UMCOR’s farm program in Sudan is ?people-driven’
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A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey, UMCOR UMCOR provides agricultural support in the El Ferdous IDP camp in South Darfur.
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As
the rainy season begins in the Darfur region of Sudan, the United
Methodist Committee on Relief provides seeds and agricultural tools to
displaced families. These people are grateful for UMCOR aid in the El
Ferdous IDP camp in South Darfur. UMCOR began its operations in Sudan in
February 2005. A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey, UMCOR. Photo #06-106.
Accompanies UMNS story #065. 2/2/06 |
Feb. 2, 2006
By Linda Beher*
KHARTOUM, Sudan (UMNS) — On an August morning, Jane Ohuma points to a
large map of Sudan in the Khartoum office of United Methodist Committee
on Relief.
Ohuma’s arm sweeps from west to east as she explains to a visitor the
plight of displaced people out in Darfur, seven hundred miles from the
capital city. She is head of mission for UMCOR’s operations in Sudan,
which began in February 2005.
Funded by a large gift from Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Tipp
City, Ohio, and other grants, the agriculture program based in the Al
Daein region of South Darfur already has crops in the ground. Some 5,200
families are working the 4-hectare farms. At an average five per
family, that adds up to more than 25,000 beneficiaries.
Such a program is a bit like a puzzle. Needs and resources at a variety
of levels, like interlocking puzzle pieces, must be fit together. Most
importantly, Ohuma stresses, solutions to hunger and livelihoods “must
address people’s need and be people driven.”
For example, to strengthen the local economy, UMCOR contracted with
local blacksmiths to make hoes and other handheld tools for the
displaced farmers, rather than purchasing them from a factory. Displaced
people have no land of their own, so area landowners offered parcels of
land in exchange for a portion of the sorghum, millet, cowpeas, melon,
okra and peanuts.
An agronomist on UMCOR’s field team showed the families how to
“intercrop” or mingle their plantings to reduce risk of crop loss to
disease or predators. At one farm, sorghum, groundnuts and okra have
been intercropped.
Good rains are also part of the equation — and this season they have
been excellent. The agriculture ministry of the Sudanese government
predicts a bumper crop.
A successful harvest reaches into the future, Ohuma points out,
providing enough seed for a new season, cash or barter capability, and
sufficient food until next harvest. Darfur has one planting season.
Displaced, uprooted
The people displaced by Sudan’s long-running civil war would like to go
back home, Ohuma says. A fragile peace agreement, reached in 2005, ended
the 23-year conflict.
Instead, the displaced have joined Sudan’s uprooted. For them, “back
home” is uninhabitable. In Kubda or Zalinge or Muterr — towns in the
Sudan’s largest state of Darfur — the wells are filled in with dirt or
fouled with corpses. All the houses were looted and burned, and schools
and community health clinics razed. The people lost everything they had.
They fled by the hundreds of thousands in all directions — west to Chad,
eastward and southward to the region of their state known as South
Darfur. Some fled from the southern states. Now they live in settlements
and camps for the displaced.
Their host communities, towns within short distances of the camps, are
almost as impoverished as they are. Some have fled more than one time,
hoping for safety. “The farms offer more than an occupation for those
who are working them,” Ohuma explains. “They offer hope for their
survival.”
Models for other programs
UMCOR aid workers have built a reception center at El Ferdous, located
in the same vicinity as the farms. Typically, according to Ohuma, a camp
population is rather fluid as residents enter and leave. The reception
center allows a registration process that will facilitate future UMCOR
follow-up with the camp residents as they eventually prepare to return
home.
The Humanitarian Aid Commission and the World Food Programme recently
named the reception center a “model” for all other camps, Ohuma says.
The commission is the government monitor of all humanitarian activity
throughout Sudan.
“Model development is a useful strategy in humanitarian service only if
it is accompanied by extension into a program,” says the Rev. Paul
Dirdak, UMCOR’s chief executive. “The UMCOR-built reception center at El
Ferdous is a model we hope to see extended not only in our own work but
by others.”
The farms are another kind of model. When new arrivals see “how
beautiful the crops are,” Ohuma points out, and what has been
accomplished in a short time, they want to participate as well.
?So much to do’
The Humanitarian Aid Commission officials are pleased at the rapid
progress, and Ohuma anticipates that UMCOR will receive high marks for
work in Al Daein.
UMCOR also is distributing emergency supplies to camp residents. Plastic
sheeting becomes a roof that provides shade from the sun and protection
from the rains. Jerry cans serve as water collectors from the water
points in both host communities and camps. Blankets provide warmth on
the cool savanna evenings.
Originally from Kenya, Ohuma worked for a time in Kosovo and then in
Eritrea before joining UMCOR. “I left Eritrea because the programs were
the same year after year,” she reflects. “In UMCOR Sudan, there is so
much to do. We have the potential to be a high flier in Sudan.”
Donations for “Sudan Emergency,” Advance No. 184385, can be dropped in
church collection plates or mailed directly to UMCOR, P.O. Box 9068, New
York, NY 10087-9068. To make a credit-card donation, call (800)
554-8583.
*Beher, UMCOR’s communications director, traveled to the Sudan last August.
News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
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