Homes for Sudan’s mission is to empower the Sudanese people to build a safe and prosperous future. In partnership with the California Institute of Earth Art and Architecture, HS4S has brought the ‘superadobe’ building method to the Sudan to rebuild homes with local materials that are fireproof and wood free. It has begun the mission by sharing the building knowledge with the local communities charged with rebuilding their own houses.
HS4S’s plan is to pioneer the full development of a central community with progressive farming methods, small businesses, education, healthcare, peace and governance workshops, and post trauma counseling by engaging alliance organizations of local and international NGOs and universities with expertise in these areas.
War has ravaged Africa’s largest nation—the Republic of the Sudan—for five decades, killing more than two million people and driving four and a half million from their homes and villages. The Northern and Southern regions signed an uneasy peace treaty in 2005, but by then another war had broken out in the Western region of Darfur. In the wake of these campaigns, more than thirty percent of the population in the Western region of Darfur has suffered trauma from war, lost loved ones, and had their homes and villages burned.
Homes for Sudan (HS4S) organized in 2005 to address the challenges of rehabilitation and development. To achieve sustainable development HS4S aims to simultaneously address the conflict issue, the burned villages, lost livestock and livelihoods, water resources, post conflict trauma, education, governance, and health care.
Using the native method, each home destroyed in war would require more than thirty trees to rebuild. If more than a million displaced persons were to rebuild their households with trees, it would compromise the environment beyond repair.
HS4S will build a ‘girls’ school, a ‘boys’ school, and a hospital, while teaching the locals to rebuild four satellite villages in the same area that were destroyed in the war. Homes for Sudan has chosen the pilot area with the help of the local population and authorities as a fairly secure and land controversy free region.
HS4S’s first community growth program in Darfur is intended as a multiplier so that the trainees can branch off and build communities farther away from the main cities. Thus one community can grow peace, development, and capacity gradually throughout the under- developed and the destroyed periphery, and create safe routes to markets, education, and health care.
Creating viable livings, providing good education and safe housing are paramount for the security of the Sudanese people. Building sustainable, secure communities with services, education, and good governance are crucial for building cultural bridges and healing the land.
