From Baltimore to Darfur -- How to Save a Life

May 17, 2007 — -- The landscape of Darfur is an almost endless picture of hardship. The past four years of war have driven millions of men, women and children from their homes into sprawling, miserable refugee camps.

But during our trip to report on the suffering, we found one oasis of hope.

In the ZamZam refugee camp, which is now home to more than 40,000 people, the Safe Motherhood Center treats hundreds of women and their babies every day. Here, they fight disease and malnutrition, and educate women in the basics of safe childbirth and child care.

"Before the clinic, we had no help," one mother told me. "What would I do without this place?"

However, none of this would be here without the efforts of one American woman a world away in Baltimore. It all began a year ago when Patricia Crawford read a newspaper story about Darfur.

"There was an article in The New York Times last May around Memorial Day, and it was talking about how the camp was in danger of shutting down due to lack of funds," Crawford said. "So I was like, 'This can't happen.' I then tried to kind of surf my way through [the Web] to figure out who was involved and how I could get involved some way."

Crawford contacted Relief International, which runs the clinic, to find out how she could make a difference and ended up helping herself, too.

"I think I was going through a kind of pre-midlife crisis," Crawford said. "So it was all of this 'woe is me,' all of my friends are doing all of these wonderful things and when I read the article I was like, here's a bunch of people who would probably trade places with me in a second. And the more I thought about the circumstances -- their circumstances -- the less I thought about what was missing in my life. So it made me feel -- the more I focused on other people, the less sad I was about myself."

She developed a fund-raising plan and soon raised $10,000 around Baltimore and Washington, starting with friends and family but gradually expanding to include everyone from cabdrivers at Penn Station in Baltimore to the street flower vendor to the ambassador of South Africa.