Talk Radio News Service Bureau Chief Ellen Ratner is traveling to Darfur in the Sudan with other talk show hosts to bring “Sacks of Hope” and to provide awareness of the Sudanese Refugees March 10–18 2008.

See our audio and video from the trip here!

Ellen will be traveling with TRNS Chief UN Correspondent Dan Patterson, as well as several radio station hosts.

Donate at http://www.csi-int.org/donation.php. $50 buys a “Sack of Hope, but any amount helps!

This trip is sponsored by Talkers Magazine and the Talk Radio News Service and is traveling under Christian Solidarity International.

Going are: Joe Madison from Radio One, Thom Hartmann from Air America, Rusty Humphries from Talk Radio Network, Jack Rice from WCCO in Minneapolis, and Ellen Ratner and Daniel Patterson from Talkers Magazine and Talk Radio News Service.

Joe Madison has been to the region three times and won Talkers Magazine “Sharon Harrison Award” for community service based on work in the Sudan with slavery and “sacks of hope.”

Tens of thousands of southern Sudanese women and children have been enslaved, murdered, and driven into exile in Northern Sudan and Chad since 1983. CSI has liberated many and returned them to their homeland in southern Sudan. What happens to them next? After years of slavery and suffering, they are returning with no home and no food, facing extreme famine which will last until the next harvest in August and September. We cannot free them and forget about them! Help Them Start a New Life with a CSI SACK OF HOPE!

Christian Solidarity International is working to provide every returning family with a special start-up sack containing the essentials to begin a new life. www.csi-int.org/csi_sack_of_hope.php:

• Tarpaulin to offer shelter from rain and sun which can also be used as a groundsheet
• Blanket to keep the whole family warm on cold nights in the bush
• Mosquito net for protection against insects, snakes, and scorpions
• Cooking pan for boiling water and preparing millet gruel
• Plastic canister to carry 5 liters of water
• Hand-held sickle for cultivating food and building a home

Refugees also receive 12 kilos of millet, just enough to feed a family of five for one week.