RIGHTS GROUPS WELCOME PRINCETON LYMAN AS NEW U.S. ENVOY TO SUDAN FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 31, 2011 (Washington, D.C.) – Sudan Now, a group of human rights and anti-genocide organizations, welcomed today’s announcement by the White House that U.S. Ambassador Princeton Lyman will be the new U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan. Ambassador Lyman recently led […]
Tag: Darfur
Do you maintain hope, Yaya? “Yes. There is a time for war, and there is a time for peace, but it is not soon.” Yaya was sixteen when he had to run from Darfur, and, in the chaos, became separated from all his immediate family. He does not know who is still alive. When they […]
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Mud
This is the mud that women like Mariam use to build their shelters, latrines and walls for privacy. As the years have past the tents and tarps given by humanitarian groups have ripped, faded and disintegrated. It is the women who mix the dirt and bring it home. It is women like Mariam and Hawa […]
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A Dream Home
My dream i-ACT Expedition has always been to come to Eastern Chad, to these refugee camps, and help the refugees pack and go back to a peaceful home in Darfur. In my nightmares, I never thought I would be here for my 10th Expedition, with no packing day in sight. During my first few trips, […]
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Returning
Today I met Mia Farrow — not the actress, the refugee Mia Farrow. She can’t be more than four years old. Her older sister, another beautiful girl just as Mia, is Susan — yes, like Susan Rice. They are both daughters of one of the camp’s Umbdas, or camp leaders. Umbda has seven children, and […]
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Breathing Sand
I have a cold which includes a headache, and I’m feeling miserable in one hundred degrees plus weather, and I’m breathing this fine sand with every step I take, and then we make it to Adef’s house. His two youngest boys, Abdelmouni and Gabriel, also are sick and surrounded by suffocating heat and breathing the […]
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Please take this Urgent Action
Ask Senator John Kerry, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, to vote decisively against Scott Grations confirmation as U.S. Ambassador to Kenya. FACEBOOK ACTION: “Like” the above video that is posted on Senator John Kerry’s facebook page (you must “Like” the page first) and leave a personal comment of support. You can also […]
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Closer
Travel days are the most stressful. Airports in Chad are strange worlds. They are barely connected to the outside “real” world, and what information does make it through to them gets distorted, no matter how straightforward it seemed before. We don’t make it easy on ourselves, though. We bring three times the allowed weight, made […]
In the midst of preparing for the i-ACT team’s departure this morning, I received this deeply touching video from our Armenian friends at In His Shoes, and their inspiring community. I cried through the entire video. At the end, I felt sorrow but also renewed commitment. These are messages, Greetings of Hope, from one community […]
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OUR Activism
After sitting here for a while in my comfortable living room, fingers hovering over my keyboard, I tried eagerly to come up with some compelling testimony of why I’m a Darfur/Sudan activist. It’s the moment that I realized that while I’m in my comfortable living room, there are men, women, and children half a world […]