Check it out: Sudan trip journal on iAbolish
With few sources able to report on the ground in Sudan, it is often difficult to get an accurate and updated picture of the needs of refugees there.
This lack of firsthand information made iAbolish’s week-long excursion into villages of southern Sudan and Darfur all the more meaningful. Last week, Executive Director Liora Kasten and Associate Simon Deng embarked on a relief and fact-finding trip there with a commission that included representatives from Christian Solidarity International, radio talk show host Joe Madison, who emceed the Rally to Stop Genocide last month, and other activists. Together, the group delivered essential humanitarian aid and relief and interviewed thousands of refugees to assess their needs.
It was a particularly emotional experience for Simon, who was abducted from southern Sudan and forced into slavery as a child; the trip marked his first time back to Sudan in over 16 years.
“These people are living in hell,” he says. “They are forgotten refugees who call the trees their home and the leaves their food. They have no shelter, no food, little water, and no medicine. I saw starvation, disease and destitution everywhere.”
Find out more about their trip on our website! We invite you to read Liora’s trip journal, view photos, and discover the commission’s findings and conclusions at the Web address below:
http://www.iAbolish.org/sudantrip2006
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Finally, a quick update from the West Coast: this week AASG Associate Francis Bok is out in California, where he is sharing the account of his ten years of slavery with students and community members throughout the state. At San Francisco’s Museum of the African Diaspora, he was delighted to learn that noted author Maya Angelou had read excerpts from his autobiography Escape from Slavery to museum audiences there earlier this year. He was honored too to be featured on the popular PBS late night talk show Tavis Smiley on Monday. You can read the transcript from his appearance at the Web address
below:
http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200605/20060516.html
In Freedom,
Diane Nguyen
American Anti-Slavery Group
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