Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Fides Service)- “Now peace has been made what is needed is education!” Italian development volunteers members of AVSI association of volunteers for international development operating in Sudan said after the recent long awaited peace agreement was reached. “After 20 years of war and 2 million dead Sudan, the largest in Africa, faces the long and difficult process of peace with its 4 million displaced persons” the AVSI statement said
In southern Sudan there are 1 million school age children and 75% have no access to school. Due to lack of structures many attend lessons outdoors under a tree without any school material. Teachers are scarce and qualified teachers are even scarcer. Lack of schooling affects the psychological stability of children and many, left to themselves, joined army groups and served as child soldiers.
Precisely because education is the main challenge in Southern Sudan today AVSI chose to intervene to support a network of primary and secondary schools in the county of Torit, as well as programmes of assistance and development. The first commitment on the AVSI list is St. Kizito school with 1,500 pupils in need of school material, exercise and text books and for which more classrooms must be built and more teachers trained.
“Besides the education emergency in the county or Torit we are assisting 50,000 people who lack everything - says Filippo Ciantia, medical doctor in Africa since 1980, AVSI representative of the Great Lakes Region now in Kampala - Some have not seen a white man for ten years, others have never seen a doctor, none of the villages have water supplies”. War and the inaccessibility of this remote area of forest and savannah on the Ugandan border prevented all contact with the people of southern Sudan. In these villages water supplies, healthcare, schooling and security are the main problems, not to mention returning refugees now that peace has been made. (L.M.) (Agenzia Fides 13/1/2005 righe 31 parole 379)
