October 2012 DEAR FRIENDS OF TOGETHER FOR SUDAN,
TfS Secretary Alan Goulty and I arrived back in Arlington, Virginia, in late September after one of the most informative and challenging of my twenty-eight visits to Sudan since 2000. This time much was different. Following the creation of South Sudan on 20 July 2011, the land is divided into two countries, each facing severe challenges.
VISIT TO KHARTOUM. Rejoicing to have reached Khartoum after two sleepless nights between Virginia and Africa, Alan and I checked into Khartoum’s Acropole Hotel (See my essay about the iconic Acropole in the July 2012 edition of SUDAN STUDIES). Exhausted, we slept through the few hours of Sudan’s “Arab spring”, which included attacks on the American and German embassies. All seemed calm the next morning when we set off for the usual briefing by Neimat, Together for Sudan’s Country Coordinator. Over the next five days we visited a number of TfS project sites, met with friends and supporters, and contacted prospective international donors. Khartoum remains somewhat on edge but we were surrounded by friends, colleagues and TfS Patrons, and rejoiced to be back in Sudan – despite the 100 degree temperature. As always, a visit to Khartoum was like a homecoming.
Visiting Ahfad University, where many of our 117 university scholars currently study, was also a joyful experience. At Ahfad we met as well with women representing the Babiker Badri Foundation which concentrates on support for women’s rights and female empowerment through literacy. Other contacts included visits to a vocational training centre for impoverished girls, a self-help kindergarten for which we hope to find funding (Let us know if you are able to help!), and a trip to Soba Aradi displaced persons area where for many years we have sponsored schools as funding allows. This area now faces bulldozing as Khartoum spreads and displaced people from Darfur and South Kordofan are pushed further back into the desert. Other particularly significant meetings included time with Dr. Nabila Radi, who runs the TfS Eye Care Outreach, and a visit to the White Sisters (Missionaries of Africa) in Haj Yusuf, long time friends who live just outside Khartoum. Conversations with our Sudanese colleagues were inspiring and hopeful despite their sadness over the loss of colleagues who had moved to Juba. We also renewed ties to Sudanese friends who kept us well fed and well briefed on any number of important issues.
A TfS Women's Literacy Class in Wad el Bashir Outside Khartoum
Among urgent requests for TfS attention during our five days in Khartoum were more university scholarships, expanded Eye Care Outreach, provision of breakfast for pre-school children in outlying areas, funding to train midwives and nurses, eye care and food for lepers in a colony where donors have been obliged to cut back their support and, always, more outreaches by our HIV/AIDS Awareness team. Positive responses to these requests depend on you, Together for Sudan’s supporters. Sadly unrest in the Nuba Mountains of South Kordofan does not yet allow us to resume work there.
Together for Sudan University Scholars in Juba
VISIT TO JUBA. As with our visit to Khartoum and environs, our time in Juba, the capital of the new nation of South Sudan, was too brief. South Sudan faces many difficulties, including tribalism, corruption, malnutrition and endemic diseases — as well as the challenges facing all new countries. Briefings by officials, diplomats and churchmen were very useful and we were impressed by the hope for a better future. Several of our former Khartoum colleagues are now in South Sudan and hope to work with us. Sadly both typhoid and malaria are endemic in South Sudan and two of our former colleagues were ill, one with both diseases at once! It was a delight to meet Silas Jojo, who ran TfS’s Khartoum office for several years. Here is a photo of his daughter Lillian Lubo, a goddaughter I had not seen for several years! Always visionary and competent, Silas has brilliantly set up a mother/child clinic in Juba. Please help Together for Sudan to support this much needed clinic! LOOKING FORWARD. How do we move forward now to help the people of South Sudan? The answer seems obvious. We must listen to what they tell us is most urgently needed and remain within our mandate of giving priority to women and girls. We must not deviate from what women have always asked of us: education and health services. Nearly 80 percent of women in South Sudan are illiterate and at least five percent of the people in the Juba area are HIV positive.
Lillian and Lillian Lobo in Juba
Such statistics help point us in the right direction. Although it is up to our TfS supporters to help us turn hopes into action, as always I am encouraged that TfS has as well the strength, perseverance and hope of South Sudanese women – and men. Editha, once a dynamic leader of the TfS HIV/AIDS outreach in Sudan, is now active in the same work in South Sudan and hoping we can support her. Meanwhile, Victor Gali Thomas, a former colleague in Khartoum, is serving as our representative in Juba. And Minallah, our Khartoum accountant for several years, is available to work again with TfS in Juba.
TOGETHER FOR SUDAN CANNOT CONTINUE TO REACH OUT TO THE PEOPLE OF SUDAN AND SOUTH SUDAN WITHOUT YOUR HELP. Please make a contribution to South Sudan’s future through Together for Sudan. Our hope is to have three or four of our projects active in South Sudan by the end of this year.
UPDATE ON TOGETHER FOR SUDAN/THE BISHOP MUBARAK FUND PROJECTS AS OF LATE 2012.
UNIVERSITY SCHOLARSHIPS. At present 117 scholars in university and 246 graduates, including 12 new scholars at Ahfad University in Khartoum. Current donors to this project are the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, Humanity United, the Gordon Memorial College Trust Fund and recent private donors. Some 16 scholars are believed to have moved to the South and of these we have paid fees at the University of Juba for eight and await performance reports for two others. We have as yet no contact with the rest.
