As Sudan faces what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, Kids for Kids founder Patricia Parker OBE reflects on 25 years of grassroots action, and the boy who changed everything
BY FRANCESCA RAPISARDA
When Patricia Parker first set foot in Darfur in 2001, she expected hardship. What she found instead was a level of deprivation that defied comprehension. Entire families lived in fragile straw huts, exposed to desert winds and drifting sand as the Sahara crept further south each year. Water, despite a vast aquifer below, was a luxury out of reach. Failed harvests, drought, and grinding poverty had pushed countless villages to the brink.
But it was a single encounter with a nine-year-old boy that would alter the course of her life, and change the fate of hundreds of thousands of children.
“We were in the middle of nowhere,” she recalled, “when this tiny figure appeared on the horizon. He’d been walking seven hours in blistering heat to fetch water for his family and their three goats.”
His name was Ibrahim. And in that moment, Parker realised that what she had seen in Darfur demanded more than sympathy, it required action.
Within five days, Kids for Kids was born.
Now approaching its 25th anniversary, Kids for Kids has grown into one of the most respected grassroots organisations operating in Darfur. Its mission is simple: give families the tools to lift themselves out of poverty, and do it village by village.
Since 2001, the charity has adopted 110 villages and transformed the lives of more than 590,000 people. Goat loans, clean water hand pumps, donkeys for transport, trained paravets, village midwives, mosquito nets, blankets and essential medicines, modest interventions with life-changing impact.
But above all, it’s goats that lie at the heart of the charity’s philosophy.
“Goats saved Ibrahim’s family,” Parker explained. “Goat’s milk meant the difference between malnutrition and survival. We lend five goats to the poorest families for two years, enough to build a small flock. Then healthy offspring are passed on to another family. That rotation continues, even now during the violence. That’s real sustainability.”
This year, Kids for Kids witnessed its fourth goat rotation in Kulkul village, meaning 75 more families received life-saving support thanks to one original loan.
Sudan today is in a difficult situation because of conflicts that erupted in April 2023 who have forced more than 16 million people from their homes. Villages have burned, schools and banks have closed, and famine has taken hold in parts of North Darfur. Cholera, malaria and measles are big health issues in malnourished communities.
Parker said: “This is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and the world isn’t looking.”
For Kids for Kids volunteers in the region, the work has never been more dangerous. Many have fled their homes yet continue to deliver aid. Only weeks ago, two members of the charity’s Steering Committee helped secure two giant water tankers for families who had escaped from 12 Kids for Kids villages after attacks.
Parker said that ensuring their safety is her main goal and also her constant worry.
“Our volunteers are risking their lives. What they do is remarkable.”
Meanwhile, the charity has shifted to emergency operations, providing “Kids Kitchen Kits,” protein-rich food, seeds and medicine, to families cut off from all formal support.
One family’s story stays with her. In August 2023, Madiha, her husband and their eight children fled the violence, walking for days in search of safety. Three of the children were already severely malnourished. When they reached Um Ga’al, the first village Kids for Kids ever adopted, the community immediately sheltered them. Kids for Kids provided blankets, mosquito nets, food and a donkey for transport.
“It’s the difference between despair and survival,” Parker said.
Two decades after that first meeting, Ibrahim is no longer a child walking the desert in search of water. He’s a university graduate, a husband, and a father. His children attend the village kindergarten built by Kids for Kids. His wife was assisted by the village midwife trained by the charity. His childhood friend now runs a tree nursery set up through the charity’s agricultural projects.
“It’s living proof that long-term, grassroots development works,” Parker said. “Ibrahim’s life, and the lives of countless others, is what keeps me going.”
Parker’s ethos is unshakeable: charity should empower, not create dependence.
“One pound, one dollar at a time, that’s our motto,” she said. “No one is too young or too old to make a difference.”
It is a philosophy she brought from a career in public relations and disability advocacy, as well as years spent supporting other charities such as Marie Curie. She received her MBE for founding the Fields of Hope campaign, and she recalled the year 300,000 daffodils filled her garage.
In 2021, she was awarded an OBE. “It was an honour to have Darfur recognised,” she said. “The world forgets Darfur, but we never will.”
As the charity approaches its 25th birthday, Parker is planning a year of fundraising events, including a celebratory reception. She hoped stability would soon return to Darfur so the charity could resume adopting new villages, planting more trees, building more kindergartens, and offering trauma counselling, which she fears will be desperately needed.
Crucially, she is preparing to recruit a new CEO to secure the charity’s long-term future.
“I need to hand over the reins eventually, but not yet,” she said firmly. “Kids for Kids will be needed more than ever once the conflict ends.”
Asked what legacy she hopes to leave, Parker does not hesitate.
“I am proud of what we’ve achieved. Darfurians have lost faith in the international community, but not in Kids for Kids. We will continue to be the hope they deserve. We will never give up on them.”
She recalled a favourite quote from Patron Dame Joanna Lumley: “The health of the animals is closely related to the health of the children.”
“We need many more goats.”
After all, Kids for Kids was never about grand gestures. It was, and remains, about small, meaningful acts, one goat, one village, one child at a time, in a part of the world most people will never see.
And it all began with a boy on the edge of the Sahara, walking miles for water.
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