Treasurer Ron Moulton is off to South Sudan with a big and exciting punchlist:

-- In Juba, he's registering our non-profit with the Republic of South Sudan and getting our tax-exempt letter. We were registered with the interim Government of South Sudan, and are just updating our papers in this new nation. He's also making a presentation at the Juba Rotary Club.

-- In Aweil, Ron will meet with the Minister of Education of Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal State, to discuss our plans for alternative and adult education in our community center, and with the Minister of Health, to discuss our clinic and our midwife training program. He'll also meet with Wany Majok, who worked with Franco at Lutheran Social Services of New England and who is now an advisor to the Minister of Education and to the Governor of Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal. We're so fortunate to have an old friend in high places!

-- In Wunlang, he's checking on repairs to the school -- it's more than three years old now. Mou Riiny is also traveling to Wunlang with Ron; as building permanent buildings in Thiou come closer to reality, Mou wants to see what we've accomplished in Wunlang.

-- Ron will also meet with the commissioner of Aweil County East to turn the administration of Wunlang School over to the county. This has always been our plan, and it will give the county and the people of Wunlang true ownership of their school.

-- Franco, during his visit in December, learned that Wunlang does not have a teacher qualified to teach the upper grades -- what would be middle school here -- and students hoping to attend secondary school have to go to boarding school elsewhere in order to qualify. Ron will be discussing the prospect of hiring a qualified teacher for the upper grades.

-- Ron will also be bringing his new IPad to Wunlang! He will be showing the teachers what it can do -- store scores of books, applications from ITunes U (an interactive alphabet app based on Starfall and a talking dictionary are the first two he's loaded), and provide portable internet access.

-- Speaking of internet access, Ron will be looking at the newest ways to connect. We're very interested in the Zain cellular USB connector -- a dongle in computer-accessory parlance -- and Ron will see what's available.

-- Then there's our new multi-purpose community center! Bricks are being made now. Angong Kuol is our program director, and she and Ron will be talking about hiring managers for our various programs. Our first priority is to get the agriculture program underway, and Angong and Ron will be finding sites for our test plots.

-- And dear to this blogger's heart, construction on our guest house will begin. Not only will it be a place for our supporters who want to visit our work to stay, it will be a training center for the hospitality industry. It will be modest -- a traditional house, a latrine, a screened-off bathing area open to the stars -- but we are looking forward to leading groups to see what we have done in a remote area in South Sudan.

Amid all the jubilation for South Sudan's independence came the disquieting news about attacks in Abyei and South Kordofan. Thousands of Sudanese have fled south, many to Aweil County East, and about 700 to Wunlang.

Wunlang is one of the few areas in Aweil County East that has resources to accommodate internally-displaced persons (IDPs): we have wells, a clinic, and a school. All these resources are now being stretched. Our field manager Yel Maduok Ngor reports that IDPs also need emergency services, something that Village Help for South Sudan is not set up to administer.

At the advice of our executive director Franco Majok, Yel is organizing community leaders to approach World Food Program, the Aweil East County commissioner, and Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal State ministries for emergency support. We have seen the people of Wunlang, empowered by building their school, approach local leaders on other matters before, and we have confidence in their initiative.

We'll be monitoring the use of our facilities and assessing the long-range implications of IDPs in Wunlang.

Several months ago villagers from Wunlang asked for our support to enable them to construct and operate a multi-purpose center. We are very excited to say the Center has recently been funded by a family foundation. A portion of that funding comes in the form of a matching grant. The Foundation will match each dollar we raise from other sources - up to $40,000.00!

The idea for the multi-purpose center evolved from community meetings among the women and elders of Wunlang village.



This center will answer many of the needs of the community by providing adult education, vocational training, agricultural training and support, health-care training, antenatal and newborn care, early-childhood care and education, and the empowerment of women and girls.



The Center is expected to be a vibrant hub of community activity and service, bringing people together for practical skills development, talent show-casing, and community knowledge diffusion. In addition to constructing the facility, project team and staff members from the local community will run the center, providing training and support in practical healthcare, agriculture skills, community education, and livelihood skills for enterprise start-up.

We appeal to all supporters of Village Help for South Sudan. Make a donation and help us meet our matching fund grant. Thank you!

A short time ago, we published a blog entry on our midwife kits. It includes some fine photos of Wunlang's traditional birth attendants being trained in the use of these kits. We always include photos in our blog posts whenever possible, so our supporters can see that their money is going to good use.

But photos can be hard to get. When we visited Wunlang in 2008, we brought a satellite modem with us. It worked; but it has a steep learning curve, always has to face south, and has an elaborate outdoor setup. Then there are the goats.



When our field manager Yel tried to send photos of our midwife training, our satellite modem setup was just too glitchy. Yel has often made the trip to Aweil to upload photos, but that doesn't always work, either. However, determination is been a hallmark of our work. Knowing our supporters were eager to see the midwife-training photos, Yel searched found an even better setup: a Zain cellular network USB connector. Instead our suitcase full of equipment and wires, it's a little thing that plugs into the the USB slot.



Zain Sudan is part of a company founded in Kuwait and recently acquired by the Indian firm Bharti Airtel.


It's fascinating how fast communication technology is moving in South Sudan. Three years ago, we were all trying to face south to talk on a sat phone. There were four competing cell phone companies; service was so spotty you could hardly hear within South Sudan. Now we can hear Yel clearly on his cell on a transcontinental call.

Sending photos was a huge production. Now Yel has a found a quick and easy solution that we will be exploring further.

