Life has been challenging for Alice. She spent most of the past 20 years as a refugee, and lost three of her four children to the hardship and fighting of Sudan’s civil war. Now back home in Maridi, South Sudan, she has six grandchildren and an ill husband dependent on her in a region with few services, little infrastructure and extreme poverty. Despite so much adversity, Alice remains determined to improve conditions for her family and community. With the assistance of CWS partner, the Sudan Council of Churches (SCC), she is doing just that. This year’s CWS Christmas Appeal celebrates the achievements of people like Alice as they build better futures and gives you the opportunity to support their work.
During the fighting, which claimed over two million lives, displaced millions of people and left much of South Sudan in ruins, Alice sought refuge in camps in Khartoum, Egypt and Uganda. To help her family survive she would cross-stitch all night and sell the finished articles all day. “Life was tough,” she says. She returned home after the 2005 peace agreement. The situation remains fragile but “life is better now,” says Alice. “Young men, boys and girls are no longer forced into the army.”
Alice’s main concern is education for her grandchildren. Most South Sudanese missed out on schooling during the long civil war and want the next generation to enjoy the opportunities education brings. The SCC is helping meet this goal.
CWS is the sole funder of SCC’s Maridi programmes, which include skills training, vocational education, small loans for income generation and youth mentors raising awareness of HIV and AIDS, girls’ education and peace building. Alice is part of a women’s group that used an SCC loan to establish a poultry project. “It is making a steady profit,” Alice says proudly as she displays her meticulous accounts.
The women purchased bicycles to ride to outlying villages and buy chickens to sell in the Maridi market. There is no public transport in South Sudan, very few vehicles and the unsealed roads are often impassable. The village women previously had no way to get their poultry to market. Alice’s group makes a small profit that supplements the sale of chickens they raise themselves. With this new income, they are able to send children to school and buy necessities such as shoes and medicines.
The poultry project is inspiring other initiatives in the community. Eighteen year- old John, the son of another woman in the group, is now raising pigeons. He sells them locally for food and uses the money for school fees.
Alice knows the difficulties are not yet over. “Please pray for Sudan,” she asks New Zealanders. “Peace has only been signed on paper, not in people’s hearts.” Like so many people CWS partners work with, Alice continues working hard to make a better future against incredible challenges. Knowing that people in New Zealand care enough to support that work means a lot. Please give generously to the CWS Christmas Appeal. Look out for an appeal envelope during Advent or contact CWS: 0800 74 73 72, www.cws.org.nz