Grass-roots giving for the solar cooker,
donated to women who fled Darfur,
takes root in the US.
Daniel B. Wood
The Christian Science Monitor
26 July 2007
Encino, Calif.
When Harvard law student Jesse Gabriel organized a "Dinner for Darfur"
fundraiser in April, he was amazed that 17 student groups got together
and raised $16,000 in one night.
When nurse Harriet Lavin showed footage of Darfur at a song-and-prayer
evening in Kenosha, Wis., she was struck by the "instant generosity"
of 70 rural residents who opened their pocketbooks to the tune of
$2,500 for a cause they hadn't known anything about.
And when Los Angeles 11th-grader Shelby Layne raised $15,000 from
three jewelry sales to help Darfur refugees, it "was successful beyond
my wildest dreams," she says.
The three activists are among thousands nationwide who have raised
money for a project that addresses the rape, mutilation, and murder of
Darfuri women - now among at least 2 million Sudanese displaced by the
conflict. The aim: Supply families with solar cookers and teach women
in refugee camps new cooking skills so they don't have to burn wood.
This reduces the need for women to hunt for firewood outside the
camps, where the risk of attack and rape is greater.
A recent report by the humanitarian group Refugees International
identified rape as a weapon of systematic ethnic cleansing being used
by Sudanese government-backed janjaweed militiamen. "The raping of
Darfuri women is not sporadic or random, but is inexorably linked to
the systematic destruction of their communities," the report says.
More cookers being distributed
Some 200,000 women and children live in refugee camps across the
border from Sudan. More than 6,000 cookers have been distributed in
the Iridimi refugee camp, a that has almost no vegetation but sunshine
330 days a year. Another 10,000 are expected to be supplied in the
Touloum camp nearby over the next year.
"The fact that the use of these cookers has grown so fast in Iridimi
is a testament to the need for safety," says Rachel Andres, director
of the solar cooker project for Jewish World Watch (JWW), a nonprofit
coalition of synagogues in southern California, which is a cosponsor
of the project.
Two solar cookers can save a ton of wood per year, according to JWW.
They free women from tending fires to do other tasks, and provide
income for female refugees because the cookers are manufactured
on-site. Envision foil-covered cardboard (about four feet by two feet)
folded upward to direct sun's rays on a black pot, placed in the
center, and covered in a plastic bag. Millet, rice, eggs, and other
ingredients are put in the pot, surrounded by the water-moistened
plastic bag that provides softening condensation.
Why project is unique
The solar cooker project is unique in the annals of global aid
efforts, say international aid experts and individual fundraisers.
For one thing, the United States and humanitarian groups have declared
the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan a genocide. More than
350,000 people have died. Second, the Sudanese government puts
restrictions on humanitarian aid workers, making grass-roots groups
and private donations, especially to those in refugee camps, more
important.
"The Sudanese government is allowing the conditions in the camps to be
one of their main mechanisms of genocide," says Adam Sterling,
executive director of the Sudan Divestment Task Force. "It is the type
of grass-roots efforts like the solar cooker project supported by
private donations that is sustaining [the refugees]."
The idea originated with Rabbi Harold Schulweis and activist/attorney
Janice Kamenir-Reznick, who formed Jewish World Watch in 2004.
Since then, the organization has reached out to major churches and
universities across the US, and says it seeks to "combat genocide"
through community education and activism. So far, $750,000 has been
raised in individual contributions of $30 - the cost of two solar
cookers, training, and two pot holders, which support one family.
"In my 50 years as a rabbi, I have never seen an idea or project or
program ignite so broadly or contagiously," says Mr. Schulweis. "This
has been a moving experience for Jews by uniting different
congregations who usually have their own separate projects ... as well
as for reaching out to other religions. It is an issue that has proven
to transcend denominationalism."
After the JWW identified Darfur as a genocide, it began to support a
small pilot project there led by KoZon, a Dutch organization that
provides women in developing countries with inexpensive cooking
techniques using the sun.
"The women were apprehensive at first, and couldn't believe you could
really cook with the sun," says Ms. Andres. When JWW began to help the
project, KoZon was testing the cookers with about 350 families. (A
typical family consists of one woman as head of the household, two or
three of her own children and one or two orphans, she says. Only 1 in
5 households has an adult male.)
"They tried the food, realized it tasted good, and that you didn't
have to stand over a fire for hours," Andres says. The staples of such
camps are millet, rice, and bean rations that are trucked in from long
distances - and have to be cooked.
Fundraising efforts take off
Once the solar cooker project proved to be feasible, fundraising
efforts spread to purchase the cookers, build manufacturing facilities
on-site in neighboring Chad, and teach women to assemble them.
Shelby, the 11th-grader, heard about the solar cooker project from her
father, and sold jewelry she made by hand or collected from friends
and relatives. "The response by people is an immediate and solemn
recognition about the horrors of racial strife and ethnic cleansing
going on right now, in their own world," she says.
Shelby was motivated to raise money because she thought she could have
an impact - even with a small donation. She now gives talks to school,
civic, and church groups on the Darfur crisis.
"I thought if I just raised $100 and purchased three solar cookers,
then that would really make a big difference for somebody," Shelby
says. "People love the idea that no matter what age they are, how much
money they have, that their small contribution will honestly make a
difference to someone."
To donate:
Jewish World Watch
Solar Cooker Project
16944 Ventura Blvd. Suite 1
Encino, CA 91316
818-501-1836
www.jewishworldwatch.org
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007
No comments:
Post a Comment