Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Juba (Agenzia Fides) - The UN World Food Programme plans to build 25 new schools in southern Sudan where the rate of primary school attendance is one of the lowest in the world. The schools are part of a project worth 3.5 million dollars.
Over 20 years of civil war, ended in January 2005, destroyed most infrastructures in this part of the country . An estimated 20% of the children attend school and of these only 35% are girls. Out of a population of about 7.5 million in Sudan only 500 little girls complete primary school every year.
This prompted the World Food Programme to include school building on the list for reconstruction programmes for Sudan, where this year the agency hopes to feed almost 6.1 million people with an emergency operation.
The school building programme is in line with the Millennium Goals and the policies of the government of southern Sudan: both indicate basic education for all as a major objective.
Each school will cost about 140,000 dollars and can take 405 pupils. The 25 new schools will supply the region with 225 more classrooms.
With its School Feeding Programmes this year WFP reaches124 new schools and at present supplies a daily meal to 130,000 pupils in 220 school in southern Sudan. (AP) (23/6/2006 Agenzia Fides; Righe:22; Parole:247)
