed their homes.
But Maht and his friends still find time to be kids. They are resourceful and have created their own cars to race across hot, arid desert. Using tin cans leftover from cooking oil, soda cans and anything else they can find to reuse, him and his friends have made race cars pulled by strings.
When we met the three friends, they were finished with school for the day and were racing past us, pulling the three cars behind them. Holding tight to the string, and balancing the car so as not to tip it take practice. One then has to be the quickest runner to beat the pack!
Share the stories of those left behind — Bring the Dream to Darfur
Darfur Athlete Profile: Shephadine
Download this profile to print
Shephadine
Refugee in Camp Oure Cassoni
Nationality: Sudanese
Shephadine came wheeling around the corner when we spotted him. He plays the preferred sport in refugee camps – wheel frames that can be turned with sticks, plastic bottles, or whatever they can find. Like all kids, refugees love to play games. They want to laugh and sing, and jump around as free spirits. Children don’t need much as their imagination is still larger than life, but Shephandine and his friends hardly have anything.They play with rags bunched together like balls. And bags filled with sand are thrown back and forth like baseballs. A few lucky ones have a bicycle or a futbol that they are able to hold on to before it gets stolen. Many times Shephandine and his friends will race with their metal wheels down the sandy paths between their homes. For them, this is their only way to retain their childhood innocence.
Home in Darfur
Shephadine’s parent’s were farmer’s like many of the Darfur people living in his refugee camp. Since he is so young, he has spent most of his life in a refugee camp, struggling to survive. There village was surrounded by mud walls and the people lived in beautiful mud huts with grass roofs. Many of his fellow villagers had herds of animals, such as goats, cattle or sheep. When peace returns to Darfur, Shephandine and his family will most certainly want to return. But they will not be returning to all that they left. They will have to rebuild their entire lives.
Share the stories of those left behind — Bring the Dream to Darfur
Darfur Athlete Profile: Abakar and Amira
Download this profile to print
Amira
Age: 8
Refugee in Camp Oure Cassoni
Nationality: Sudanese
Amira was the track and field champion of the day, out running her fellow students in a race across the soccer pitch. All together 10 girls participated in today’s races. They began with a Sudanese Opening Ceremony: walking through the crowd of spectators, carrying signs of peace, and singing a traditional Darfur song about peace. Amira is the first Dafuri woman to bring home a gold medal.
Abakar
Age: 13
Refugee in Camp Oure Cassoni
Nationality: Sudanese
Abakar was chosen to participate in the Darfur Olympic games by his teachers. He is a student that excels in school, and works hard to get good grades. His schooling his is future. Today, during the Darfur Olympics basketball game in his refugee game, Abakar scored the only basket! His fellow classmates and teachers cheered him on courtside as he led his team to victory!
Their Refugee Camp
Abakar and Amira are living in this refugee camp because their village was destroyed by Arab militias in Darfur. In order for him, and others to return, they say they need Peace, Protection, and Justice. Their teachers speak of the recent evidence of genocide brought against al-Bashir. They say that a reorganization of Darfur is necessary in order for them to return and have a chance at living peacefully. They need protection which includes suspending weapons transfers, and disarming the Janjaweed. And finally, those who are responsible for the mass killing of their people need to be held accountable for true justice to be served.
Share the stories of those left behind — Bring the Dream to Darfur
Darfur Olympic Venues
Download this profile to print
For five years children have attended school in tarped, stick structures. They have spent their morning break on this basketball court, and soccer field, playing with anything they can find including plastic bags filled with sand, old soda cans, and metal wheel frames. Their swing sets have no swings, only a few pieces of a chain where a seat once was. These children share the dreams of the Olympic hopefuls. To one day be somebody that the world cares about and watches grow.
As 16,000 Olympic Athletes begin to move into the 66 hectacre Beijing Olympic Village, here in Oure Cassoni, the farthest North, the farthest East of all the camps in Eastern Chad, the children remain stagnant, playing what games they can with the little hope and many dreams they still have.
