Tents of Hope Being Sent to Darfur

Today a shipping container carrying 350 brightly colored, hand-painted canvas tents – some colored by members of the Christian Reformed Church --is in transit to western Sudan where they are slated for use as portable classrooms in refugee camps near the Darfur-Chad border. There, a generation of child survivors of ethnic and religious conflict is growing into adulthood under blue roof tarps from the United Nations.

As part of a year-long campaign to draw attention to the ongoing genocide in Sudan, the tents came from 48 states in the United States and were displayed last weekend as part of The Gathering of Tents on Washington Mall.  The event and now shipping the tents to Darfur is the result of a grass-roots effort by Tents of Hope for Darfur (www.tentsofhope.org) to draw the attention of lawmakers, including President-elect Barak Obama and his emerging administration’s foreign affairs planning process, to ongoing atrocities against Sudanese civilians.

In solidarity with the Washington event, two faith-based organizations in West Michigan erected a small but colorful encampment on one of the busiest streets in Grand Rapids, Mich. last week. In addition, The World Relief Committee (www.crwrc.org) and the Office of Social Justice (www.crcjustice.org) of the Christian Reformed Church coordinated a handful of tent-painting events across the U.S. since last spring, including venues in Montana, New Jersey, and Washington, and Colorado.

The Tents of Hope for Darfur Campaign involved youth-oriented tent painting events as well as opportunities for advocacy and prayer among CRC congregations, schools, and faith-based organizations.

CRWRC is an international relief and development organization active in western Sudan through a consortium of faith-based agencies called the Global Relief Alliance. Since 2004, the GRA has provided essential services to 90,000 Sudanese refugees perched precariously on the Chad border, including supplemental feeding programs, water and sanitation, health and hygiene, and agriculture and livelihood assistance.

While hundreds of tents are being sent to Sudan, scores of postcards and petitions from church youth and students advocating for an end to the Sudan crisis are in the mail to President-elect Obama, urging increased U.S. influence to end the Sudan crisis and the obstruction of the peace process.

In an unusual move during a U.S. presidential campaign, the three then-frontrunners issued a bipartisan statement on Sudan in May, 2008. “We Stand United on Sudan” was signed by Obama and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton as well as U.S. Sen. John McCain.

The statement identifies lack of international attention to atrocities in Sudan as “deplorable,” and condemns “the Sudanese government’s consistent efforts to undermine peace and security, including its repeated attacks against its own people and the multiple barriers it has put up to the swift and effective deployment of the United Nations-African Union peacekeeping force.”

The statement goes on to demand an end to the genocide in Darfur and the full implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (2005) in southern Sudan. The candidates end the joint statement with a “pledge that the next Administration will pursue these goals with unstinting resolve.” (See the full video clips at http://savedarfur.org/page/content/voteredu.)

CRC officials say it is these demands and this pledge to which the CRC Office of Social Justice and scores of organizations across the U.S. hold President-elect Obama to accountable action, even as the new administration and nation deal with a daunting domestic agenda. 

The Christian Reformed Church Office of Social Justice has more information about Tents of Hope and the Sudan crisis at www.crcjustice.org.

Those wishing to contribute financially toward CRWRC’s work in Sudan’s refugee camps can give online at www.crwrc.org or call 1-800-55-CRWRC. Photo is courtesy of Jeff Malet.