Martina's Story

Martina will not be defeated

At Juba University, Martina, a young student, arrives early at the side door of the lecture theatre. Usually it’s standing room only and she wants to get a seat in her undergraduate class.

Born in Eastern Equatoria, with no father living, Martina was displaced by war as a young child, ending up in the barren settlements in the wasteland outside Khartoum.

She struggled to gain entry into a secondary school where she saw a notice on the board advertising support offered by Together for Sudan without any religious discrimination for displaced women. 

Martina was determined and after a rigorous interview, she emerged as one of our students. 

Her university moved back to Juba as South Sudan became independent in 2011 and Martina moved again. She now lives with her grandmother in a basic room outside the city and despite many interruptions she is continuing to study public administration.

Recently we met Martina with her hand on that Juba side door which will lead her to a brighter future. Nothing will defeat her.

Women's Education Partnership, as we are now called, has supported 261 other girls over the last 15 years at universities and vocational colleges,  all disadvantaged women, many from the Nuba Mountains.   

Martina was just one of the many remarkable people Alan Goulty, Lillian Craig Harris, Penny and I met on our April visit to Khartoum and Juba. We have seen first-hand some of our literacy, eye care and HIV/Aids projects in operation and listened to the women so that in our planning for projects we can act on what they tell us to do.  We have also had very joyful meetings with our scholars studying in Khartoum and Juba . Often having to struggle, they are working really hard to study so that they can find jobs and play a full part in the peaceful and healthy development of Sudan and South Sudan.

Watch this space for more Women’s Education Partnership (Together for Sudan) Good News Stories.

Thank you for your support and encouragement. There is much more we can do with your help.

Peter Hullah

Director  

Why I Support.......

A quote from a generous sponsor of one of our university scholars at Ahfad University:

Much can be done - given the chance

“Over twenty five years ago I went to Sudan as a very young and very inexperienced teacher to work in a girls’ secondary school. I was humbled both by the immense generosity and kindness of the girls I had the blessing to meet there and their determination, often despite incredible personal hardship, to continue their education, become qualified and go on to serve their community. They knew instinctively that education was liberating and empowering and treasured every moment they had at school. Sadly, because of their family circumstances, so few of them were able to go to university.

Education empowers and that is why I was so happy to help Together for Sudan in its essential work in building educational programs and in particular, by helping a young woman from the Nuba Mountains to go to university. It is personally thrilling to be able to follow her progress and feel that in a small way I have helped repay my debt to the people of Sudan.”

Learn more about our University Scholarship Project

Fulla Falls Basic School Update

Lillian and I visited Fulla Falls we were shocked to learn that the school premises which had been used by the school since its foundation in 1999 had been bulldozed.  The school is now operating under straw shelters, which are so close together that one class hears everything said in the class next door. The teachers deserve great credit for carrying on in these very difficult circumstances.  The pre-school has its own small compound a short distance away and is better off, though as the photos show conditions are still basic.

Children of Fulla Falls School Grade 2

It seems that the government want to expropriate and develop the land at Soba Aradi, which is relatively close to Khartoum and to the new US Embassy at Soba. The people do not know what will become of them but expect to be relocated either to a distant area south of Khartoum or an even more remote area called Al Fateh 2 north-west of Omdurman. Both lack even basic facilities.

Children of the Fulla Falls Pre- School

The school expects to move with the majority of the people to whichever of these sites is chosen. They do not know whether the government will make land available there for the school, nor whether they will receive any compensation.

The education of girls is vitally important

At present our support is much appreciated to help the school survive. We shall need to consider what more might be done in due course to enable the school to continue in its new location. But they need to discover first where they will go and to plan the move.

WHY SUDAN AND WHY EDUCATION OF WOMEN?

People often want to know how Together for Sudan began. The answer is that TfS was born in Sudan following a request for help from Sudanese women. But what, people ask next, is Together for Sudan accomplishing? And does it work?

These questions are on target and usually result in those of us who know Together for Sudan beginning to speak all at once. It’s true that working in Sudan can be difficult due to the enormous needs of the people, the size of the country, extreme climate and increasingly difficult travel regulations for foreigners. Then there are the many requests for medical, financial and other help which are beyond our mandate, to say nothing of our limited means.

From time to time bureaucracy, misunderstanding and delay have turned into the “Are we really getting anywhere?” feeling, especially when the work which our Sudanese colleagues are doing has been impeded. But that doesn’t last long when we remember what Together for Sudan has accomplished, how we have developed through the years and the opportunities which lie ahead. Finding ourselves now on the verge of starting work in South Sudan as well as continuing in the north, I shake my head and wonder at the audacity — and the privilege — of it all. Working with women to help other women is what TfS is about.

My response to the question “Why Sudan?” is that I was living in Khartoum in the mid 1990s, a time of great neglect of the Sudanese people by the international community, when a group of Muslim women invited me to set up peace dialogue between northern and southern women. About this same time a Christian mother in the Nuba Mountains asked me to put her daughter through university and I agreed to do so because several people, some of them unknown to me, had helped me through university. The work which is TfS grew from those small beginnings, changing many times along the way but always listening to what Sudanese women say they need most: education for themselves and their children. More broadly, what Sudanese women need most – and this is true in both Sudan and South Sudan – is a hand up rather than a hand-out. They can take it from there.

