Mercy Beyond Borders supports the education of hundreds of girls at St Bakhita Primary School in Narus, S.Sudan. It is the first girls’ school in Sudan, and students here learn not only their “reading, writing, and arithmetic,” but also their innate dignity, talent and potential. Girls from the 8th grade class recently engaged older boys from the school across town in a formal debate! And 12 graduates from St Bakhita’s now enjoy full scholarships to high schools in Kenya and Sudan. The joy on this girl’s face says it all: the girls of Sudan crave a chance for education!
Check this map to see some of the other places where MBB is active.
NARUS: St. Bakhita Primary School for Girls
NIMULE: Women's Micro-Enterprise
In the town of Nimule, just north of the Ugandan border, Mercy Beyond Borders has trained and funded 14 women in micro-enterprise. These women survived decades of war; all are HIV+ or have AIDS. They have formed the Cheche [“Wake Up!”] Women’s Support Group and are now determined to rebuild for the sake of their children. With her loan from MBB, Rose has opened the small hotel/restaurant pictured here and is already experiencing a substantial rise in monthly income, making it possible for her to pay school fees for her children. In her own words:
“Having a support group is key for us women. Being sick [with AIDS] means nobody else comes to help, not even family. I got $300 from Mercy Beyond Borders and so I have been able to construct a permanent building for my hotel. Business is good now! And I have already repaid $191 to the loan fund besides more than tripling my savings [from $40 to $150].”
In addition, Rose’s own nutrition has already improved, which means the medication she receives for her HIV will be more effective. What a difference a few hundred dollars has made for Rose and her family!
KURON: Peace Village Medical Clinic
The World Health Organization has called S. Sudan “a perfect storm” for its endemic diseases, lack of basic health care, and extremely difficult terrain. Problems long eradicated elsewhere still plague the country: polio, guinea worm, Hansen’s disease (leprosy), etc. Maternal and child mortality rates are among the world’ s worst. Mercy Beyond Borders funds 4 Sudanese pre-nursing interns at the Kuron Peace Village medical clinic. If these young women complete their year of training successfully, MBB will provide formal nursing scholarships to them. This photo shows the waiting area outside the clinic. It is the only medical facility within a day’s journey.
LOOLIM VILLAGE: Health Education Workshop
Sister Kathleen Connolly, a Mercy Sister from California, conducted Basic Health Education workshops for women in remote Sudanese villages during 2009-2010. Her message was simple: “Wash your hands. Boil your water. Cover your food.” Not so easy to do when water is scarce, exceedingly precious, and must be hauled for hours in a jug atop one’s head. After each workshop, Kathleen joined the women in a feast of maize porridge — a real treat in this region which has been hit hard by drought for the past 3 years. Two Sudanese women trained by Kathleen are continuing this work during 2011.
MAPUORDIT: Promoting Girls' Education
There is only one high school in Mapuordit; it has 208 boys and 12 girls. In keeping with our strategy of promoting the education of females in Sudan, Mercy Beyond Borders pays the school tuition and fees for those 12 girls and has also provided each of them with a bicycle and a solar lantern. The bike shortens their commute (by foot, as long as 3 hours daily each way, to and from school) and the solar lamps enable them to study after sundown, when their household chores are finally done. In the words of Sr. Philippa, the school’ s principal who is strongly committed to increasing the number of girls at the school each year:
“These young women have sat in the darkness with little access to formal education; they have struggled with their studies, trying to read by the flicker of a flame from a nearby fire. They are very happy to have the solar lamps allowing them to read and study after school hours. Thank you for providing them with ‘light’ for an excellent education.”
RUMBEK: Working With Women
In the town of Rumbek, Sr. Mary Mumu is something of a legend. She has worked for years with the most marginated women: those who are widowed, disabled, shunned, forgotten. Her women’ s groups in and around Rumbek have become tremendous sources of strength for the women--together they study to become literate, they share their stories and help one another overcome their challenges, and they work together to raise their meager incomes.
