Seven of us gathered to join the Hands Off protest on Saturday April 19 on Broadway Ave in Everett. We were there in support of holding our government accountable for their actions. We join thousands of people in Everett and millions across the country. We made our thoughts known as we reached national coverage on all major news outlets. If we do not protest, nothing will happen. Thanks to all who showed up!
The stark consequences of the (USAID) rollback are evident in few places as clearly as in Sudan
(copied from the New York Times) The children died one after the other. Twelve acutely malnourished infants living in one corner of Sudan’s war-ravaged capital, Khartoum.
Abdo, an 18-month-old boy, had been rushed to a clinic by his mother as he was dying. His ribs protruded from his withered body. The next day, a doctor laid him out on a blanket with a teddy bear motif, his eyes closed.
Like the other 11 children, Abdo starved to death in the weeks after President Trump froze all U.S. foreign assistance, said local aid workers and a doctor. American-funded soup kitchens in Sudan, including the one near Abdo’s house, had been the only lifelines for tens of thousands of people besieged by fighting.
Bombs were falling. Gunfire was everywhere. Then, as the American money dried up, hundreds of soup kitchens closed in a matter of days.
“It was catastrophic,” said Duaa Tariq, an aid worker.
The stark consequences of Mr. Trump’s slashing of U.S. aid are evident in few places as clearly as in Sudan, where a brutal civil war has set off a staggering humanitarian catastrophe and left 25 million people — more than half of the country’s population — acutely hungry.
In Jereif West, two days after Sudan’s military and allied militias drove the Rapid Support Forces from the area.
Sudan’s civil war, now in its third year, is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in decades, aid groups say. Famine is spreading rapidly, with some resorting to eating leaves and grass. About 400,000 people were scattered and hundreds killed in Darfur in the past week alone, as paramilitary fighters overran the country’s largest camp for displaced people, the United Nations said.
Last year, the United States gave $830 million in emergency aid, helping 4.4 million Sudanese, the United Nations estimates. That was far more aid than any other country provided. But after Mr. Trump halted that lifeline in January by dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, the effect in Khartoum was devastating.
Within days, over 300 soup kitchens run by Emergency Response Rooms, a network of democracy activists turned volunteer aid workers, were forced to close. In Jereif West, the neighborhood where Ms. Tariq works, hungry residents roved the streets in search of food amid shelling and drone strikes.
“People shared what they could,” she said. “But many went home empty-handed.”
Any cut in aid can be deadly: More than 600,000 Sudanese people are already living in famine, and another eight million are “on the cliff edge,” according to a consortium of major aid groups.
But on the ground, aid groups say the flow of American money stopped for almost two months and has resumed only in fits and starts, if at all.
The U.S.A.I.D. officials who once helped make the payments have been fired. A work force of about 10,000 is being reduced to about 15 positions, leaving the American chain of assistance mired in chaos, delays and uncertainty.
So while the Trump administration says the tap for Sudan is still on, aid groups trying to stave off starvation say the total amount has been reduced and the entire system has been paralyzed, cutting off food for weeks at a time in a place where few can afford to miss a single meal.
The East Nile district of Khartoum lay in ruins two days after Sudan’s military took control of the area, following two years of occupation by the Rapid Support Forces.CreditCredit...
Other rich countries have not filled the gap. Despite new pledges from Britain and the European Union at a conference on Tuesday in London, the U.N. is still billions of dollars short of what it says it needs to save lives in Sudan this year.
“This is the darkest hour for Sudan,” said Jan Egeland, head of the aid agency Norwegian Refugee Council, who described the cuts as a “moral failure.”
In recent weeks, the United States has resumed payments to several large aid organizations that work in Sudan, several aid officials confirmed. But little of that money appears to have yet reached Emergency Response Rooms, and nearly half of the 746 kitchens in Khartoum remain closed, said Gihad Salahaldeen, the network’s financial coordinator for the capital.
Nor is American aid guaranteed to continue, the State Department said in its email. The United States continues to review its aid to Sudan “with the goal of restructuring assistance to be more effective, efficient and aligned with U.S. interests,” it added.
This month, the United Nations World Food Program announced that the Trump administration was terminating emergency food assistance for 14 fragile countries around the world.
Federal Government Spending Bill Bad for Social Justice
The government is working to eliminate its function as a social justice and social action agency. The new CR approved by the house proposes temporary spending authorization through September of 2025 that cripples funding of federal social services by removing 880 billion dollars. Although it does not designate what cuts will be made it does force the cuts. On the chopping block are likely veterans administration health services, global vaccination programs for things like tuberculosis, mental health services, SNAP funding, WIC funding, school funding for children with disabilities, noaa, and the faa.
Don’t let this happen without a fight. Encourage your senators to vote no on Friday. Here is an easy way to contact your senators and let them know! https://www.votervoice.net/JAWM/Campaigns/123233/Respond
Congress Passes Cuts to SNAP
Congress has passed a funding bill that will move to the Senate for consideration. Included in it is a reduction from the House Agriculture jurisdictions of $230 billion dollars between now and 2034. It is thought that most of these cuts would come from SNAP (formerly EBT. This would be a cut of about 20% from the program.
It is thought that in order to meet this goal, they will need to further restrict access by tightening eligibility such a work requirements. It is also likely they will reduce funding to the states and leave it up to them to determine how to enact the cuts.
It is time to remind your Senate leaders that you are not in favor of reducing SNAP benefits from the budget. Please write and call your representatives.
It is also time to start thinking about how are we at the local level will help ease the burden of these cuts at the local level. Please send your ideas to the church office to be forwarded on to the Social Justice Committee.