When: 6 pm on Tuesday, Nov 17th
Where: St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church 114 George Street, Providence
(free parking is available after 5 pm at the Brown University parking lot at the corner of George and Hope Streets.)
Bishop John Zawo is the leader of Anglican Christians in the region around the town of Ezo in the southern Sudan. Nearly a year ago our own Bishop Wolf travelled to Ezo to set up a "companion relationship" of mutual aid and support with the war-torn Diocese of Ezo, and at our Diocesan Convention this year the relationship was ratified, our continued support assured. Bishop John is now here to visit the Episcopal Diocese of Rhode Island, to meet us and speak with us. He has seen first-hand the current violence in the southern Sudan, and we are honored at the chance to hear some of his experiences and to to help raise awareness of this ongoing conflict.
Ezo is in an area of ongoing political conflict, on the border of the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. While there has been much attention paid to the violence in the Darfur region of the Sudan, it is important not forget the ongoing conflict in the southern Sudan, which has been racked by civil war since 1983 with almost 2 million people killed and over 4 million people displaced from their homes. The 26 year old war produced a ‘lost generation’ of children who have never known basic health care or educational opportunities. Despite the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed in 2005, violence continues in the southern Sudan. Over the past several years, in addition to the internal political conflict, Ezo has been the victim of continual violence from Ugandan Guerrilas referred to as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which is notorious for its sex trafficking of young girls and its use of brutaly violent child soldiers.

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