VOCATIONAL TRAINING. Sixteen scholars graduated this past summer and two moved to South Sudan before completing their courses. We have recruited 15 new women students, 14 from the Nuba Mountains and one from Darfur, and plan to recruit three or four Nuba women for midwifery courses early next year. The Gordon Memorial College Trust Fund supports this project but we urgently need further long-term donors.
EYE CARE OUTREACH. Since March we have held two outreaches a month in the Khartoum area, seeing a total of 952 patients. Although we are currently unable to work in the Nuba Mountains, funds originally allocated for Kadugli were used for outreach at Um Ruwaba in North Kordofan in May when 1,805 people were examined, some treated immediately and others still in need of eye surgery. Funding to sustain this critically important project is adequate for only another month or so.
WOMEN’S LITERACY CLASSES. Last spring 30 teachers were trained thanks to a British Embassy grant. More recently, with funding from Refugees International Japan, 20 literacy classes, each started with at least 20 students, have been set up in areas around the Three Towns. Most of these classes have now resumed after the Eid break and we are monitoring closely to ensure that all function effectively.
HIV/AIDS OUTREACH, Khartoum. Following the Ramadan break , this vitally important project resumed in September with eight outreaches to be funded from our unrestricted funds – that is YOUR donations.
SCHOOLING FOR AIDS ORPHANS, Khartoum. Project being restarted with support for ten schools on the basis that we pay salaries for two teachers in each school and the school allows 10 orphans to study free of charge. We hope to give head teachers’ advice on further teacher training. The project has been funded with the last of a grant from ICING (which no longer exists). Another sponsor is urgently needed.
NUBA MOUNTAINS SOLAR PROJECT. Due to insecurity we have been unable to monitor this project since June 2011 when a number of the panels were said to have been stolen. We do not know whether any of the panels installed in village centres and on schools outside Kadugli are still operational.
HIV/AIDS OUTREACH, JUBA. Six outreaches have been held and our local partner, NWERO, has submitted a bid for expansion of the project in three phases.
TfS Sponsored HIV/AIDS Awareness Outreach in Juba, South Sudan
Gifting support to Together for Sudan
P
lease help TfS with its Educational, Hiv-Aids and Eye Care projects, empowering thousands of sudanese women and children, who are suffering the effects of war and poverty. We believe in building peace through service: your donation is vital! Thank you for considering Together for Sudan for your charitable giving:
U
K donors: You can help us even more if you can make your donation tax efficient by filling in a Gift Aid declaration (see insert). if you have already filled in a Gift Aid form for us just complete your name and address (or email) and we will send you an acknowledgement. To set up a regular bank standing order payment please contact our UK treasurer – Norman swanney, 33 Balmoral Road, Trowbridge, BA14 0Js or treasurer@togetherforsudan.org
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s donors: dollar checks should be made out to Friends Together for Sudan. donations are tax deductible and may be sent to FTFS, 4641 23rd Street N, Arlington, VA 22207. Our tax identification number is: 26-4820930. For payment direct to our Us bank please contact jackileighw@gmail.com - or by post to the above Us address.
ANYONE may donate by CREDIT or DEBIT CARD by going to this web address:
ww w.t ogetherfor sudan.or g/donate.aspx
THIS NEWSLETTER HAS TWO MAJOR OBJECTIVES: to brief you on Together for Sudan’s progress and to give you the opportunity to help fund our life enhancing educational work in Sudan and South Sudan. As mentioned, several of our TfS co-workers in Khartoum have returned to South Sudan and are eager to continue to work with us. Please consider helping fund us to put these dedicated, talented and trained people back to work! We also urgently need your support to continue our projects in Sudan and start new ones in South Sudan. These are important but difficult times for the people of both countries. This is a time to learn to cooperate and to reject tribal favourism, a time to support justice and equality for all through education and support for pluralism. As we have done for some 17 years, Together for Sudan extends a helping hand to women and children. If we are to keep our promise to the women and children of Sudan and South Sudan, they need your hand as well.
With appreciation for your support for the women and children of Sudan and South Sudan,
TFS Sponsored Vocational Trainees
Lillian Craig Harris, Director.
P.S. Help us save postage by emailing our newsletters! If you would prefer to receive this newsletter by email, please Send your email address to: adrian@togetherforsudan.org send your email address to Adrian Thomas, our newsletter And do please help sustain our work by signing the enclosed trustee: newsletter@togetherforsudan.org Donation/Gift Aid form. Make UK cheques payable to Together for Sudan & post to: Please do consider whether youNorman can helpSwanney, further. 33 US dollar Balmoral Road, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, BA14 0JS checks should now be made out to ‘Friends Together for US dollar checks should now be made out to Friends Sudan’. tax deductible should be sent to: TogetherDonations for Sudan.are Donations are taxand deductible and should be sent4641 to FTFS, Lincoln Street, Arlington,VA 22207. FTFS, 23rd 2515 StreetNN, Arlington, VA22207. Our tax identification number is: 26-4820930. (Our tax identification number is 26-4820930).For payment direct to our US bank do contact alan@togetherforsudan.org Forbypayment direct to our bank do contact our US or post to the above US US address. treasurer - jackileighw@gmail.com You can now ‘text’ us a donation! or by post to the above See www.togetherforsudan.org/text_donation.aspx for details US address.
Fulla Falls Self Help Pre-School in Soba Aradi Outside Khartoum