For students at the Don Bosco Primary School located on the Don Bosco Gumbo campus, Salesian missionaries are providing new pens, pencils and school stationary for the new school year. The primary school serves 1,000 children, many of whom are from families who have been internally displaced.

According to the World Bank, almost 83 percent of South Sudanese resided in rural areas before the outbreak of the recent conflict which has displaced more than 2 million people. Only 27 percent of the population aged 15 years and older is literate, with significant gender disparities. The literacy rate for males is 40 percent compared to 16 percent for females with less than 1 percent of girls completing primary education. The Don Bosco Primary School’s mission is to educate all students with a focus on ensuring that girls have equal access to education. Close to 45 percent of the school’s students are girls.

“Girls education is important to us, and we work to ensure that girls are welcome in our school,” says Father David Tulimelli, parish priest at the Salesian St. Vincent de Paul parish which operates Don Bosco Gumbo, “We are grateful to our donors who made it possible that we could provide our students the school supplies they need to be prepared for their lessons and complete their studies.”

South Sudan is one of the poorest countries in the world with 55 percent of its population living in poverty, according to the World Bank. The country celebrated its third year of independence in 2015 but is facing an ongoing civil war that started in December 2013 and has resulted in a dire humanitarian crisis.

According to a recent New York Times articles, international aid agencies have developed a report that indicates more than 2.2 million people in South Sudan have fled their homes over the past two years, including some 600,000 who have sought refuge in neighboring countries. Last year, according to the report, a new pattern of violence emerged in which government forces adopted scorched-earth tactics burning entire villages, killing their inhabitants, destroying crops and looting livestock. The civil war, which started in northern and eastern states has now spread to the south.

During the first year of the war, fighting was initially between Nuer and Dinka ethnic communities aligned with the rival leaders but of late a wider array of armed groups and communities have been drawn into the increasingly lethal violence. The international aid agencies’ report also detailed the severity of human rights violations and abuses that have increased with the continuation of hostilities in the country and noted that attacks that have singled out and killed children as well as subjected them to sexual violence. Further, the United Nations estimates that as a result of the conflict, 2.8 million people are currently facing “acute” food and nutrition insecurity in South Sudan’s Greater Upper Nile states.

###

Sources:

NY Times – U.N Finds South Sudan Increasingly in Turmoil

World Bank – South Sudan 

The post SOUTH SUDAN: Salesian Missionaries at Don Bosco Gumbo are Providing School Supplies and Food Aid to Those Internally Displaced first appeared on MissionNewswire.

This follows decades of civil war, and a referendum this past January in which nearly 99 percent of southern Sudanese who voted chose to secede from Sudan and form an independent nation.

The new nation enters a new phase while confronting humbling realities about the state of its people. South Sudan is one of the most impoverished countries in the world, has the world’s highest maternal mortality rate and struggles with very low literacy rates (90% of the female population remain illiterate). According to the United Nations, more than half of its people feed, clothe and shelter themselves on less than one dollar a day.

In an editorial published by the New York Times on July 7, Secretary General of the U.N. Ban Ki-Moon wrote, “I came to appreciate the sheer scale of these challenges, for myself, when I first visited South Sudan in 2007 — an area of 620,000 square kilometers with less than 100 kilometers of paved road. Within this larger context, the risk of increased violence, harm to civilian populations and further humanitarian suffering is very real.”

At the same time, he points out “South Sudan has remarkable potential. With substantial oil reserves, huge amounts of arable land and the Nile flowing through its center, South Sudan could grow into a prosperous, self-sustaining nation capable of providing security, services and employment for its population.”

A new USAID mission has been designated – in the South Sudan city of Juba – to address the country’s development needs and create a transition strategy to guide activities in South Sudan.

“The lack of economic opportunity, particularly among marginalized youth, is another critical potential driver of conflict in South Sudan,” reads the USAID’s South Sudan Transition Strategy Executive Summary.

Specializing in meeting the needs of such marginalized youth, the Salesians of Don Bosco have been working in the region since 1982 – providing educational opportunities, housing, food, youth centers, health services and other needs to those otherwise without a voice or hope for the future. The Salesians’ work continued even during the most intense warfare in 1997 and 1998, followed by the starvation of many and an ongoing humanitarian crisis that continues today. The atrocities in Darfur sparked an international outcry for the entire region – as people not only fled for their lives due to violence, but also fought starvation, poverty and disease.

After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, new opportunities arose for international humanitarian organizations to partner in the reconstruction of Sudan.

In response, the Don Bosco Network – an international network of Salesian NGOs that includes Salesian Missions in New Rochelle, NY – published a “Sudan 2007-11 Country Strategy Paper.” The paper included an outlined approach for specific interventions to help youth in the southern Sudan zone. Strategies included: improving access to schooling, especially for IDPs (internally displaced people) in the town of Wau; enabling the start-up of small enterprises in the Wau County by providing employment-oriented vocational training to youth; and promoting agro-based livelihoods in the Wau County through agricultural training and services.

As a result, Salesian involvement throughout Sudan has been further developed, including a strong presence in four of the cities in the newly formed South Sudan: Tonj, Wau, Maridi and Juba.

At St. Joseph’s Vocational Training Center in Kharotoum, Sudan, youth receive instruction in computer training, wiring, masonry, carpentry and welding.

An educational program in Tonj – which consists of a primary school for 1,200 students and educational centers in the villages – seeks to make education more easily accessible to children.  Currently there are six such village educational centers with plans in place for more. Another essential service in Tonj is a Salesian-run health center which cares for approximately 250 out-patients every day and is the only medical facility available within 125 miles.

In Wau, a Salesian vocational school trains youth in general mechanics, carpentry and plumbing in addition to promoting agricultural projects essential to the town.

These programs are examples of the many operated by the Salesians in nations throughout Africa and the entire globe, from orphanages and feeding centers to training institutes. Connecting the newly formed nation of South Sudan with the East Africa region and the world in meaningful ways, will be essential to its future.

“South Sudan must also reach out to its other neighbors,” Ban Ki-Moon wrote in his New York Times editorial. “Across the globe — and in Africa, especially — the trend is toward regional partnerships. South Sudan will be strengthened by becoming an active participant in the regional organizations of East Africa and developing durable trade and political ties throughout the continent.”

##

Joseph Hobson contributed to this report.

Photos courtesy of Salesians of Don Bosco Sudan.

Sources:

USAID
– www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/countries/south_sudan/docs/south_sudan_transition_strategy_summary.pdf
– www.usaid.gov/locations/sub-saharan_africa/south_sudan

NY Times Editorial by BAN KI-MOON (Secretary General of the United Nations)
www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/opinion/08iht-edban08.html?_r=1&ref=sudan

VIS (Volontariato Internazionale per lo Sviluppo)
“DBN Sudan Country Strategy Paper 2007-2011”
www.volint.it/sudan/localpartner.html

The post SOUTH SUDAN: New Nation Formed, Humbling Realities Remain for Aid Agencies first appeared on MissionNewswire.