Money for Darfur women in crisis

Here is a note from Rebecca Crane of Madre, responding to my inquiry on where the funds would go:

Previous funding has enabled us to purchase food staples, construct restrooms for women (giving them much needed privacy), pay social workers to conduct counseling classes, and pay for security for women leaving the camp to collect firewood. Currently, much of our primary focus is on providing food and other necessities, such as toilet paper and Kotex.

The price for two sacks of sorghum is $25. Each sack, weighing 50kg, can feed a family of six to eight people for approximately two weeks. The price to feed a similarly sized family for a month is estimated at $150, and provides the family with fruits and vegetables. Toilet paper costs $1 per roll, and Kotex costs $20 for a month’s supply for four women. As you can see, $500 would certainly go a long way.

Let’s get together and donate $500 to Madre, to support women in the Darfur crisis and make their lives more comfortable and safe in refugee camps.

Scorched Earth Strategy Escalates in Darfur

More than 1,000 people are being forced to flee their homes every day.

Children are being separated from their families.

You can help.

The Sudanese government and its allied Janjaweed militias have stepped up attacks against families in Darfur. In the past month, militiamen have rampaged through towns and villages, burning, looting, and raping along the way.

In Suleia, the Janjaweed killed dozens of people and reduced much of the town to hut-shaped circles of ash. Hundreds of children scattered in chaos when their classroom was attacked. They have not been reunited with their families.

According to the United Nations, 45,000 Darfurians have been forced to flee their homes in the latest wave of fighting. Aid workers say that 20,000 people are in imminent danger because they have fled along the route of the government’s military offensive.

As the war in Darfur continues into its sixth year, villagers, aid workers, diplomats and analysts fear that a new and bloodier cycle of violence is taking hold.

You can help. Zenab, a Sudanese women’s organization and MADRE’s partner in Sudan, works in the refugee camps. Zenab knows the women and children directly affected by the crisis and is responding to their needs by:

providing programs to prevent gender-based sexual violence (including rape);
building rest rooms to allow women a measure of privacy;
hiring security to protect women when they collect firewood;
providing counseling and play therapy to traumatized children who find themselves in refugee camps, many of them without adult family members; and
purchasing food staples like millet and sorghum.
With the support of members like you, we are making a difference for people on the edge of survival. With your contribution of $50, $100, $500, or more, we can increase our impact and reach even more people in the camps.

We know you care. International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month is an especially good opportunity to show your support for women in Darfur. Please send your contribution today. Let’s make sure that women and children in Darfur know that we have not forgotten them.

You can also send a tax-deductible contribution to MADRE by mail or over the phone at the address and number below. Please be sure to write “Darfur” in the memo line of your check.
MADRE
121 West 27th Street, Room 301
New York, NY 10001
(212) 627-0444

Contribute online by visiting http://madre.kintera.org/darfur