Strategy #1: Educating Girls
The surest path to peace and long-term stability in Sudan lies with the education of girls. MBB intends to become the premier provider of academic scholarships in all of Sudan, both for 8th graders needing sponsorship in order to continue on to high school, and for high school grads desirous of enrolling in higher education to become teachers or nurses.
GO! [Girls’ Opportunities!] Scholars
| $5,000 | GO! Scholars: Beginning in January 2010, MBB is awarding 5 secondary school scholarships(@ $1,000 each) to academic high-achievers from St. Bakhita Girls Primary School to attend high schools in Kenya. Because there are so few secondary schools in Sudan with fully qualified faculties, the top academic students prefer to study in Kenya. Given the high cost of transport from Sudan to Kenya as well as tuition, room and board, few students can pursue high school without scholarships. | |
| $2,000 | In addition, MBB has granted high school scholarships (@ $1,000 each) to 2 Sudanese refugee girls who graduated from 8th grade in Kakuma Refugee Camp and were selected via competitive exam scores by New Scholars, Inc--an organization with whom MBB partners in Africa—to enroll in Kenyan secondary schools. | |
| $2,500 | Finally, MBB will be providing 5 scholarships (@ $500 each) for 8th grade graduates to attend St. Bakhita Secondary School in Narus, Sudan. |
All of these scholarships will be open for renewal for 4 years, provided that the girls maintain good marks. Naturally, this means the cumulative cost will be 4 times the initial cost for each scholar. As donations permit, MBB will expand the numbers of scholars.
For first-hand accounts also see the contributions by Amal Solomon and Christine Apio, two of our scholars, in our stories section.
 |
 |
| St Bakhita Girl Who Needs High School Scholarship |
Sunday And Rose Seeking Teaching or Nursing Scholarships |
WE [Women Educated] Scholars
| $10,000 | WE Scholars: beginning in 2010, MBB will be awarding residential scholarships to Sudanese girls who have successfully completed secondary school (a milestone in itself, in a country where girls are statistically more likely to die in childbirth than to complete primary school) and who want to become teachers or nurses. MBB has identified several young women who qualify for these scholarships (@ $2,000 each) and is in the process of communicating with appropriate schools and on–the-ground partners to begin implementation. WE Scholars are eligible for scholarships renewals for 2 – 4 years, depending on the program they are enrolled in and their achievement. As time goes on and revenues allow, MBB would like to extend its scholarship programs throughout all of Southern Sudan. |
St Bakhita Girls Primary School
St Bakhita Primary School remains our flagship project: over 800 young girls in the first all-girls school in the entire country! Founded by Bishop Paride Taban in 1997 beneath a tree in Narus, the school began with 27 students displaced by the war. It struggled to survive amid chaos and bombings during the war; since the Peace Agreement between North and South Sudan in 2005 and subsequent “adoption” by Mercy Beyond Borders, the school has not only stabilized but grown dramatically.
For its general operating support, St Bakhita Primary school needs the following support every year:
| $20,000 for augmenting teacher salaries | Why? Because the UN and other development groups that have come into Sudan in the past few years need drivers and cooks and interpreters--and are paying double or triple what a teacher earns! Teachers are leaving schools to get those better salaries. By augmenting the salaries of the St Bakhita staff (for example, providing monthly food stipends), MBB has helped reduce teacher turnover. | |
| $5,000 for hygiene supplies | Older girls tend to drop out of school at puberty because they do not have sanitary supplies. Providing them is a highly cost-effective way to keep them in school and increase their self-confidence. | |
| $5,000 for goats | One $50 goat becomes a nutritious treat for 80 girls and 10 goats feeds the entire student body. MBB wants to provide this meal at least once each month during the academic year for the girls. | |
| $5,000 for special needs | With 800 girls at the school, many of them boarders, there are always special needs that crop up: medicines for malaria or scorpion bite, transport for an unexpected trip home due to a death in the family, girls who needs uniforms to replace the ones they’ve outgrown, prizes for academic achievers. | |
| $500 | Awards at the close of each academic year to the most deserving faculty and students. | |
| $50,000 | $100 keeps a girl in school all year. $50,000 enables 500 girls to live and learn at St Bakhita’s for a year. | |
| $6,000 | 9 days of in-service training for faculty and staff of the school, some of whom have had very little formal teacher training. MBB contracted with a master teacher from Kenya to begin these workshops onsite in 2009 and will continue throughout 2010. This may be the single most effective intervention MBB can make to improve the education of all the girls. |
Specific, one-time needs for St Bakhita School:
| $5,400 for 6 KINDLE eReaders loaded with 300 books each | Regular books do not long survive the humidity and termites of Sudan. MBB delivered one KINDLE eReader last year with solar recharger and protective case, as a pilot project. Faculty and students were equally excited about it. MBB intends to provide 6 more during 2010. 6 sets with peripherals will total about $2,400; loading 300 books onto all 6 will cost an additional $3,000. | |
| $3,000 for SOLAR Lanterns and small DESK lamps for students and faculty | MBB sent a few solar lanterns in 2009 and they were a huge boon to faculty and students. Without such a light source, it’s impossible to study or prepare lessons after sundown. this puts the students at a terrible disadvantage in competing with their peers in Kenya. (Sudanese 8th graders and 12th graders must take the Kenyan national exams to matriculate.) MBB orders these rugged lamps from d.light design, a company founded by two Stanford grads specifically for lighting up developing countries. The products are now manufactured in Tanzania and distributed by a company in Nairobi. | |
| $20,000 for 25-50 laptop computers with solar rechargers | Though they have never even seen a typewriter, the girls at St Bakhita must become computer literate; by the time they graduate, Sudan will be computerized. MBB is currently researching where to obtain laptops rugged enough to survive the dust, heat, and humidity of Sudan. | |
| $6,000 | Funding a computer teacher for 3 months to train the faculty onsite how to use computers and how to use them effectively in the classroom. |
 |
 |
| Master Teacher Vincent Mapeso Training the Faculty at St Bakhita Girls Primary School |
Goats at St Bakhita Primary School |
Next in this chapter: Projects / Women's Projects
