Jeanne's Cookies: I just returned from one of the world's most neglected crises

I just came back from visiting Sudan, and I can’t stop thinking about what I saw in Darfur.

I’ve been doing this work for a long time. I’ve witnessed some of the world’s toughest humanitarian crises. But this was different.

Sudan is living through one of the worst humanitarian disasters on earth. Since civil war broke out three years ago, nearly 13 million people have been displaced. Cities have been bombed to rubble. Villages have been burned. And civilians, including children, have been caught in the crossfire with nowhere to run.

Millions of children like Ahmad* are suffering from acute malnutrition after more than three years of conflict in Sudan.

Millions of children like Ahmed* are suffering from acute malnutrition after more than three years of conflict in Sudan.

The war has systematically destroyed the things people need to survive. Farms have been looted and burned. Markets have been shuttered. Aid convoys have been blocked, attacked or turned back at checkpoints.

And the crisis is being made worse by forces beyond Sudan’s borders, as conflict in the Middle East continues to consume global attention and stretch humanitarian resources thin.

The result is a hunger crisis of historic proportions: Sudan now has more people facing famine-level conditions than anywhere else on earth, with millions of children at acute risk of malnutrition. Save the Children is delivering urgently needed food, medical care and protection to children and families. Learn more about how we’re responding. >>

Below, I share more about my journey to Sudan and the reality families in Darfur are facing — not only the devastating challenges, but also the extraordinary people I met who are persevering against all odds.

Children — no matter where they are, no matter what they’ve been through — want to learn. That was reinforced with me as I spoke with students at the temporary learning space in Tawila.

It took me four days to get to the Darfur region of Sudan. The logistical challenges are many. Getting there requires crossing multiple lines controlled by various militant groups, each one a reminder of how fractured and dangerous this place has become. Aid workers navigate the same gauntlet, which means the people who need help most are often the hardest to reach. It is truly the last mile.

And yet, when I arrived, one of the first things I found was children — learning.

The temporary learning space that I visited had started with 70 children. When Save the Children first set up this space, our goal was to give displaced kids — most of whom hadn’t been in a classroom in over a year — somewhere to learn, somewhere to just be students again.

Today, this space supports 400 children. We run double shifts, 200 at a time, to make sure we don’t turn a single child away.

I watched as children raced each other to the blackboard, eager to show off how well they knew their times tables and Arabic.

But these children deserve more than a temporary learning space. They deserve stability and an education they can count on. That’s what Save the Children is working toward — converting these temporary learning spaces into permanent, sustainable schools.

At a camp for displaced people in Darfur, I visited a Save the Children health clinic. The clinic is remarkably well-run despite overwhelming conditions, but needs are growing rapidly.

I also visited one of the health clinics that Save the Children still operates in the area. Seven clinics have closed in the past year, shut down due to cuts in humanitarian aid funding. That means this one clinic is absorbing patients from across an entire region.

The staff are extraordinary, but they need more support.

Children are arriving with severe acute malnutrition. We know how to treat them. A 6-8 week course of Plumpy'Nut, a highly effective therapeutic peanut paste, can help a child who’s wasting away recover.

But getting Plumpy'Nut to a clinic in Darfur is harder and more expensive than ever. A carton of Plumpy'Nut costs about $60 to produce, and it now takes about $35 to make it here to Tawila — up 30% over the last couple of months.

The war in the Middle East has caused fuel prices to skyrocket, while the war in Sudan increases the time it takes to get here from Port Sudan via three different areas of conflict, broken roads and being stopped at multiple checkpoints.

The situation here is dire, but I also want to share what gave me hope.

A mother feeds her child homemade peanut paste made from locally sourced ingredients in Sudan.

It’s largely women holding everything together for their families. Men have been killed, disappeared or pulled into the fighting. I saw the bone-deep weariness in the eyes of the women I met with. Weariness that comes from walking for days through danger, making impossible decisions and doing everything you can to keep your children alive.

By the time they arrive at the shelter, they’ve already done the unthinkable to get here. What they need now is something to work with.

In a nutrition clinic in Tawila, I watched mothers learn to make something remarkable from five ingredients: millet, peanuts, oil, sugar and a pinch of salt. This simple paste prevents malnutrition before it takes hold — made at home, from local ingredients, by the same women who just walked through hell to get here.

It’s not a miracle. It’s just knowledge, put into the right hands, empowering moms to feed their children.

I worked with community volunteers to distribute food to people arriving at the displacement camp, still searching for a sense of safety.

Nearby, I visited a community kitchen run entirely by volunteers. Members of the community, cooking for the community: fresh vegetables, meat, rice, pasta and more. People who’ve lost nearly everything, feeding each other. That is the resilience I carry home with me.

The children at the blackboard, the number of families waiting to be seen at the clinic, the mothers mixing hope for their children in a bowl, the volunteers ladling food for their neighbors — this trip reminded me why the work we do at Save the Children is so urgent.

It also reminded me why I’m so grateful for our supporters who help make it all possible. Thank you for being with us.

With gratitude,

Janti Soeripto
President & CEO
Save the Children

P.S. Last weekend, I joined "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" to share my firsthand account from my trip to Sudan. It was an important conversation about the immense need and how the global community needs to do more, and quickly. I hope you’ll watch it here.