By April Drew

AS New Yorkers are training for the five kilometer fun-run in Central Park this coming Saturday, April 14, to raise money for Concern, Ireland’s largest charitable organization, a tremendous amount of work is being done in the back offices of the organization in an effort to raise $1 million to get desperately needed supplies to Sudan’s Western Darfur region.

Dominic MacSorley, operations director at Concern Worldwide in New York, told the Irish Voice about the desperate situation at present in Darfur and how people can help to raise the $1 million required to prevent 340,000 people from getting malaria or dying.

Concern, which has been working in Darfur since the outbreak of war in 2002, is now assisting to meet the basic humanitarian needs of over 300,000 displaced people at 12 different sites in the western regions who have fled their homes because of war.

MacSorley, originally from Belfast, explained that over the past number of years Concern has set up temporary accommodation for the victims by erecting plastic sheets and providing people with blankets, mosquito nets, pots and pans in designated camps.

“You get extreme weather and it gets cold and wet in the rainy season in Darfur,” said MacSorley explaining that he never expected the situation to go on this long.

The influx of new people every day seeking refuge in the camps is putting immense pressure on what little supplies they have. In addition, thousands of families have now been living under the same piece of plastic for more than two years, which have deteriorated under Darfur’s hot sun, and will need to be replaced before the rainy season.

“This is a tough and inhospitable environment. You can’t give a family a piece of plastic sheeting and a few blankets and expect that they will last indefinitely,” said MacSorley, who spent six months last year in Darfur.

He said that the rainy season is imminent and if new supplies aren’t bought by July or August there is a huge change of a malaria breakout, especially in kids under five. “For example getting new mosquitoes nets in there can make the difference between life and death,” he said.

Concern are also involved in providing fresh water to the camp areas, working with women to teach them to make stoves, which reduces the amount of firewood they have to collect and in turn reduces the amount of attacks on them. They are also involved in running a nutrition program for the kids.

MacSorley said that more than 600 participants raised $100,000 in last year’s fun run and he hopes that an equal or greater amount will be raised this Saturday.

“The run is really important. I think people would love to do something for Darfur and do something practical. It’s not all about buying tables. Anyone can do the run for only $25,” he said.

MacSorley said the only solution to the Darfur situation is a political one, and it has to come from continued pressure outside.

“We will go back to the villages with them when the time is right. They will need a lot of assistance getting back to their life,” he said, hoping that an end is sooner rather than later.

For more information on this Saturday’s fun run log onto www.concernusa. org/funrun.