In China, where the government has continued to sell weapons and extract oil, athletes from their ‘One World’ begin to gather to fulfill their dreams, dreams that do not include those of the Darfuri’s left in the desert. China has personally built, specifically for these games, a residential area with 22 six-floor buildings and 20 nine-floor buildings, as well as a clinic, restaurants, a library, a recreation centre, gyms, swimming pools, tennis courts, basketball courts and jogging tracks. Darfuri’s continue to live in the same tattered tents that constantly battle harsh winds and a burning sun. For these athletes, there are no libraries, or restaurants, or swimming pools. Their clinic is overcrowded and understaffed; their diseases are malaria, meningitis, and yellow fever. Their dreams are not included in the ones that China speaks of.
Darfur Athlete Profile: Issa, 14
Download this profile to print
Issa
Age: 14
Refugee in Camp Oure Cassoni
Nationality: Sudanese
How Issa got to Camp Oure Cassoni
When asked who destroyed his village, Issa will tell you, the President of Sudan. Four years ago, Issa’s village Darfur was attacked by Sudanese soldiers and the Janjaweed. With machetes, the men tore through their peaceful farming village targeting men and the elderly first. Their crops of okra, tomatoes, and millet were destroyed. Those who attacked his village slaughtered most of the animals and kept a few for themselves as a reward. Many from his family were killed, and the lucky ones walked two weeks to reach the border with Chad. Now many of his family from his village are living together in Camp Oure Cassoni as refugees. They no longer farm, they simply wait.
Hobbies and Sports
Issa enjoys attending school the most. He is beginning to learn to speak Arabic, although he writes it very well. When asked about sports, he turns shy, but it soon comes out that Issa is one of the best futbol players in his zone. He easily handles the ball, juggling once or twice before bringing it to the ground. When asked, Issa already knows which boys will play on his team in the coming days of the Darfur Olympics. Him and his teammates play give and go passes to get around the defense and are quick to pressure the ball!
Dreams
Issa will continue to study for as long as possible in the camp. Unfortunately, there are only primary schools in Camp Oure Cassoni. But, one day he hopes to return to his home in Darfur, and become a teacher so he can educate his people.
Share the stories of those left behind — Bring the Dream to Darfur
Darfur Athlete Profile: Farha, 14
Download this profile to print
Farha
Age: 14
Refugee in Camp Oure Cassoni
Nationality: Sudanese
Her Story and family
Farha father was killed during the attack that destroyed her village. Sudanese government helicopters and planes broke the silence right at dawn, swooping in, dropping bombs and shooting bullets. Then the Janjaweed rode in on camels and horseback, burning everything that can be burnt, killing men and boys, and brutalizing women and girls. Government soldiers shot at villagers fleeing the attack. Farha, her mother, and her three sisters walked twenty-five days across the desert to make it to the refugee camp in Chad. On the day we met Farha, she and her sisters had not seen or heard from their mother in 41 days. The mother went back in to Darfur to look for a son that became separated during the attack.
Sport/hobbies
There is not much to do in the refugee camps in Chad, many of the community development and “nonessential” services fled when insecurity reached Chad. But Farha and her sisters did manage to learn volleyball, and play when they get a chance, after their schooling and chores are done.
Life in the Camp
Young Farha is in charge of her home at the camp. She takes care of her three younger siblings; she collects firewood and cooks; she washes clothes and fetches water. Going out to collect firewood puts her at great risk of being raped, which happens frequently outside of the camps. She also goes to school every morning.
Dreams
She would like to continue studying and become a teacher, but in a year there will be no more school for Farha, since school ends after the primary level at the camps. Farha told me that, on windy camp afternoons, she and her friends get together to tell stories about their village in Darfur, about the way life used to be. They keep telling the stories, until they weep.
Share the stories of those left behind — Bring the Dream to Darfur
