I live and work in Sudan, Africa’s largest country, a place that is (among some) known for its multiple conflicts, indicted war criminal president, oil wealth and the immense suffering of its people.

I live in Juba, the capital of southern Sudan, a semi-autonomous region that may become the newest state in Africa in 2011.

I am a researcher for the Enough Project, an advocacy organization working to get the word out about a region where 2,500 people died in 2009 as a result of inter-communal violence.

What is happening here is as important as what’s occurring in other parts of the world that receive much more media attention and international concern.

The recent fighting is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the long and sad story of southern Sudan, where war raged for more than two decades.

Sudan’s devastating civil war ended in 2005, but it could start again.

This year is critical because if the fragile peace does not hold between the north and south, a new war could begin and all prospects for a resolution of the ongoing crisis in Darfur would be lost.

This matters to me, and through research and advocacy aimed at American policymakers and government officials, my organization, as part of an activist movement across the U.S., is working to make it matter more to U.S. officials who have a chance to help prevent a return to war and promote sustainable peace in Sudan.

Thanks to the excellent education I received at BHS and to the encouragement of my parents, I left Bainbridge for college with the inklings of wanting to know more about what was happening around the world.

Today, almost seven years later, I now know more and this knowledge has made me a different person. I have had wonderful opportunities to see different corners of the globe, as a student, researcher and traveler.

In these experiences, I have generally come away with great optimism and excitement about the places I have seen and the people I have met.

But in southern Sudan, it is hard to feel optimistic or excited about what I have seen. In the short time I have lived here, I have interviewed teenage Congolese refugees who were abducted from their villages by the brutal Lord’s Resistance Army and taken through the bush to southern Sudan.

They eventually escaped and are now scraping by in the U.N. camps.

I have spoken to women whose husbands were killed in attacks on their villages by militias from rival ethnic groups. I have seen sick infants whose mothers are too malnourished to take care of them. I have witnessed brutal acts by soldiers upon their own people.

It is easy to trade in stereotypes about conflicts in Africa, and that is not my intention here. Real people live in southern Sudan and they are surviving as best they can, in circumstances that are literally impossible to imagine until you witness them personally.

I know that is easier not to think about what it is like to be a mother or a father or a child living in a place that feels as though it is sliding back toward war. And I am well aware that many of my fellow Americans face daily struggles of their own in obtaining affordable health care or good education for their children – basic needs that I took for granted when I was growing up.

Still, I wish that more people in the U.S. were aware of the critical needs of the people in southern Sudan.

I am grateful to be here and cognizant of the responsibility I have to pass on information that could improve the lives of people who do not have the luxury of writing letters to make demands of their elected officials.

Although I’m a less bright-eyed person than I was when I graduated from high school and left Bainbridge, I am now more confident in my ability to speak up – loudly and with conviction – about situations and circumstances that deserve more attention.

If you would like to learn more about the issues facing southern Sudan, visit the Enough Project Web site at www.enoughproject.org. Or join the Sudan Now campaign at www.sudanactionnow.com to learn how to urge the Obama administration to support peace in Sudan.

Maggie Fick is a BHS graduate Class of 2003 and a researcher for a project of Washington, D.C.-based Center for American Progress. She’s available at mfick@enoughproject.org.