In this picture Mary (in white) and Marilyn visit Rose, a polio survivor and longtime women’ s group leader. Mercy Beyond Borders sent a new wheelchair to Rose [ordered to spec in Nairobi and transported to Rumbek by lorry] when her old one became so rickety that she could no longer propel it along the rutted dirt roads. MBB funding also allowed Mary to hire Rose on a modest stipend to do outreach work with the women in surrounding villages.
MARIAL LOU VILLAGE: Women’s Literacy
Mary Angic, age 42, lived with her husband and seven children through most of the long civil war in the place of her ancestors, Marial Lou Village. In 1998 Mary’s husband was killed. Dinka culture dictated that Mary then become the wife (and property) of her husband’s brother. Mary’s new husband was a good man, and in 2004 she was able to be employed by Medecins San Frontiers as a cleaning woman. In 2008 she joined the Adult School initiated by local women who recognized their need and their right to education. She was bright enough to complete 4 primary classes in 2 years.
The Adult School became so popular that class sizes were too large and teachers too few to accommodate all of the women. With the help of Mercy Beyond Borders a new Adult Education class was opened in Marial Lou. Because she has become literate, Mary recently landed a job as a pharmacist’s assistant! She is hungry for knowledge and thankful for the opportunity to continue studying. At the Mercy Beyond Borders project, Mary is continuing with English language, Literacy, and Numeracy, and she also participates in classes on leadership, budgeting, small business management and income generation. Mary is now confident that her future and the future of her children will be bright.
KITALE, KENYA: Girls’ Scholarships
Currently there are 7 graduates of Sudan’s St Bakhita Primary School who are on Mercy Beyond Borders’ academic scholarships to Crane Academy Secondary School in Kitale,
Kenya. Here the girls — Rebecca, Miriam, Achemi, Alice, Awahe, Aget and Keji -
are shown with their new text books and uniforms. Four are freshmen and three are
juniors. They are adjusting to the KiSwahili language, the much colder weather and the
competition from their Kenyan classmates. Apparently that has not affected their diligent
study: 5 of the 7 girls scored among the top 4 in their respective classes after the first
semester exams!
LODWAR, KENYA: Partnership with New Scholars
After graduating from Stanford University, former Sudanese Lost Boy Samuel Garang Akau started a nonprofit to provide educational opportunities for Sudanese youth who still remain in Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya (the camp in which the Lost Boys lived before coming to the US). New Scholars, Inc now formally partners with Mercy Beyond Borders. Each year New Scholars selects the highest-scoring teens who are graduating from 8th grade in the refugee camp and arranges high school scholarships for them. Mercy Beyond Borders pays for the scholarships of the girls. They attend Turkana Girls’ Secondary School in Kenya. During school break times, New Scholars convenes them, along with their male peers, for leadership training workshops. Christine is one of the scholarship recipients being supported by Mercy Beyond Borders. Here is her autobiography:
"My name is Christine. I was born in 1993 in a small village called Chukudum in the Western Equatoria region of S. Sudan. Actually I grew up there with my twin sister and sibling. My parents took care of us until we became old enough to help on the farm. We used to rely on agriculture in order to survive. Due to lack of advanced equipment, people work manually but harvest a lot to feed their families.
It happened one day that civil war arose. My mother was going about her daily activity while my father was away on a journey and we were left alone at home. I was shocked to see our neighbor’s house burnt down. Everyone ran for safety. My sibling and I took another route because we did not want to lose our lives. We walked for a long distance following a group of people until we reached a cave. Many people gathered in the cave, It was so congested and hot but we never minded as long as we lived.
Two days later, I never heard any news about my parents. I thought they had died. For all the days we spent in the cave, we went without food but we were lucky to get water. One morning my uncle emerged from nowhere and I was very excited because I thought it was the end of my suffering. He took us to a place called Narus; it was safe there. We stayed there for more than a month, and then my parents arrived. The following morning we boarded a vehicle and rode to Kenya: that was in 1998. We arrived in Lokichoggio where we found many refugees settling. The following morning we registered. The condition was not favorable due to the huge number of people. Two weeks later the lorry came and took us to Kakuma refugee camp. In the camp, the UNHCR provided us with food, shelter, and other basic needs.
