Our Very First Cards

Last week the boys made these cards.

Initially, we wanted to see just what the lads thought of the process of designing and producing items in paper and hoped those who would be most suitable to be team leaders in this medium would come to the fore.

Everyone loved it!

We are now using the samples for local market research on card buying habits, while secretly hoping to hear from you guys out there, on your ideas for other designs and styles!

Calling all you creative types...

What is Urban Cowboy?
The Urban Cowboy concept is simple; this blog here in Sudan, will link street boys here with creative professionals, like you, cross the world. We will then get ideas, designs and tutorials from you, in various different crafts techniques, allowing the street boys to make unique gift and household products to sell here in Sudan.

Do you specialise in crafts like- woodwork, metalwork, sewing, paper products or leather goods design?
Urban Cowboy needs people like you, who will give the team of boys ideas and designs to make here in Sudan. Your tutorials will then be translated into Arabic, so the boys (16 and up) can learn step by step to not only make unique products but learn valuable trade skills, which they in turn will pass on to other boys at the centre.

What is the Bridge of Hope? (for more detailed info click this header)
The Bridge of Hope Charity (www.bohsudan.org) is a holistic project for the street boys etching a living on the streets of Khartoum. Since its inception in November 2003, Barbara, the director and manager, has, with her local team, launched the pre-school learning centre designed to bring the boys up to school level, a drop in/feeding centre, a residential annex and a sports class for older boys.
For 2007, Barbara's hope is to achieve sustainability and self sufficiency within the project.

Who are the street boys of Khartoum? (for more detailed info click this header)
Tens of thousands of Southern Sudanese young men and boys are unlucky enough to struggle on the streets of Khartoum, navigating the pitfalls of disease, despair and chemical addiction. Isolated and displaced by Sudan's 22 year civil war, little education and racial discrimination, they face little chance of ever finding gainful employment in a city already burgeoning with the unemployed.
Although many of the younger boys are now attending the Bridge of Hope learning centre or are financed by the charity to attend local schools, the older boys (16-24) have sadly missed their chance of most education. They need a trade, a skill, something to allow them a small income, training and most importantly, a future.

The Urban Cowboy Project (for more detailed info click this header)
Urban Cowboy aims to combat the perils of unemployment through the sale of modern and currently unavailable household goods and gifts for the local market and Ex-pats. Eventually it is hope that we will even attract interest from international buyers. This will enable the young men of Khartoum's streets, to earn a living in Sudan’s increasingly competitive economy.

Both Sudan’s thriving economic sector and the international fascination with this richly cultured nation, bode well for the sale of quality products including interior household products, gifts and cards.

With funding for tools and materials now approved, Urban Cowboy is well on in the process of establishing vocational training workshops for woodwork, pottery decoration, leatherwork, sewing, paper goods and graphic design; using where ever possible, locally sourced and recycled materials.

Its not just the street boys who will gain...
As Barbara explains, “By using local materials we can, in turn, support other small and valuable local projects in their successes, like the Yous Rittena School for the disabled, which will supply the recycled/handmade paper and the pottery to the project”. The Khartoum Tannery is another locally run and raw product supplier whose skins are all Sudanese and of the highest standards. But sourcing local materials is not just good for the local economy, it also ensures that prices and supply lines will remain much more stable unlike the wildly inflated cost of imported goods.

What we need you to do...

• Firstly, Urban Cowboy needs a logo, something fresh and funky that will become synonymous with our high quality products, yet still explores the boys' rich African culture and its intrinsic links to the cattle they keep.
• Why not visit both the Bridge of Hope website (www.bohsudan.org) and the Urban Cowboy blog (urbancowboysudan.blogspot.com) to get a better idea of who we are and what we are doing here in Sudan.
• Even better, why not link us to your blog/website?
• Or copy and paste this entry into your blog so Urban Cowboy can start reaching the wider creative world.
• Do you have some great design ideas for us?
  Sudan is pretty much closed to all western media, and its impossible to find design or fashion magazines, the internet is heavily censored and satellite television is only available to a small elite, but people want modern fashionable gifts and household items. Being so effectively isolated from modern design we need your help to bring it to us.
  Got a great tote bag design that you know will look fab in organic Sudanese cotton? Well, we want it!
  What about great greeting card designs? Or some original artwork we can replicate on our cards?
  Don't be shy, drop us a line and change someone's life today.

Urban Cowboy – Sudan’s Newest Ethical Brand

Recent article from Al Bab Lifestyle Magazine

I meet up with Barbara from the Bridge of Hope Charity for what I think will be an interview about her new project and some lunch, now however, I seem to be rummaging through a table laden with craft, household and gift products from across the world. Amongst her spoils are- beautiful handmade Maori greeting cards from New Zealand and wooden educational toys from Kenya; in fact, pretty much everything from African soft toys to handmade paper lampshade designs.

Over coffee we discuss her product ideas which, she intends the older boys at the Bridge of Hope Centre in Haj Yousif, to soon, start making. But between now and then the items in front of us, need to be selected, taken apart, measured, redesigned and remodeled by the street boys, entirely from re-cycled and local materials.

