Sudan Update 10

Dear All,

Since I last wrote many things have been happening in Malakal and Renk.

The rainy season has finished and in Malakal the mud has dried up, the funny thing was that during the rains I only had to go out our front door to be caked in mud from the knee down but as you waded your way in to town you would pass men walking through in super white smocks and immaculately clean trainers without so much as a smear of mud on them!?

Renk Flooding
In Renk the flooding from the summer has subsided and people whose homes were washed away have been living in displacement camps. With our assistance the Diocese of Renk have been helping NGO’s (charities) working in the area in their provision of essential goods to the camps. They will also be assisting in the relocation of the people to a new permanent settlement area on higher ground away from the flood plain they had been living on previously.
Training Workshops - The main focus for the last 2 months has been on giving the training workshops on Project Management, Financial Management, Financing the Church and Basic Office Administration to key members of both Diocese. We spent a lot of time looking at Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem for the work on Project Management which everyone seemed to particularly enjoy.

Malakal Diocese Training
Overall the training seems to have been received well with a good mix of people attending. The training in Malakal took place in the Cathedral which is next to an extremely dirty pit latrine full of flies and maggots, using it is always a very miserable experience. At the end of the training, one man got up to say how much he had enjoyed being able to attend and in particular how much he had appreciated being able to use such wonderful latrine!! I can only presume that he has no latrine at all at home because they don’t get too much worse.

Diocese Art Exhibition
The Church Art Exhibition in Malakal went really well, the Bishop and a number of artists from different tribes around the country came together to display their work in Malakal’s first ever exhibition which was themed ‘The Art of Reconciliation’. It was held in Malakal Primary School and many locals and internationals living in Malakal were invited.

The children of Malakal Primary school were also able to contribute to the exhibition, I ran a series of art classes in which the children produces some fantastic banners depicting their homes and families which have been put up permanently in some of the school classrooms. As well as painting and drawing they produced some beautiful lanterns which where hung from the ceiling on which they wrote what peace meant to them on. The bishop was very keen they should produce some traditional mud sculptures so me and some of the children went off to dig
The children’s work on show at the exhibition up buckets of mud, we just added water and rolled small balls of mud in the dust and handed them out. The mud seemed such poor quality to me that I wasn’t sure would be able to do anything with it, but in minutes children had made the most beautifully smooth and accurate animal figures! It was quite amazing. There are no art classes in school or any opportunities for the children here to draw and paint.

School Building Continues
Renk Diocese is still part way through their Christian Aid funded school building project which we assist with. This is a picture of 2 of the new classrooms built for one of the church’s primary schools in a village called Lathbior. These additional classrooms mean that the school has enough rooms for all its year groups.

On our first visit to Lathbior back in March we had been very concerned about the lack of ownership shown by the local community towards the school which was in very bad disrepair. However after encouragement from the Diocese the community have started to make repairs to the buildings in the pictures on the right.

2008
We have also been helping the diocese of Malakal in making new applications for funding for 2008 for strengthening their existing schools. All their schools have extremely sporadic water supplies which are currently endangering the school feeding programmes as there is not always enough water to cook the children s food. Lack of access to clean water in school also is also causing serious health risks for the children and teachers drinking it so the diocese are hoping to provide all their schools (they currently run 5 in the diocese) with water tanks which would allow the schools to collect and store water which can be used for watering school gardens. None of the schools currently have any perimeter fencing; this leaves the school vulnerable in a number of ways so the diocese hope to put up perimeter fencing which would increase security for the children and allow plots of land to be protected for cultivation inside.

School Gardens
The Diocese is keen to get started on a new school garden project. The purpose for this project is to improve food security for its schools, potentially sell excess produce as income generation for the schools and to teach agriculture classes to the children which hopefully will reduce their food in the future. We have been helping them to forge a partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Christian charity World Vision. Our schools will provide the plots of land and staff to be trained, World Vision will be providing training and agricultural expertise and WFP will provide the seeds and tools.

That’s all our news for now,
Best wishes Keren & Simon x