February 13, 2008
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This month marks the fifth anniversary of the beginning of the war and genocide in Darfur, Sudan. The news out of Darfur has been relentlessly bad over the past five years. It might seem that there's not much we can do but despair for the war's victims; but commentator Tzivia Getzug says not so fast.
When I tell people I'm the head of Jewish World Watch, a small, anti-genocide organization, I often get a look that says both, "Wow, that must be amazing work," and, "What a depressing job!" It also might seem like chutzpah, believing that we can make a dent in the lives of the victims of the Darfur genocide.
But it isn't. Consider this story. We heard about thousands of Darfuri refugee women and girls being raped and murdered when they leave their camps to search for firewood. We had to do something. Our visionary founder, Rabbi Harold Schulweis, says that "Godliness is found in our response to evil." But how could we respond? What could our little group do, sitting here in Los Angeles?
"What about solar cookers?" someone suggested. "If they don't need wood to cook, they won't need to risk leaving their camps!" So off we went, in search of someone who could help us implement this crazy idea.
We knocked on a lot of doors. The major relief groups were not biting. "They won't use them," they told us. "It'll be too difficult to change their culture – they've been cooking on a three-stone fire forever." "And besides," they said, "they'll still search for wood to sell for food."
Our scrappy little group, a coalition of L.A. synagogues, was undeterred. We found two small non-profits that were willing to work with us. They had already started a pilot project in the Iridimi refugee camp in Chad. Our plan was to outfit the entire camp, 5,000 families, with solar cookers. We also decided to turn solar cooking into an economic development project, so the women wouldn't have to search for wood to sell.
The biggest test was convincing the women in the camp that the solar cooker would work. It's an admittedly flimsy contraption, made out of cardboard and aluminum foil – not very impressive looking. We brought along our own food for the first meeting. "If yours doesn't cook, you can have ours," we told them. "And don't touch the pot – it'll be very hot."
They burned their fingers on the pot and ate the piping hot food. We began building the workshop, importing the cardboard and aluminum foil, and employing more than 60 women to build the cookers and train other women.
Last fall, my colleagues and I traveled to Chad to evaluate the project after its first year. As we walked through the Iridimi camp, we were thrilled to see thousands of cookers everywhere. Our plan to help these women was working! The number of trips they take out of the camp has been reduced by nearly 90%! What's more, the men have become converts to solar cooking, and we've added the nearby Touloum camp to the project.
Donations are pouring in as people learn of our success – enough to outfit at least two more camps. And now, the United Nations is considering spending millions to expand our project to all 12 refugee camps in Chad.
So yes, our work on Darfur can be depressing – and it can be amazing, when a small group of determined people can make a real difference in the lives of women halfway across the world.
