Sudan

Compassion and Sustainable Development Africa

There are only a handful of qualified teachers in Blue Nile, one of whom HART helped to graduate from university in 2019. There are no paid teachers, training opportunities or standardised curriculum. As a result, CSDA repeatedly request support for educational development.

Our partnership with CSDA (formerly known as the New Sudan Council of Churches or NSCC) has resulted in essential classroom repairs, the provision of school materials and a training programme for 47 teachers (one from each primary school in the state) so that boys and girls can enjoy inclusive, safe and quality education.

For some families in Blue Nile, it can take a week to walk to the nearest hospital, where people regularly die from easily-curable diseases. Our partnership has provided community health centres with essential medicines, which are delivered to patients by trained health workers.

CSDA also provide emergency relief for displaced communities at risk of starvation. During a visit to Blue Nile in 2018, we visited an area called Wadaka where 9,000 displaced people had escaped violent conflict. They fled a settlement in Danfona carrying no clean water or blankets, hoping to survive by eating leaves and roots with no nutritional value. The host community had little food to share following severe flooding affecting crops. HART’s emergency appeal raised £50,000 for sorghum (the common grain) and cooking oil, enough to support 7,456 of the most vulnerable displaced people for three months.

Thousands of refugees fled to Blue Nile in 2021 due to the escalating conflict in Ethiopia and inadequacy of camps in South Sudan. The influx of arrivals placed increased pressure on the region’s already limited resources and food supplies. We secured emergency funds to support the most vulnerable households returning to Blue Nile. Without our partnership with CSDA, aid would not have reached people in need.

NRRDO

Nuba Relief, Rehabilitation and Development Organisation (NRRDO) coordinate diverse projects across the region, spanning emergency relief, education, food security, peace-building, gender equality and primary health. Their vision is simple: ‘a just and equitable society in which all the people of Southern Kordofan / Nuba Mountains live a dignified life’.

HART is committed to promoting the same vision, including through the delivery of food supplements to combat malnutrition – for example the distribution of highly-nutritious BP-5 biscuits to children while they are at school, which enables students to remain in education instead of having to forage for food.

Water-related diseases are among NRRDO’s most urgent concerns, particularly as a lack of personal hygiene knowledge and available sanitation services exacerbates the prevalence of such diseases. For women and girls, the situation is dire as they are forced to either wait until dark to urinate outside or walk long distances to isolated spots due to a lack of traditional pit latrines. The situation worsens during their time of menstruation. We provided 200 schoolgirls with ‘dignity kits’ containing soap, sanitary towels, body lotion, toothbrush, toothpaste and underwear. Funding also facilitated a hygiene and sanitation workshop for fifty young women and schoolgirls.