OT - Need help on sending money to Sudan

tawse57

Hi All,

I hope you can bear with me for a moment as I need to pick the brains of some of you clever people here.

I am not sure if this is the right board, or if there is even a right board for this post, but I would be grateful for all help and advice.

A few weeks ago I could not sleep, was tossing and turning and ended up switching on the radio. The BBC World Service was on and it was a programme about female slaves in Sudan. The programme concerned one woman who had been a slave for many years, had escpaed and was now living back with her community. She has several children but all her immediate family are now dead. She simply has no one to help her to raise her family.

Without going into detail this struck a nerve with me. Perhaps it was because she had a name and once you have a name you have a person. It is often difficult to see how we can help thousands or millions but perhaps we can help one person.

Anyhow, I contacted the BBC to see if I could send some money to this woman to help her out. The information I got back was to send it via a charity worker via Western Union so that she can receive it. I have just checked with Western Union and it is prohibitively expensive to wire money to the Sudan - basically for every pound you send it effectively costs another pound in charges.

I want to be able to do something to help this woman now and maybe again in the future. If anyone knows of a way I can get money to the Sudan cheaply/effectively and perhaps on an ongoing basis I would be grateful.

Come on clever people - some of you must have an idea?

Thanks for taking the time to read this post.


T.

worldwindow

I had to transfer money to Sudan a couple of years ago. I used a company called Sahloul & Kamar (try googling). Can't remember their charges, but they were reasonable & quick. They also allowed the recipient in Sudan to get the money in dollars, rather than local currency.

good luck - it's not easy getting money out there!

tawse57

Thanks Worldwindow - much appreciated.

caliston

Agree with worldwindow - dollars are much more useful than Sudanese pounds, so try to keep it in hard currency if you can. I heard a rumour a few months ago that Sudan was going to switch over to Euro as hard currency as the dollar is so devalued - haven't heard whether this has happened yet.

Is the charity worker in Khartoum or elsewhere? The postal service has collapsed so getting money to the provinces isn't easy. Also don't bother trying to post letters to Sudan, they won't arrive unless you send them DHL, FedEx or similar. Exchange controls are in place - you should declare currency going in or out, and over $X000 is forbidden (don't know the exact amount).