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Darfur: Off the Radar - yet again!

Perhaps it's a sign of the times in which we live, but the reporting of the Olympics, the nomination of Sarah Palin, etc. etc. has yet again seen the plight of the people in Darfur out of the spotlight, let alone media coverage.

MPS has previously posted a piece about Mia Farrow's efforts in Darfur. Nicholas Kristof, op-ed writer at the NY Times, has taken a particular interest in Darfur and here brings things up to date:

"A few weeks ago, I mentioned the way Mia Farrow makes me look like a wimp when she travels to Darfur. I take a tent or at least a sleeping bag if I have to camp out; she takes a rope and makes a circle with it, and then sleeps in the center — on the theory that scorpions and camel spiders will reach the rope and then keep going around it. (The two scariest animals on this planet, I’ve concluded, are polar bears and camel spiders.)

Mia Farrow is just back from a stay on the Chad-Darfur border, and she has her regular updates on her blog. She traveled with a recent Harvard Law graduate, Bec Hamilton, who took lots of photos and set up a slideshow gallery that anybody can visit. The photos will give you a good idea of the refugee situation in Chad for Darfuris.

Bec also writes about an interesting education effort there that needs support:

There’s a great guy running education for UNHCR in Abeche - you might know him from previous trips, Marcel. Anyway, the major constraint on secondary education is a lack of teachers, so he’s trying to pilot a program of radio schooling - in that way just one teacher can reach students in camps all around the country (and access IDPs and refugees which would help in reducing the disparity between the two). He’s all set up to go with hand-crank radios made in South Africa. The more radios, the better the coverage. At present most of the radios in the camps are held by men so he’s also aiming to get some of these radios to communal places - like water points - where women gather and get broadcasts played that focus on issues for women in the camps."

The NY Times web site has a link to photographs.

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