A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey, UMCOR
Feb. 2, 2006
By Linda Beher
KHARTOUM, Sudan (UMNS) - On an August morning, Jane Ohuma points to a large map of Sudan in the Khartoum office of United Methodist Committee on Relief.
Ohuma's arm sweeps from west to east as she explains to a visitor the plight of displaced people out in Darfur, seven hundred miles from the capital city. She is head of mission for UMCOR's operations in Sudan, which began in February 2005.
Funded by a large gift from Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Tipp City, Ohio, and other grants, the agriculture program based in the Al Daein region of South Darfur already has crops in the ground. Some 5,200 families are working the 4-hectare farms. At an average five per family, that adds up to more than 25,000 beneficiaries.
Such a program is a bit like a puzzle. Needs and resources at a variety of levels, like interlocking puzzle pieces, must be fit together. Most importantly, Ohuma stresses, solutions to hunger and livelihoods "must address people's need and be people driven."
For example, to strengthen the local economy, UMCOR contracted with local blacksmiths to make hoes and other handheld tools for the displaced farmers, rather than purchasing them from a factory. Displaced people have no land of their own, so area landowners offered parcels of land in exchange for a portion of the sorghum, millet, cowpeas, melon, okra and peanuts.
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