Refugee Relief

A TREMENDOUS CHALLENGE – SIGNS OF HOPE

Over the past seven or eight years I’ve been working with a project in Kenya very dear to my heart.  After an exploratory trip to war ravaged Southern Sudan in April 1990, I spent several days in Kakuma, a large camp inside Kenya not far from the Sudanese border.  There I found tens of thousands of uprooted, frightened,  hungry and sick victims of the horrors perpetrated by the Khartoum government in Sudan.  How could I possibly help in some little but significant way to ease the pain so unjustly forced on these brothers and sisters?  

I found my inspiration in the dedication of a German Dominican Sister, Luise Radlmeier, O.P , sometimes referred to as “Mother of Sudanese Refugees”..  Over the past 25 years Sister Luise has provided education for  hundreds of primary and secondary school children, some of whom were eventually repatriated, while for others she was able to facilitate their emigration to a third country.  Through the generosity of many relatives and friends I am blessed to help Sister provide for the needs of so many poor children.

Our work has progressed far beyond Sister Luise’s original vision.  In addition to the Sudanese refugees still schooling in Kenya, we also care for 260 Aids-afflicted children in two orphanages and 18 abandoned children, rescued from the roadside by the police when they were only three to five days old.  Another 90 Aids orphans still live with their grandmammas.  All these children depend on us for food, shelter, education, clothing and medical care.  For $0.60 a day we can manage to care adequately for a child in primary school, while a secondary school child requires at least $1.00 per day.

The most urgent need just now is to assist escaped former child soldiers, who suffered so much brutality at the hands of various rebel leaders back in their native lands.  These children, captured and forced into military service as early as eight years of age, were stripped of all human dignity, their childhood and adolescence stolen from them, some having been forced to kill their own parents and siblings as part of their savage indoctrination. After spending months and years in active combat, those who survived are now too old for formal education, but we do provide them with trauma counseling and skills-training programs.  (To learn more about the plight of child soldiers in Africa, I highly recommend the book, A Long Way Gone, in which the author, Ishmael Beah, writes graphically about his life as a child soldier in Sierra Leone.).

St. Kizito Technical Institute, staffed by missionaries from Italy, offers courses in mechanics, carpentry, tailoring, plumbing, electrical, and welding.  All these skills will be in high demand in rebuilding their war-torn country once these young men are free to return home.  Each year we enroll 50 new former child soldiers for a two-year program. so there are always 100 boys in training.  Having escaped with nothing, they must be provided with everything:  tuition fees, tools, clothing, medical care and subsistence allowance.  Provided with such skills, they are gradually enabled  to rediscover their own human dignity and ever so noticeably their trauma abates.  These young men are the most vulnerable and are most in need of our support.  You can help us to bring them hope and new life.

Two parishes in Germany provide some financial assistance but never enough to cover all the costs for the rehabilitation of these orphans, Aids victims, abandoned children and ex-child soldiers.  We are firmly convinced that only with education will the cycle of poverty enslaving them be broken, so that once again they can learn to enjoy the freedom which is their right as children of God.

Why are we so committed to this ministry?  We are challenged by the Gospel of Jesus Christ:  “Whatever you do for the least of my brothers and sisters you do for me.”  We have no other option.  We must  respond in faith to that challenge.  It is your challenge as well!  Please join with us in doing this work of God.  Our country is presently experiencing difficult economic times, which only means that your sacrifice will be greater, but so will your reward!  God is never outdone in generosity.

Please make your generous check payable to C.O.S.S. and send it to:

fr. Bert Ebben, O.P.

Dominican Friars

304 East Park Drive

Raleigh, NC 27605. 

*C.O.S.S. stands for Christ Our Suffering Servant, which is the umbrella name for the group of development projects of our mission to Kenya.