During my childhood periods, I used to climb hills with my friends, make small houses using grass. Sometimes we spent days in those thatch houses. I’m interested in exploring new areas to learn what people of different nationalities practice. Usually after the day’s work, we gathered with friends to dance our traditional dances as others sang wedding songs. Sometimes we went swimming in the river and watched the birds as they sing softly.
I started my primary education in the refugee camp in 2001. Though the quality was not good, my parents encouraged me to work hard. Life was so difficult. In 2008 I sat for my Kenya certificate of primary education and managed to get good marks that enable me to go to high school. When I complete my studies, I would like to become a politician to help stop corruption in my country.
The day I will never forget is when my aunty and I traveled to Lokichoggio and had an accident. The vehicle jumped and got stuck in the mud. It was unfortunate that two people died and some were injured, including my aunt.
Here is my dream: I am passionate about stopping the spread of Alcoholism in Kakuma refugee camp to make it a safer, healthier, and stronger community. To do so I envision the creation of a community council to develop standards and policies that will be upheld by a police force aided by a community cell phone reporting system.
I am very grateful for New Scholars for giving me this privilege. I am sure I am going to make it in life.”
KHARTOUM: Nursing College
Mercy Beyond Borders works with women and girls in the southern areas of Sudan. One of the first scholarships we awarded was to Sue Imoli Felix, who enrolled in the Nursing School at Upper Nile University in Malakal, S. Sudan. Alas, due to local fighting between rebel groups, the Malakal campus was closed and Sue found herself needing to transfer to the main campus in Khartoum, in the North. This is an Arab culture, very different from the South. As you can see from the photo, daily life there is much more akin to Egypt than to S. Sudan. Sue is one of the few female Southern Sudanese now studying at the college level. She graduated from St Bakhita Primary and Secondary Schools in Narus. Both are supported by Mercy Beyond Borders.
Due to the US government’ s economic embargo against the Khartoum government, it has been very complicated for Mercy Beyond Borders to transfer funding to Sue for her scholarship. Finally, MBB received from the US Office of Foreign Assets Control a special permit to allow the wire transfers. Nothing is easy in Sudan!
BOMA: supporting the education of young women
Boma is an outpost in S. Sudan near the Ethiopian border. ACROSS is one of only two nonprofits working there, so Mercy Beyond Borders has established a working relationship with ACROSS to augment their Accelerated Learning Program (ALP) for young adults who never attended or never finished primary school. The curriculum is designed to condense 8 yrs of primary schooling into 4 years of study. To make the ALP more attractive to young women in the area, Mercy Beyond Borders is now providing uniforms and after-school activities such as dance and drama classes.
Here we see two women of the Merle ethnic group outside their homes near Boma.
YIROL VILLAGE: Women’s Adult Education
The women of Yirol have begun an Adult Education Project. The class of 25 women meets 4 days per week for several hours, studying English and Dinka literacy, numeracy, sewing and handcrafts. Most of these women have never before been in school. The project is overseen by Kaitlyn Jantzi, who staffs the Mennonite Women’s Desk in Rumbek. Here is the story of Martha, one of the Yirol students:
“Martha is approximately 28 years old, married and with six children from a village not far from Yirol centre called Mataar. She joined St. Martha women’s group in Yirol this year and says that being a 4th wife to a husband who is often drunk has been very hard and challenging. She has been left alone to care for her children. Their father does not know how they are fed, dressed and not even where they sleep or if they are sick or healthy.
Since she joined the group she has learned a lot. She is now able to clothe her children and even the little children of her co-wives. She has learned to sew and mend clothes using the sewing machine. She has also learned using the hand needle and now some bit of reading and writing.
She knows if she gets a market for the things she has made, she will definitely get some money that would help her raise her children. With all these she will improve the standard of living of her family, especially by sending her children to school - not to end up like her who at her age is beginning to learn some reading and writing.
She is grateful to the women’s group, the founders and the participants at large. She says the group has opened her eyes and that she is being empowered to be self sufficient and to provide for herself and her children without succumbing to the poverty of many Dinka house wives. She appreciates all those supporting the group financially, materially and spiritually.”
