Near East Foundation - For The Third Consecutive Year, NEF-Sudan Helps Provide a Proper Eid Feast

On the NEF (Near East Foundation) Sudan staff, Musa Gismalla lives near El-Nahda in Greater Khartoum and knows personally many of the people who live there. Many residents are physically disabled and in serious need of blankets, wheelchairs, and other mechanical assistance. But when the Eid al-Adha feast came around and they received three sheep for their celebration--Musa took note of "the genuine appreciation on their faces."

It happened through the efforts and financial support of NEF (Near East Foundation), its partner organization, and online donors to the NEF posting on Global Giving, the internet humanitarian assistance site.

A total of 35 sheep were distributed to 210 families and beef for another 40, helping to create a joyous Eid for about 1,500 people in six areas of Greater Khartoum and North Darfur States.

BACKGROUND

The most important feast on the Muslim calendar, Eid al-Adha or Feast of Sacrifice lasts three days and commemorates Ibraham's willingness to obey God by sacrificing his son Ishmael. According to the Koran, Ibrahim was stopped by a voice from heaven and allowed to sacrifice a ram instead. The feast re-enacts Ibrahim's obedience by sacrificing a cow or ram. The tradition is for a family to eat about a third of the meal and donate the rest to the poor.

NEF and partners made this holy observance possible for Sudanese families much too poor to buy meat for a special occasion that otherwise would have only underscored their sad circumstances and been cause to wonder--does anyone in this world care about us.

CAREFUL SELECTION

Three sheep went to 20 families in Mayo through the El Rahama Association, a local women's organization helping orphan families with loans and training in income-generating projects, health awareness, and combating harmful traditional practices like female genital mutilation.

In North Darfur's El Fashier, NEF made possible the purchase of nine sheep by the Dar Al Salaam Development Association for distribution to poor families impoverished by their country's conflict and violence. They have lost most, sometimes all, of the farm animals upon which they depended for their livelihoods and are unable to cultivate their land.

In Dar El-Salaam El-Tawidat, a squatter settlement in the northern part of the capital where NEF has established the only available health center and assists local schools and helps with other services, El-Tagwa School got three sheep--and an extra cow because of the large number of families and children it serves. Schoolmaster and founder, Mohamed El Tayeb, expressed particular pleasure at the way Near East Foundation and its partners coordinated efforts to help people in his community. Other schools, neighborhoods, and the clinic's health committee also received sheep.

In Greater Khartoum's Tayba El-Kababish, NEF and a parnter organization provided six sheep for 36 families, mostly orphans, widows and the very poor. In the Salama area, yet another organization for the disabled got two sheep for 20 families. For Omdurman, a community-based organization organized to help the predominantly Moslem neighborhood of Umbada wad El Bashier, it was a first time participation in the Eid meat distribution in the three years of the program.

SMOOTH OPERATION

The program began in 2005 in the Abu Shouk displaced persons camp in Darfur, and the following year focused on six low-income areas within Khartoum, where people had fled conflicts in the south and west of the country.

"Given our previous experience, it went very smoothly," Musa Gismalla reported back. He supervised distribution in four areas in Greater Khartoum while his colleague, Mohamed Ali, was responsible for Khartoum North and Omdurman.

An implementation committee had been formed among NEF's local staff to create a plan and identify participants and the necessary stages of operation. Local committees were formed in each of the areas where distribution was to take place; and area community-based organizations were included as full partners in determining distribution and selection criteria. Because of the difficulties of direct supervision in Darfur, funds were transferred to long-time local partner, the Dar El Salaam Development Association, to purchase sheep and cows directly.