Winds of Change - From Darfur to Independence

I had only just been elected for a month when in January 2007 we journeyed with a large team of businesswomen to oversee our programs in south Sudan. All was normal until the third day, when someone approached us saying that thousands of internally displaced families from Darfur had been found hiding in the swamps and forests of a region north and west of where we were. My wife Jane and I made the decision to investigate and the rest of the team voiced their desire to accompany us. We didn't know it at the time, but it was about to change the very nature of our work in that region.What we found was a devastated form of humanity. We found families who had nothing - clothing, water, food, and now cooking implements. They were everywhere and they were afraid. They were in hiding for two reasons: unaware if they had officially crossed the boundary into south Sudan, and unsure whether the local populations would accept them. In what was a remarkable display of solidarity and human compassion, the historical villages in the area moved in rapid fashion to erect transitional tukuls (the traditional mud huts) of grass, and shared whatever meagre supplies they possessed with these visitors.Unprepared for what we encountered, the team nevertheless began the laborious process of interviewing samplings of the families. Their stories were all the same: fleeing persecution in Darfur and hoping to find permanent settlement in the more peaceful areas of south Sudan, they journeyed, often in the hundreds together, to this place where they now found safety and refuge.Upon returning to Canada, my very first speech in the House of Commons was all about these people. To the government's credit, they responded with some $3 million in programming that eventually provided clean water systems, women's micro-enterprise funding, schools and a small local health clinic. The results, as you are about to see in the video below, have been transformational. Each time we journey back to see these people, they welcome us with open arms and grateful hearts to the people of Canada for not only keeping them alive, but for giving them a new life.And now it seems they are about to live in a new country - in independence. It is a journey remarkable in the telling. These people have made something for themselves and they got to that point largely from the assistance of Canada - especially the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Sadly, CIDA changed its funding priorities in the last year, leaving the area unsupported for the deluge of new returnees that even now are moving into an area in which the traditional people, accompanied by those from Darfur who have now settled in and found a new life, are unprepared in resources and funds to deal with the influx.For our NGO - Canadian Aid for Southern Sudan - the challenges are immense and we have made a commitment to these settlements closer to the Darfur border that we will continue resourcing the area. Nevertheless, as only a small NGO, we have neither the capacity or the resources to handle the pressures as they are now about to build.  A successful referendum has meant a huge increase in people moving into south Sudan for freedom and opportunity. If those can't be provided in these border regions, the opportunity for the reigniting of conflict is a real possibility.  So much work to do, but at least, for the moment, we can celebrate how these communities have worked together to provide sustainability.[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxOLCEIUQbs&w=480&h=390]