JWW solar powered stoves save lives and prevent rapes of Darfuri women.Darfuri women who find shelter in UN refugee camps in Chad after fleeing the genocide in their homeland remain at risk of violent assault including rape every time they leave the relative safety of the camps to collect fire-wood with which to cook for their families. Jewish World Watch (JWW), an organization that assists survivors of genocide and other mass atrocities, is providing these refugee women with small solar powered stoves that eliminate the necessity of leaving the camps to collect cooking fuel. With each $30 donation JWW provides two solar stoves to a refugee family.
The 64 California synagogues who form JWW are determined that wherever mass violence is perpetrated we must not look away, stand idly by or watch helplessly as did so many during the Shoah. For Jewish donors who find other human rights organizations' criticisms of Israel unfair and biased JWW presents an alternative way to support human rights abroad and to help victims of genocide. In addition to the solar cookers JWW also provides Darfuri refugees with medical supplies. clinics, a maternity ward, sponsors schools for Darfuri children, and is providing similar humanitarian assistance to the civilian victims of organized brutality and systematic rape in the war ravaged Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It also advocates for legislation and policies aimed at stopping or preventing genocide and finding a comprehensive peace for Sudan and the DRC.
JWW is one of several worthy non-profit organizations I learned about Sunday at Goodstock, Brooklyn's tikkun olam fair. Other organizations I learned about include:
US-Africa Children's Fellowship which provides educational supplies and assistance to children in Zimbabwe;
Eden Village Camp, a coed Jewish environmental sleepaway camp for 3rd through 12th graders nearly all of whom will receive scholarships next summer thanks to a recent $1,000,000 donation;
The Innocence Project, which uses DNA evidence to free wrongfully convicted prisoners;
the Bone Marrow Foundation and the Halachic Organ Donor Society, both of which match patients with donors;
Mazon: a Jewish Response to Hunger;
Hadassah, which is adding a new 14 story tower to its hospital in Ein Kerem, Jerusalem, supports the Young Judaea youth movement, and which advocates for a variety of progressive causes here in the USA including stem-cell research, separation of church and state, and women's reproductive rights;
UJA-Federation of New York whose many social services includes the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services where from age 5 to 11 I went twice a week for psychotherapy;
Park Slope Jewish Center's Hevra Kadisha (Sacred Burial Fellowship) whose volunteers watch over and prepare its deceased members bodily remains from the moment of death until burial;
and Goodstock's sponsor The Institute for Living Judaism in Brooklyn which provides educational programming (classes and lectures) as well as workshops and support groups for life cycle events and transitions (I plugged one such workshop last March).
Moving from table to table hearing stories of great suffering and need was emotionally wearing. In one of the adjacent classrooms an adult taught pre-school age kids crafts, and part of me would rather have been doing that. It's too bad I had already eaten lunch, because the snacks on sale at Goodstock looked delicious.
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