The first project in the work known today as Together for Sudan was University Scholarships for Women. Since then TfS has sent some 200 women through universities in Sudan and currently has 154 women at universities in Sudan and South Sudan. In the late 1990s a number of projects, including a mobile library, a listening service for suicidal and despairing people and a women’s centre, flowered and faded for various reasons.

At present TfS has eight projects, most urgently in need of funding. In addition to University Scholarships for Women, Women’s Literacy Classes, HIV/AIDS Awareness Outreach and Eye Care Outreach, there are also Vocational Training, Scholarships for HIV/AID Affected Children and Solar Lighting Panels for schools,clinics and community centers off the electricity grid. May I ask you to choose one of these projects – perhaps one related to help given to you at a time of need – and send us a cheque? There is joy in sharing!

Lillian Craig Harris

Fr Giovanni Vantini

All friends of Sudan mourn the passing of Father Giovanni Vantini, for nearly 60 years one of the leading scholars in the rich field of Sudanese studies.  TfS Trustee, Herman Bell, has generously launched a fund in Father Vantini’s memory, to support the educational work of Together for Sudan. Contributions will be greatly appreciated. Donate on line here or go to our Donate page for other options. 

Herman has also written the following tribute:

Father Giovanni Vantini was inspired by the extensive history of Christianity in the Sudan and spent most of his life serving the people of the Sudan. He is remembered with affection by his Muslim and Christian friends and students.

Father Vantini was born in Villafranca di Verona on 1 January 1923. He was ordained a priest in 1947, trained in Arabic and sent to the Sudan. There he spent 58 years, teaching in schools established by the Comboni missionaries, working in parish churches and St. Matthew’s Cathedral (Khartoum), engaging in journalistic endeavours such as Assalam [Peace], a bi-weekly journal launched at the time of independence in 1956, and conducting research on the history of the Church along the Nile for most of the past 2000 years. In 2005, he published La Missione del Cuore - I comboniani in Sudan nel ventesimo secolo [The Mission of the Heart – The Comboni Missionaries in Sudan in the Twentieth Century] (Bologna). In spite of ill health in his final years he managed to achieve the publication of Rediscovering Christian Nubia (Khartoum) in 2009. He died in Verona on the 3rd of May 2011 at the age of 87.

His command of Arabic was a vital skill for the production of his Oriental Sources Concerning Nubia (Heidelberg & Warsaw, 1975), an important companion study to the historical and archaeological work in which he was involved at that time in the Nile Valley. He wrote one of his major publications in Arabic: Ta' rikh al-masihiyya fi-l mamalik al-Nubiyya al-qadima wa-l- Sudan al-hadith [The History of Christianity in the Old Nubian Kingdoms and the Modern Sudan] (Khartoum, 1978).

In the colloquial Arabic of the Sudan there is a relevant expression of condolence which is widely used:   al-baraka fiikum ‘Blessing upon you.’ Death reminds us of the great store of blessing that is available to us all. ‘Blessed be those who mourn for they shall be comforted.’

Saint Anna, mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
 Faras Cathedral.

Father Vantini was admired as a scholar and a man of faith. He was also a kind and generous friend. Even though the Canticle of the Creatures was composed almost 700 years before his birth by Saint Francis, the following verses still seem particularly appropriate.

Altissimu, onnipotente bon Signore,
Tue so le laude la gloria e l'honore
et onne benedictione.
………
Laudato si', mi Signore, per sora nostra Morte corporale,
da la quale nullu homo vivente po skappare,
………
Laudate et benedicete mi Signore et rengratiate
et serviteli cun grande humilitate.


Good Lord, most high and almighty,
To thee be praises, glory, honour and all blessings.
………
Be praised, my Lord, for our sister bodily death
From whom no human being can escape.
………
Praise and bless my Lord; thank Him,
And serve Him with great humility.

By Herman Bell - TfS Trustee.

Letters of thanks

Some of the Together for Sudan University Graduates have recently written letters of appreciation and thanks for the support that they received in gaining and passing their University courses. They are all very grateful for the opportunity of making a difference to Sudan and improving the lives of those around them. See their words on our website.

• A letter from Alia
• A letter from Hawa
• A letter from Hana
• A letter from Asia

1 Goal - Education for All

Together for Sudan puts a huge amount of importance on it's education projects, the needs of children and teachers in displaced communities and the rural communities of the Nuba mountains are considerable.

One of the founding principles of Together for Sudan is to listen to what the people we serve say that they need. Time and time again the request is for education.

Listening we have acted and providing education for those who would not otherwise be able to have it has become a major feature of our work. Together for Sudan provides support for funding the schooling of children who have been affected by HIV or AIDS. The knock on effect of a child's parents having died of AIDS can often leave them living with relatives that cannot afford to pay for their education. Children in this situation go without unless we step in.

Together for Sudan supports the 1 Goal initiative because we believe that every child should have the opportunity of education.

Show your support for the 1 Goal initiative by signing up through the widget on our website. Cllick on the title to link to widget.