The Bridge of Hope Charity has come a long way since its inception in November 2003. In addition to the pre-school learning centre designed to bring the boys up to school level, a drop in/feeding centre, a residential annex and a sports class for older boys, the centre is adding some significant new income generating projects for 2007.

Barbara’s hope is that 2007 will be the year the centre moves towards self-sufficiency.
And so far, it looks like it might just happen.

To date, Sayga Flour Mills have very kindly pledged a bakery to benefit not only the lads chosen for baking vocational training, but, the whole Haj Yousif area as they will now have locally made fresh bread every day. The UN mission in Sudan has also accessed their Quick impact Project Fund to build a new purpose built learning centre on site.

The making of gift and household products is another very new and unique grassroots initiative currently being launched by the centre to provide vocational training and job opportunities for the older boys. Called Urban Cowboy, it aims to empower and employ some of the former street children through the production and sale of their products.

With funding for tools and materials now approved, Urban Cowboy is well on in the process of establishing vocational training workshops for woodwork, pottery decoration, leatherwork and graphic design; using where possible local and recycled materials.
As Barbara explains, “By using local materials we can, in turn, support other projects in their success, like the Yous Rittena School for handicapped children in Omderman, which will supply the recycled/handmade paper and the pottery to the project”.

She hopes by sourcing local materials, the prices and supply lines will remain stable unlike costly imports.

“The only thing really missing now is a volunteer coordinator to run the project”, says Barbara. “We really need someone with a business background and some creative flair”.

The concept is simple; the blog (web based diary) will link with creative professionals cross the world, in each discipline who will give the team ideas and designs. Tutorials will then be made and translated into Arabic, so the boys can understand and learn to make the unique products.

The Urban Cowboy project aims to combat the perils of unemployment through the sale of modern and currently unavailable household goods and gifts for the local market and Ex-pats. This will then enable our young men to earn a living in Sudan’s increasingly competitive economy.

Bridge of Hope- Charity Profile

“Street kids are like cream,” says New Zealand native Barbara Gouldsbury. “You stir it and eventually it rises to the top.”



Angelo- Before and after life at Bridge of Hope

That’s just what Gouldsbury, a former nurse, has set out to do by founding Bridge of Hope on the outskirts of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.


Bridge of Hope is a non-profit organization aimed at sheltering and rehabilitating some of Khartoum’s most endangered street children by providing them with food, medical care, education and, critically, self-discipline.

The pull of street life is a reality for tens of thousands of young children in Sudan who hail from impoverished families, largely from the nation’s south and the embattled Darfur region. Many children have fled homes and families that simply cannot provide for them, while others have been orphaned.

On the streets, they survive by begging for food and money or taking day jobs. Much of what they earn is spent on tubes of cheap yellow glue which the children ingest. Unaware of the permanent damage that may result, the children say glue prevents hunger and brings a pleasing high that allows them, for a few hours, to escape the misery of street life.

At Bridge of Hope, Goldsbury and a Sudanese staff work to rehabilitate street boys by providing them with essential services they lack.

But food and shelter are not enough for children and the organization gives the boys something even more rare—unconditional support and the love of a tight-knit family.

Bridge of Hope’s residential home houses 35 former street boys who range in age from 4 to 20 years. The home aims to provide a renewed sense of self-esteem and self-discipline. All the boys who live at Bridge of Hope are required to go to school, help cook dinner and keep their clothes clean. For fun, the boys enjoy reading books, playing football and dancing in Sudan’s traditional Nubian style.

At a near-by drop in center between 50 and 100 street children turn up daily to utilize washing facilities and have a good meal.

At Bridge of Hope’s learning center they practice reading, writing and arithmetic, while at a vocational center the boys learn a trade. Although the learning center is not a registered school, the curriculum follows Sudan’s national curriculum but also includes music, drama, art and sport.

The programs are run by Sudanese employees as well as several volunteers from Sudan and abroad.

The boys who benefit from Bridge of Hope’s programs are happy, healthy and, on some occasions mischievous—just like any other boys their age.
Bridge of Hope is a non-profit organization aimed at sheltering and rehabilitating some of Khartoum’s most endangered street children by providing them with food, medical care, education and, critically, self-discipline.

Street kids- Life on the Streets

Sudanese are known for a pleasant hospitality that bridges both Arab and African cultures; and many are sympathetic to the tens of thousands of homeless, impoverished children who roam the streets of the capital city. But in a nation scarred by decades of conflict, many have become inured to the sight of young children begging for food and money.

The majority of Sudanese street children are of southern descent. More than 2 million southern Sudanese settled in and around the nation’s capital during the nation’s twenty-one year civil war between north and south Sudan.
The majority of southern Sudanese live in poverty in squalid camps on the outskirts of Khartoum.

An investment boom has prompted the city to polish its image, and as the price of land has skyrocketed, many southerners have been forcibly relocated into remote, windswept areas outside of the capital—a practice condemned by the United Nations and human rights groups. These new camps lack even the most basic services, including water and schools.

