(Photo provided by Partners International)
Sudan (MNN) ― At the beginning of December, leaders from Sudan's North and South agreed on terms of Southern Sudan's 2011 independence referendum. Taking advantage of the troubled nation's temporary peace, Partners International plans to double their giving to ministry partners in Sudan.
For now, experts say Sudan rests in the "calm before a storm." Earlier this month, leaders of Sudan's Muslim-dominated North met with the mainly Christian South's officials to discuss an impending independence referendum. Leaders are said to have reached agreement concerning the upcoming vote.
Some specialists, as well as Carlos Calderon with Partners International, say all signs point to an opt for independence by Southern Suda and the possibility of another war.
"But in the meantime," Calderon says, "we're building with the Africa Inland Church-Sudan to reach out to this whole generation of child soldiers."
The leader of AIC-Sudan barely escaped forced recruitment as a boy and watched the slaughter of his friends by government officials.
"...the government [soldiers] was just shooting
them, as if they were just mangos," relayed Calderon.
Passionate about protecting Southern Sudan's vulnerable youth, he says 2010 is the time to build schools. By receiving a solid education, young boys will be less susceptible to all forms of exploitation. In the next 12 months, Partners hopes to double its contributions to AIC-Sudan for school construction in Southern Sudan.
An associate of Partners International, Africa Inland Church-Sudan helps people re-establish their lives. Partners helps AIC-Sudan provide these resources for the estimated 2.7 million refugees of Sudan's violent conflict. They're one of the few aid groups to do so.
"It's only Christians who are reaching out to them, providing children's education, training for church planters, healthcare for displaced people," Calderon explains. "Partners International is privileged to be one of the very, very few organizations sending [refugees] ongoing, live supply provisions, plus the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
According to BBC News, many aid agencies are "unable to gain access" to Darfur and other war-affected regions because of Sudan's insecure condition.
In sharing stories of militia raids on refugee camps, Calderon says soldiers add insult to injury. Along with killing men, raping women and stealing refugee children, soldiers shoot holes in the refugees' buckets.
"It's sad, it's inhumane, it's so cruel to those who survive," Calderon says in describing camp raids."[Soldiers] leave [survivors] without the means to even purify their water.
"So when you come up with a busload of buckets, to them it's life."
Partners gives plastic buckets to raid victims, along with supplies and medicines. A shipment of medications traveled to Sudan a few weeks ago; Calderon says $25,000-worth of Western medicines in the crate netted an equivalent of $1.5 million in Sudanese medications.
"We take $25,000 and send them a quarter of a million dollars; that is an amazing thing."
You can help Partners make a difference where few groups can. Click here and designate "Horn of Africa" to help Partners double their contributions to Sudan. You can give specific gifts such as buckets and food for a refugee family by clicking here.
