About DRDODRDO is a national human rights, humanitarian relief, and development organization. DRDO is independent, non-governmental, non-profit, and non-partisan. DRDO was established as a response to the intersectional issues arising from conflict, human rights violations, poverty, powerlessness, malnutrition, ill-health, environmental degradation, illiteracy, with a particular neglect of vulnerable populations. Dr. Anne Bartlett, Co-Executive Director, is a Professor of Sociology and Director of the graduate program in International Studies at the University of San Francisco. She has worked with the Fur Diaspora in London since 2002 as part of a research project about insurgent politics and the Darfur crisis. Bartlett was chair of a United Nations panel on Darfur at the UN commission on Human Rights, 60th Session, Geneva, Switzerland, April 2004. She was also guest speaker at: “The Human Rights and Humanitarian Crisis in Darfur (Western Sudan): Challenges to the International Community” and UN commission on Human Rights, 61st session, April 2005, Geneva, Switzerland. Bartlett recently met with Thabo Mbeki to discuss findings of the African Union High Level Panel on Darfur and briefed the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa. She has published extensively on the crisis and has given numerous talks on the Darfur crisis worldwide. Bartlett is currently involved in a project that examines the effect of humanitarian intervention in the region. Bartlett can be reached at bartlett@drdoafrica.org. Adeeb Yousif, General Manager, was born in the village of Guldo in Darfur, Sudan he is doing PhD in School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution (CAR) in George Mason University, and received his Master degree in International Studies in University of San Francisco, and Bachelor of Arts degree from Dongola University (Northern Sudan). During his undergraduate studies, Adeeb was a human rights activist. For 14 years, he worked with grass roots and social justice movements throughout Sudan. In April 2001, Adeeb co-founded the Sudan Social Development Organization (SUDO), a human rights, humanitarian relief, and development NGO. Adeeb worked deep inside rural areas to empower local communities to demand their rights from the government. He then helped develop the Darfur Emergency Response Operation, which runs programs for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and host communities in Darfur. Due to his human rights activism, Adeeb was detained twice by the Sudanese government, for close to a year, and endured torture during this time. Adeeb has dedicated his life to the humanitarian and human rights struggle to end the conflict and genocide in Darfur. He has played a key role in getting the plight of his people known to the outside world, through on-the-ground facilitation of the work of many of the most high-profile researchers and writers, and through his own media work. He help initiated the Rebel Letters Campaign and worked with Never Again International. His current goal is to build the possibility for a sustainable peace in Darfur the project will be targeted at local communities and key stakeholders in the region. adeeb@drdoafrica.org Mr. Patrick Musibi is a specialist on children and armed conflict. A retired Kenya Air Force officer, Patrick is a researcher and trainer on child rights and child protection for militaries on the African continent. Upon retirement, he embarked on a career as a humanitarian worker serving in the Bahr el Ghazal region of Southern Sudan and in Darfur. While serving in Darfur, he encountered the destructive interaction between poverty, environmental degradation and conflict. In order to help mitigate these, he introduced the Jatropha Curcas L. tree and vetiver grass into the interventions of the Darfur Emergency Response Operation for which he was the field coordinator for West Darfur, covering the localities of Jebel Marrah, Zalingei, and Wadi Salih. His work on behalf of the suffering people of Darfur earned him a 12-hour stay in a Sudanese jail and a further 3-month in-country confinement until the Norwegian government interceded on his behalf. As a result of this experience, Patrick has dedicated the rest of his life to help resolve the conflict in Darfur and other conflicts on the African continent that are causing untold suffering to Africa’s children. Musibi can be reached at patmusibi@gmail.com. Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim Adam is founder and Chairperson of the Sudan Social Development Organization (SUDO), an independent non-governmental organization dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights, peace-building, and development. Under Dr. Mudawi’s leadership, SUDO has successfully implemented various human rights projects as well as water, sanitation and health projects. SUDO has also been active in Darfur, holding workshops with different groups on human rights and providing humanitarian assistance to the millions who have been forced to flee their homes as a result of the conflict. SUDO has been working to implement a peace-building and reconciliation project with different tribal groups in Southern Darfur. Due to his role in exposing the Sudanese government’s role in massive violations of human rights and humanitarian law in Darfur, Dr. Mudawi has been detained by the Sudanese authorities three times in the last two years. During imprisonment, he went on a hunger strike to protest being held in solitary confinement without being charged or provided access to a lawyer, his family, or given medical attention. In October 2005 he received an award from Human Rights First for his efforts to promote human rights in Sudan. During his first visit to the United States he met with officials from the United Nations, State Department, and Members of Congress. Omer Ihsas is a Sudanese singer and composer from Nyala, Darfur. Omer has produced many songs that celebrate the culture and the people of Darfur and is especially well known for the song Darfur Beladna, (Darfur my motherland), where he sings of the ethnic diversity of the region and asks the population to lay down their weapons and live in peace. His compositions combine traditional Darfurian rhythms with more contemporary musical styles. In Darfur, he regularly tours the areas of crisis in Darfur to bring hope to the local people. He has also made many international tours outside of Sudan to the UK, USA, Canada, Germany, Austria, Holland, Switzerland, Kenya, India and South Africa to name but a few. He is a member of the Sudanese General Union for Music Professions and many other professional music bodies in Darfur and elsewhere. He can be reached at: omar_mustafa2@yahoo.com |