Back from Sudan

My early November visit to Khartoum and environs was, as always, both endearing and heartbreaking. The Sudanese people, both northerners and those displaced from the south and Darfur, are so friendly and kind that visitors tend not to understand how stressed, unhappy and even hungry many of them are. Victor Gali Thomas, Together for Sudan’s Deputy Country Coordinator, and I visited two of the “self help basic schools” in the squatter settlement of Soba Aradi . Together for Sudan has been helping these schools for more than ten years but circumstances at Soba Aradi, a miserable waterless wasteland of blowing sand and deep poverty, are worse than ever and the future more precarious.



Khartoum is expanding and one day when the bull dozers arrive yet again, they will not stop and even the schools and places of worship will go. Meanwhile, we do what we can although due to the present international recession this is far less than we have done in the past. A member of the Parent/Teacher Association at one of our partner schools wept as he explained present circumstances to us.

During every visit to Sudan I am reminded how precarious life is for the majority of the 38 million Sudanese and how important education is to their present and future. In a country which is oil rich, survival remains the primary objective of millions of Sudanese, including the perhaps three million who now live in squalid encampments for displaced persons outside Khartoum.
For thousands of these people – and for similarly impoverished and marginalized people in the Nuba Mountains – the Together for Sudan Eye Care Outreach is the only medical attention they ever receive: thus the importance of keeping Dr. Nabila in antibiotics as well as eye ointments.

Together for Sudan is using this time of economic recession to reconsider several of our projects. Readjustments already include combining the Teacher Training and Basic Scholars projects and a planned reduction in the number of universities included in our University Scholarships Project. The expansion of the Vocational Training Project is another intension but one which currently lacks funding, as does our previously dynamic Women’s Literacy Project. There is much to ponder and to plan but we face the current situation in full confidence that by listening to what displaced and marginalised people say they need, the way forward will be found. Please join us in this life saving effort.

Another Visit to Sudan

My evening flight from Washington Dulles to London on 3 May was followed by a six hour layover after which I flew on to Khartoum via Beirut, in total 22 hours of travelling. British Ambassador Rosalind Marsden, Together for Sudan Trustee and my long suffering hostess for the next two weeks, kindly sent a car to pick me up at the Khartoum airport by which time it was early morning of 5 May local time. I managed four hours sleep before Country Coordinator Neimat Hussein showed up for several hours of briefing and discussion. Despite the exhaustion I was, as always, exhilarated to be back in Sudan. And I am, of course, very grateful to Neimat and her colleagues in both Khartoum and Kadugli for putting up with my bi-annual fact finding missions which are very disruptive of their work!
Over the next several days Neimat and I did the rounds of local patrons and partners and international funding charities, thanking those which support Together for Sudan and seeking new partnerships. I also spend hours in the TfS Khartoum office talking to staff members and receiving visitors including Dr. Nabila Radi who runs our Eye Care Outreach. I have learned to love and sometimes to resist Dr. Nabila because she knows that those who “look on suffering” with the intention of helping are often greatly blessed and therefore usually insists that I go with her to visit those who are dying, diseased, deformed by leprosy or otherwise in a position to teach me more about compassion. I’ve learned a lot from her.



Another highlight of my Khartoum visit was attending the graduation of 127 Community Health Care Workers, over 100 of them women, in a makeshift tent in one of the settlements for the displaced outside Khartoum. When the Sudanese are happy they dance – and we did, celebrating the graduates’ new ability to contribute to their communities as well as support themselves and their children.
This visit was dominated by opposition from the government’s Humanitarian Affairs Commission (HAC) to my planned visit to the TfS sub-office in Kadugli, capital of the Nuba Mountains in Southern Kordofan. But after several days delay, which required that I extend my stay in Sudan, and having written a letter of apology for obtaining my visa from the Sudanese Embassy in Washington rather than from HAC (!), I was eventually allowed to travel to Kadugli. I am enormously grateful to TfS Office Manager Saudi Abdel Rahman for the hours he spend at HAC headquarters and the patience which he displayed.
When finally allowed to fly to the Nuba Mountains, Neimat and I spent four days in Kadugli getting to know Field Representative Ibrahim Ahmed Jabir and Field Coordinator Saleem Musa, both new employees since my last visit to Kadugli in early 2008. I was delighted to see how well they are working together. We arrived to find 25 community leaders, 10 of them women, from the countryside outside Kadugli engrossed in a course in Primary Health Care. All are members of “development committees” in their home areas. Neimat and I called on the Ministries of Health and Education where we were warmly greeted and asked to expand our training of teachers and community workers. At the Kadugli Hospital we were thanked for the TfS Eye Care Outreach which has resulted in the opening of an Ophthalmology Centre there. (The newly hired ophthalmologist was in Khartoum trying to raise money to run the centre!) Other highlights of the visit were visiting some of the now more than 30 young women put through university by TfS who are now back in the Nuba Mountains as teachers, health workers and government and INGO employees. As always, I felt blessed to be part of a growing work which is helping hundreds of individuals improve their lives. For further information see the June Together for Sudan Newsletter.

Lillian Craig-Harris