Making a Difference in Sudan

Female prisoners singing a song of thanks for their new sleep room.

International Police Advisor Audrey Edens
leaves a positive footprint

DI supports the State Department’s civilian police missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, and Sudan. Police officers from across the U.S. serve on one-year missions abroad, helping increase stability by transferring their knowledge and skills to local police in unstable or post-conflict environments.

The U.N. Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) has approximately 1,600 civilian police from more than 40 contributing nations. The U.S. has one of the smallest contingents — 15 DI employees who serve as United Nations police.

One of them is International Police Advisor Audrey Edens. This is her third civilian police mission. She served in Croatia as station commander from 1998 to 2000, and in Kosovo she was in charge of regional investigations from 2001 to 2003.

Audrey Edens was featured in the October 2007 UNMIS Police in Action newsletter. She is referred to as “Mother Theresa of Yei” for the work she has done to help inmates at the prison in Yei, Sudan.

Audrey writes, “I am proud to say that we Americans are a positive influence here in Sudan, and this was also the case on my other missions. I have learned a lot about the importance of leaving positive impressions in post-conflict areas. Looking back, I see that in Croatia we took a great opportunity to build friendships with locals. In fact, I still hear from many who trained with me.

“In Kosovo, I had an opportunity to show that the first female American as Chief could bring positive change to a pretty dysfunctional local police unit. And now I am in the Sudan, and hopefully leaving positive footprints here.

I am so proud of the improvements we have instituted in the prison in Yei. I recognized early on that women and children were victimized by the police system. Friends, other contingent members, and UN police from Yei and Juba contributed money for supplies to build separate sleeping quarters for females held in the prison. When a group of boys were rounded up for petty crimes, we started the second project — separate sleeping quarters for the male juveniles because they were held with adult men, some of whom were hardened criminals. This project was totally funded by Americans, and their generosity has been quite moving.

“The photos show some of the women that I was able to help with hygiene products, underwear, and soap because there just wasn’t anything for them from the prison. And hey, when a woman only asks for underwear, I couldn’t forget them.

”It would be nice if more women were interested in this mission. Although difficult, it can be quite rewarding. We started out as one of the smallest contingents in Sudan, and we’ve grown from seven to 15 with some really fine police, corrections officers, and attorneys – a group DynCorp can surely be proud of. We are all role models in our own way, so my philosophy is to leave a positive footprint wherever you go.”

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DI WORLD May 2008