Richard Plato Okot and his family, "The Okot Family of Faith," immigrated from the Sudan in Africa to Portland, Maine in 1998. Okot soon joined Peace Action Maine and introduced board members to the Sudanese immigrant community in Portland, known an ASERELA (Action for Self Reliance). He began teaching Peace Action Maine members about the crisis in his country caused by the 20-year civil war and U.S./U.N. economic sanctions that have claimed about two to three million Sudanese lives, many of them children. Always searching for peaceful solutions to the crisis in his country, Okot has appealed to local, national and international communities; The United Nations, Amnesty International, European Economic Communities, churches, media, the U.S. government, the government of the United Kingdom, and other sympathetic bodies.

"There currently may be cause for hope," says Okot. While still concerned about the outcomes, Okot says, "The Peace talks in Kenya, the lifting of U.S./U.N. economic sanctions, and positive changes in U.S./U.N. foreign policies, are signs that conditions in the Sudan may improve."

Peace Action Maine is thankful to Richard Okot for helping us become more knowledgeable about the humanitarian crisis in The Sudan and for the opportunities we now have to work with him on an international level to seek peace in The Sudan as well as worldwide.

For more information about ASERELA, please visit their website at: www.aserela.org.

For more information about the Sudan, please visit their website at: www.sudan.net.