Don Bosco Health Clinic will have improved equipment and supplies with new funding

(MissionNewswire) Salesian missionaries with the Don Bosco Health Clinic Gumbo, located in Juba, South Sudan*, are appreciative of the support provided by the Ordesa Foundation, an organization in Spain. With the foundation’s support, the Don Bosco Health Clinic will have improved equipment and supplies available for diagnosis and treatment to enable doctors to better care for those people who have been displaced by violence in the country.

Since 2002, the Ordesa Foundation has been committed to the improvement of the living conditions and the nutrition and health of children — especially newborns, infants and children in the first years of life.

In South Sudan, many of the health centers are not functioning and people may live miles away from a health care center, making access to care difficult.

The clinic was founded in 2012 to treat internally displaced people, especially children suffering from malnutrition. In addition, Salesians offer mobile clinics in surrounding areas. With the support they received from the Ordesa Foundation, Salesians will be able to aid more than 87,500 women, 12,000 children under the age of 14 and almost 6,000 others.

“This collaboration will last two years and will improve the quality of life for thousands of people in a country that has been suffering the consequences of violence since 2013. For this, we thank the Ordesa Foundation,” said Father Luis Manuel Moral, head of the Salesian Mission Office in Madrid, who accepted the grant during a ceremony at the Royal Academy of Pharmacy of Catalonia in Barcelona.

Salesians have been working in Juba since 2006 and operate the health clinic, a primary and secondary school, a vocational training center, a center for the empowerment of women, and a camp for internally displaced people.

South Sudan is expansive and largely rural with 83% of the population residing in rural areas. Poverty is endemic with at least 80% of the population defined as income-poor and living on the equivalent of less than $1 per day, according to the World Bank. More than one-third of the population lacks secure access to food.

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Sources:

ANS Photo (usage permissions and guidelines must be requested from ANS) 

ANS – South Sudan – The Don Bosco health clinic in Gumbo receives the support of the Ordesa Foundation

Salesian Missions – South Sudan

World Bank – South Sudan

*Any goods, services or funds provided by Salesian Missions to programs located in this country were administered in compliance with applicable laws and regulations, including sanctions administered by the U.S. Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Asset Control.