Monthly Archive for December, 2002

December 2002 – Graham Nobbs

Published by Graham Nobbs on December 2, 2002 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

Education in South Sudan

Now that peace seems likely by the beginning of 2004 education is moving out of a relief and emergency situation into a development phase with the focus being on the training of teachers.

Over the last three months the World Food Program delivered 1,500 metric tons of food under the School Feeding program. From January to April 2004 it plans to deliver 6,000 more metric tons of food.

On 3 December I attended a sponsored meeting of the Southern Sudan Education Secretariat. This was a forum of NGO’s working in Education in the South. The meeting focused on education reconstruction and development.

It was decided that there would be a concerted attempt to get girls into schools. There are 58 girls’ schools in villages and this is to be increased to 120 schools by March 2004.

Twenty-nine field officers will help establish these schools. 290 Primary schools will be reconstructed in the poorest region (Upper Nile province) including Boma town.

Recent work in Boma

On December 6th I returned to Boma for approximately two weeks intending to establish PTA’s before embarking on training programs for each committee in mid -January.

The short rains of October/ November had extended several weeks beyond what is usual and heavy rain prior to our return made it impossible to negotiate roads outside the immediate Boma area. Because of this we worked in the four schools around the Boma area.

We visited the Jia school at Khor’ardep, which we had not seen for three months and the school at Nyat, that we managed to drive to despite a wet and muddy road.

It was particularly encouraging to see a dozen older Murle and Jia children who are being educated outside of Boma in the upper Primary school. They were assisting with the teaching of the children and in the construction of a school office, new kitchen and a structure over the first latrine at Naoyapouru village.

Christmas

The dry season has at last arrived with clear, hot and sometimes humid weather each day.

It is hard to believe that I have now been in Africa for nine months and that Christmas has come around already. I will be spending Christmas in Africa for the first time probably in Nairobi.

I will really miss my family, friends and supporters.

Graham

December 2002 – Annette Culpan

Published by Annette Culpan on December 2, 2002 in Diary Updates. 0 Comments

Last Sunday night I went out for what I thought was a harmless meal. The next day I lost my appetite, could hardly drink and within 30 hours was passed out on the bathroom floor drenched with sweat. When John found me he initially thought I was dead. Just before the lights went out I too thought my time had come. It was one of the most terrifying nights of my life. I was high with fever and we immediately went to the international emergency centre where I was put on a drip for 7 hours & underwent numerous testing.

Prior to my falling ill, I had had another busy month, the first week spent developing a patient’s database template with patient histories. Though it was initially time consuming and frustrating, there is huge value the understanding of key medical issues being faced in the villages – so we can plan for the coming year, identify high priority medicines and decide what referrals need to be made to specialist clinics.

It is no surprise that 7% of our patients suffer from leprosy, with many others not yet identified. As part of the World Health Organisation global elimination programme, antibiotics for leprosy should be readily available to us at no cost to the patient. Because of this, I have made researching this disease and the drugs available a big focus for December.

In the latter part of the month I visited a leprosy centre in Tabanan. I expected to find a busy clinic that could potentially partner with us in the Northeast. Instead I found a tiny village of four rehabilitated lepers, two of whom had lived on site for 50 years. After a long, expressive, involved discussion between the men we (finally!) obtained the contact details of what I am told is the sole organisation working in Bali to eliminate leprosy. Of course they are based in Denpasar not far from my home. A typical Bali experience of going round in one big circle to end up right back at the beginning.

The cargo project has continued this month sorting paperwork and leveraging relationships with Jakarta authorities in an attempt to clear the antibiotics, which have been held up in customs for over four months. More importantly, we’re getting a clear picture of the process that needs to happen in the future to successfully import into the country. It appears to be a straight forward formula made up one-part part common sense & paperwork, the other part relationships and bribery.

A milestone last week was having the web content approved. A culmination of months of work, with input from many parties, it’s a great feeling to move forward with this. Another positive is how we’re tracking financially and the growth of our supporter base over the last 10 months. Our revenue is sitting at 330% on that for the entire previous financial year and our supporter base has grown 600%.

It’s hard to believe that the year is drawing to a close. Only two months left on this journey with the beautiful people of this island paradise. Merry Christmas everyone and thanks for your amazing support in 2003.

Annette