Darfur Dream Team on ESPN

In case you missed it, ESPN’s Sports Center featured the Darfur Dream Team’s Sister Schools Program in a special segment last night. Basketball star Tracy McGrady of the Houston Rockets and Enough’s Omer Ismail and John Prendergast  were shown in footage from their trip together to eastern Chad.

The ESPN feature is first major television segment focused on the Darfur Dream Team’s Sister Schools Program. The piece will re-air on this morning’s Sports Center.

The Darfur Dream Team is a dynamic partnership of organizations and professional basketball players working together on the Sister Schools Program, an initiative to connect American middle schools, high schools, colleges, and universities with sister schools in the 12 refugee camps in Chad. The idea for the program was hatched during McGrady’s trip to Darfuri refugee camps in eastern Chad with Enough’s Prendergast and Ismail, during which he witnessed firsthand the deplorable state of life in refugee camps and heard the refugees’ grave stories.

As part of the Sister Schools Program, U.S. schools are raising funds to improve the education of their Darfuri peers through the construction and rehabilitation of school buildings as well as by providing teacher training, sports equipment, and other school supplies. The program also aims to foster cross-cultural relationships between American students and Darfuri refugee students through letter exchanges and video blogging, with the goal of creating a stable educational environment in the camps so that Darfuri students develop the skills to one day return home and build a stronger, more peaceful Sudan.

Visit darfurdreamteam.org today to sign up your school to become a sister school or to learn more about the Darfur Dream Team.

• Sudan and South Sudan