Daily Progress - Charlottesville, VA

Local Darfur Education Group Gets Grant
by Liesel Nowak

July 24, 2006

An international humanitarian group based in Charlottesville has received an $80,000 grant to help in its mission to alert the world about the crisis in Darfur.

The Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy is one of the few organizations to receive reports of unrest directly from Western Sudan.

For the second time, the group has received funding from the Philanthropic Collaborative, an organization with ties to the Rockefeller Family. Last year, Damanga received $50,000.

According to its director, Damanga is the first Darfurian and international grassroots organization to sound the alarm bell about atrocities unfolding there since 1995.

“I was very excited to receive another generous grant from the Philanthropic Collaborative,” Mohamed Yahya said. “This made us feel very confident because we are working very hard as a team of Sudanese and American volunteers, including students and individuals, to make a real difference … and we have succeeded to bring attention to millions of Americans and different parts of the international community.”

Logging thousands of miles so far this year, Yahya, who speaks with a thick accent, has met with students, community leaders and faith-based organizers all over the United States. He started at the University of Virginia and has gone on to speak with leaders in Washington.

Yahya, who has lost family members in the turmoil, has a lot to share.

“I’m talking about the suffering of my people who are being attacked by the Sudanese Arab government and its allied Janjaweed Arab militia, who are raiding, violating and raping women and girls; killing the black indigenous farmers; burning villages; looting their animals, money and everything,” Yahya said. “Once you are black, you are a target even if you are Muslim or Christian … it doesn’t matter. You have to be an Arab and Muslim. Otherwise, you will be a victim.”

The current conflict flared up in 2003 when a rebel group began attacking government targets, claiming discrimination against non-Arabs. For years, nomadic Arabs have clashed with farmers from the Fur, Massaleit and Zagawa communities.

Though it admits mobilizing self-defense militias, the government in Khartoum denies any connection to the Janjaweed, accused of ethnic cleansing in the region. The government is accused of war crimes against the black population in Darfur. Human rights groups and the U.S. government have called the crisis genocide, but the U.N. has stopped short of using the term.

More than 3 million people are reported to have fled their homes or are in need of food. The United Nations estimates that 200,000 have died because of violence.

As a child, Yahya said he was badly beaten by an Arab teacher because he spoke to a classmate in his native Massaleit language.

While studying in Egypt in the mid-1990s, Yahya learned that his village was one of 50 burned and destroyed in only one day. Among the dead were 21 of his relatives.

He mobilized with other Darfurians in Cairo to form the Massaleit Community in Exile, which eventually evolved to become Damanga. Eventually blacklisted in Egypt, Yahya received political asylum in the United States.

To this day, Yahya doesn’t know if his own parents are alive.

“Since then I have turned into an activist to speak out, as a voice for those voiceless innocent in Darfur, and advocate on behalf of them, to educate and get all the world involved in a campaign of conscience, to come together and halt this agony genocide, to save and free my people and hold those who committed crimes against humanity accountable,” he said.

In addition to full-time work with the nonprofit Damanga, Yahya is taking summer classes at UVa. The organization, he said, is “booming.”

“I have the sense of Americans paying great attention and understanding the situation better than before,” Yahya said.