Grinding Mill: In southern Sudan, most women spend an average of eight hours a day pounding sorghum into an edible powder.

In 2004, at the request of formerly enslaved women, My Sister's Keeper helped the villages of Panliet and Akon acquire grinding mills. These mills save many women and girls from thousands of hours of backbreaking labor. In addition, the mills have provided jobs for a few women, and improved the quality of life of hundreds more. For example, many of the village girls who had to pound grain out of necessity are now freed up to attend primary school.

Supporting the Prevention of HIV/AIDS

Because travel in Sudan was stymied during the civil war between North and South, the rate of HIV/ AIDS tends to be far lower in southern Sudan than in most others parts of sub-Saharan Africa. Today, as peace opens up routes of travel for the first time in decades, it creates opportunity for the spread of HIV.

In 2002, My Sister's Keeper brought Sudanese medical doctor Luka Deng to the United States for an in-depth training at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, MA on the prevention of HIV/AIDS in rural Africa. Leaders like Dr. Deng are seizing a precious window of opportunity to prevent the spread of the disease. His rural clinic treats thousands of southern Sudanese, many of whom are responding to Deng's life-saving message of prevention.