AGANGRIAL: Living with Hansen’s Disease
In the village of Agangrial, where Mercy Beyond Border funds an Adult Education
class, Veronica is one of our proud students. Veronica’s mother suffered from Hansen’s
Disease (leprosy); she raised Veronica the best she could, but Veronica too came
down with the disease. It has claimed parts of all her fingers and toes. The disease,
though controllable with proper medicine, still carries an ancient social stigma that has
effectively marginalized Veronica. She was never able to attend school as a child or
young woman. She now has six children, one of whom has also contracted leprosy. The
responsibility for all of them has fallen on her shoulders since last year when she became
a widow. Veronica works hard to support her children, and she has the qualities of a
good leader. Veronica was one of the first women to request Adult Education for their
community. Thanks to Mercy Beyond Borders, this year Veronica has finally begun her
education: this is Veronica’s very first chance to be in school. She is delightfully eager to
learn and grow in knowledge of the world and herself.
Nairobi, KENYA: Organizing from Afar
During the terrible civil war that wracked S. Sudan for nearly 4 decades (ended by a fragile cease-fire in 2005), it was almost impossible for aid agencies and other nonprofits to work inside S. Sudan. Most set up their headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. Still today, nearly all international NGO’s (nongovernmental organizations) now operating inside Sudan have their main offices in Nairobi, waiting for the infrastructure of roads, communications, banks, and markets inside Sudan to catch up to their basic needs.
For the most part, the groups Mercy Beyond Borders partners with are headquartered in Nairobi. From Nairobi these groups can collaborate, do banking, order supplies, handle logistics, book their air flights in and out of Sudan, arrange for security, and make contingency plans.
This photo shows the main office in Nairobi for the Diocese of Rumbek. Maureen Limer, a sister of Mercy from England who has worked in Africa for nearly 30 years, currently serves as Education Coordinator for the schools in Lake State and Warrap State, a huge swath of geography surrounding Rumbek. Rumbek itself is 4 hours by air north of Nairobi.
ACHOLI CORRIDOR: Wheels for Women
villages in the part of Sudan that is directly north of the Ugandan border, an area known as the Acholi Corridor. Sudanese women in this region had been repeatedly displaced not only by the Sudanese civil war, which forced them to flee southward into Uganda, but also by the notoriously vicious Ugandan rebels known as the Lord’s Resistance Army, who attacked them inside the refugee camps and still terrorize northern Uganda.
Teody Achilo is one of the women from the Acholi Corridor. 20 years ago, she organized the Sudanese Women’s Voice for Peace (SWVP) in various refugee camps. Now she is working with these same women’s groups as they return to their home villages inside Sudan. Early this year Teody organized the delivery of 3 bicycles purchased by Mercy Beyond Borders to the women’s group in each of 10 villages. The bikes will be used for transporting their produce to distant villages on market days — increasing their personal safety and their chances for improved income. It wasn’t easy getting the bikes there! Here is an excerpt from Teody’s report:
“Our flight from Nairobi was turned back because of failed radar. We spent the night in Lokichoggio (on the Sudan/Kenya border). The following morning we met the lorry that had driven up from Nairobi with the bicycles. We waited 6 hours for the river to crest before we could cross the bridge and many more hours before the Immigration Station cleared us. From there we hired the necessary military escorts so as not to be ambushed on the road. 6 miles before reaching Sudan our lorry got stuck and nearly overturned on the badly-rutted road, delaying us another 2 hours until other lorries came to push us upright with a winch. By now it was nearly sunset. We reached the Customs Gate too late; it was closed and the lorry had to remain there overnight….”
And that was just the beginning! To make a long story short, Teody eventually delivered all the bikes after five days of rough travel, as she put it, “through thin and thick.” In village after village, the women danced and erupted into spontaneous song:
Wapwoyo, wapwoyo, wapwoyo en totwal!
Lacwec okony en pi kare ducu
Omii bote yot kom ki bedo
Ikuc pi nakanaka.
Thank you, thank you, thank you very much!
May God take care of you always
Giving you health and letting you be in peace
Forever and ever.
One of the women cried, saying “ This is the first gift in my life…”