Southern Sudanese also charge that they face racial discrimination when applying for jobs, condemning thousands to lives of poverty. Southerners typically work as day laborers or cleaners—positions that pay very little, particularly in families where it is not uncommon to have three or more children.

Traumatized by war and underemployed or unable to find work, some southern women simply cannot care for their children. Northern children are largely protected by intricate family networks that see a child taken in my relatives if his or her parents are unable to provide care. Furthermore, growing populations of children who have fled the war-torn Darfur region also make their homes on the street.

The life of a street child in Khartoum is unpleasant. Market vendors are largely unsympathetic to the hundreds of children who sleep and beg in marketplaces. Food, water and medical attention are hard to come by—even for the desperately ill. A lack of social programs means thousands of children simply slip through the cracks. Shelters are a rarity and most street children are unable to attend even government schools which charge small admissions fees.

Addiction, though, is the children’s greatest challenge. Street children—mainly boys—ingest glue into their mouths in order to stave off hunger and fear. They buy glue with money they have earned doing odd jobs or begging, leading many people to refuse to give street kids any money at all. Side effects of glue may include irate or erratic behaviour and the practice of ingesting glue can cause permanent damage to the brain.

Despite the challenges street children face, visitors are generally surprised by their almost constant cheer.

The few centers that work directly with street children say they are resilient and predict bright futures ahead for those who escape the pull of street life.

Sudan- Country Profile

Sudan is a sprawling nation of more than 40 million people, which blends rich Arab and African cultures—at times uncomfortably. Sudanese President Omer Al Bashir came to power in a 1989 military coup and the nation is ruled by a strict Islamic code of law known as Shari’a. At present, Sudan boasts one of the ten fastest growing economies in the world; and the capital city Khartoum is experiencing an economic boom spurred by investment in the nation’s oil reserves.

Despite a thriving economic sector Sudan’s western Darfur region remains wracked by violent conflict, and a 2005 peace agreement that ended twenty-one years of civil war between north and south Sudan has faced its own setbacks in recent months.

The nation has a long history of ethnic strife. After gaining independence from colonial England in 1956, Sudan entered five decades of civil unrest, which exploded into war in 1983 between the nation’s Muslim Arab north and African south which is primarily Christian and animist.

The war, fought in the southern theatre, was a struggle over religion and resources.
Southern rebels formed the powerful Sudan’ People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). The SPLM/A fought a government plat to forcibly Islamicize the south and charged northern foes with attempting to steal the south’s vast, untapped oil reserves.

In January 2005 the SPLM/A and the government of Sudan inked a peace accord, ending the twenty-one war.

Southern Sudan was granted an autonomous government and protocols were signed on wealth-sharing—with particular attention paid to southern oil reserves. As part of the deal southern Sudanese will vote in a 2011 referendum on whether to remain united with the north or secede and form their own nation.

More than 2 million southern Sudanese died during the prolonged conflict, while some 4 million others fled the south, settling in Khartoum and overseas.

As the north/south conflict came to a close, a separate ethnic conflict rent Sudan’s western Darfur region. A vast, remote area the size of France, Darfur has long been marred by conflicts over land and water between nomadic Arab tribes and African farmers. Unlike the north/south war, racial distinctions are often unclear in Darfur and all parties to the conflict practice Islam, but traditional rivalries run deep.

In February 2003, the rebel Sudan Liberation Army attacked government positions in Darfur, complaining that the region remained undeveloped due to neglect from Sudan’s government.

Khartoum is charged with exploiting the region’s deep inter-ethnic tensions by providing arms to Arab tribes, who formed armed militias and concentrated savage attacks on civilian encampments.
These militias, known as janjaweed, continue to move with impunity, raping, looting and killing at will.

A May 5th peace agreement brokered by the African Union in Abuja, Nigeria was hailed by the international community as Darfur’s best bet toward ending the conflict.

But only one faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement, led by 38-year-old former schoolteacher Minni Minnawi signed on to the deal. Other rebel factions refused to sign on to the agreement, complaining that the deal does not meet their basic demands of wealth and power sharing.\

Minnawi rose to the post of senior advisor to President Omer Al Bashir, but the widely lauded agreement faltered as holdout rebels and the government continued to battle it out in Darfur, with civilians again caught in the crossfire.

As the eyes of the international community turned to Darfur, western nations in particular have increasingly demanded United Nations intervention in the embattled region. Sudan has refused a UN presence, instead affirming its faith in the 7,000 member African Union force, which has struggled with a lack of funding and a weak mandate.

More than 2.5 million people have been displaced by the fighting, in Darfur and eastern Chad. And while the Sudanese government sets the death toll at about 9,000 outside observers including the World Health Organization say more than 200,000 people have died.

The United States has labeled the conflict “genocide,” though the United Nations has restricted its definition to the less severe “ethnic cleansing.”
Observers fear that the conflict, which has spread into neighboring Chad, will engulf the entire region.