A Little Hope for Sudan

http://www.crs.org/our_work/where_we_work/overseas/africa/sudan/south_refugees.cfm

"In Khartoum, Sudan’s capitol, CRS is helping thousands of people prepare for this journey (to their native villages). In the Homeward Bound project, CRS helps young displaced Sudanese learn the skills of plumbing, carpentry, engineering and other such professions, to help them undertake a dignified, peaceful, and sustainable resettlement in their traditional southern homelands."

"The training program is the best thing that could have happened," says Deng Maween Akok, a Dinka tribal leader in the Jebel Awlia camp for internally displaced persons about 25 miles outside Khartoum, speaking through an interpreter. He and his family fled the south in 1986 and have lived in two such camps since arriving in Khartoum's unwelcoming environment.

"When they go south, they can help rebuild the country," he says of the young men learning brick-laying and construction at the St. Vincent de Paul training school next to Jebel Awlia.

The Homeward Bound program provides tuition, food for one mid-day meal, transportation for those living far from the center, and supplies such as wood for the carpenters and plumbing and electrical equipment for the aspiring plumbers and electricians. Upon graduation from the eight-month program, each student receives a tool kit valued at $140 to embark upon his new livelihood, and a transportation stipend to allow students to return to the South.