Some weeks ago VHSS got some questions about our work from one Faithful Okoye, who turned out to be an honors student at Broward College in Florida. The next thing we know, the honors program advisor has contacted our treasurer, asking where to send a check.

Faithful had organized a poetry slam and open-mike event, charging students $1 to participate. "The theme was a Hope for A New Tomorrow," she wrote in an e-mail.

"The HSC Band, that is a group of students from the Honors Student Committee, joined together to form a band, and they all performed. . . .


"I also sang a song called 'Who Says,' by Selena Gomez, which spoke to those in the audience and the children in Sudan, asks Who Says they are not perfect, beautiful or worthy? t was dedicated to all those who for whatsoever life circumstances such as poverty, skin color, people's low expectation of them feel like they will not amount to much.



"It's also dedicated to Africa and in particular, South Sudan. Who says they can't become a great nation?"



Faithful is part of "Finish What You Start," a Broward College program designed that helps those who have entered college to press on to complete their degrees. She's applied what she has learned already. Some people talk vaguely about helping out in South Sudan: Faithful, in a matter of weeks, Faithful made something happen. Can you?

"Hello, My name is Rishi Sharma from New Jersey, USA. I am 17 years old, and I go to Monroe Township High School. I learned, in my environmental science class, about solar cookers.”

This introduction has started a wonderful new friendship and partnership for Village Help for South Sudan. Rishi is an exceptional young man, and we are grateful for his commitment to help us address one of the most urgent needs among villagers: fuel scarcity and other issues related to cooking the family meal.

His research led Rishi to Jewish World Watch, an NGO at the forefront of solar cooking among Darfuri refugees.
JWW introduced Rishi to Solar Cookers International (SCI), a leading provider of solar cookers and support for effective deployment and use of the cookers.

SCI has developed a solar cooker called the CooKit which is not only field-tested but can also be manufactured in remote areas - using plans available on the SCI website. SCI also sells the ready-made, low-cost CooKit from their online store along with other models.

Besides cooking food, a solar cooker has other important, life-saving uses, such as water pasteurization and autoclave sterilization. Solar and other cooking fuel alternatives are vital in developing countries like South Sudan, where wood used for cooking is gathered primarily by women and girls. This time-consuming and labor-intensive daily task keeps girls out of school and causes deforestation around villages. The wood-gatherers are forced to go farther and farther away from their homes to get their cooking fuel or spend what little money they have to buy charcoal in the marketplace.

With the compassionate and timely leadership shown by young Mr. Sharma, we hope to conduct a pilot project to field test solar cooking in South Sudan. We hope others in Rishi’s school will support his noble efforts, and we call upon all friends of Village Help for South Sudan to join his team and make a donation to help us support the solar cooking project he has inspired.

“Right now, in high school, it's hard to expand this mission further than reaching a few willing donors,” Rishi says. Let’s help this rising star with equal passion and commitment.

The week of voting on the referendum for the separation of Southern Sudan was unlike any other -- an election process full of hope, peace, and joy. The official results are supposed to be released February 14. But with sources listing a 98 percent vote for separation, plans are going forward to building a new nation.

Village Help for South Sudan echoes the words of John Ijino Lako, Director-General of the Ministry of Finance of Central Equatoria. "Our main objective is to prevent the influx of people into towns by bringing services like water, roads, health centers and schools to their villages instead," he said in an article written for the United Nations Development Programme. As we learned at a seminar sponsored by the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, the flight to urban areas and the deterioration of village and family life is a common problem in post-conflict societies. Village Help for South Sudan has always to been committed to bringing education and opportunity to remote parts of South Sudan. We'll continue to partner with the people of South Sudan to do so. It's a great time to join with us!

Village Help for South Sudan is happy to report a new collaboration with Schools for Southern Sudan, another non-profit organization with a mission similar to ours. This arrangement was just concluded with a significant transfer of funds to help us with our work. We are very grateful for this donation, the endorsement of our work, and the teaming opportunities that lie ahead.

The following letter initiated our collaboration with SFSS and has the details.

As every observer of Sudan knows, voter registration for the referendum on the secession of South Sudan has begun. One of the registration stations is Wunlang School. Once again, Village Help for South Sudan is the catalyst for a reaction that continues without our direct involvement. We wanted to build a school, which we did; and now, we see, we have also built the capability for political empowerment.

What a beautiful day for one of our favorite days - Arlington Town Day! Bol and Mou were there early, and we were so thankful for the canopy Bol brought. Bol and Mou have been to many such sunny-day events, and they know how important shade can be on an 85-plus degree day. Bol is project manager for our Theou Village Project. Mou, a student at Salem State College, is Bol's cousin. They were both born in the village of Theou in a remote part of southern Sudan.

Franco joined us as the crowds increased, and our friend, Dan, stopped by for a visit and some shade. Franco, our Executive Director, was born in Wunlang, the village that inspired the founding of Village Help for South Sudan more than 3 years ago. Dan is from a village near Yirol, and he hopes to organize his own project to support that area with other members of the Yirol diaspora community.

Events like Arlington Town Day provide a great way to connect "villages" here with the villages we support in southern Sudan. Most of our village work has an education focus, but as our display boards and tables show, we support public health initiatives, clean water installations, sanitation, agriculture, adult literacy, and traditional birth attendants. In addition to a severe lack of schools, South Sudan has some of the highest infant and maternal mortality rates in the world.

Thank you, Arlington Town Day, for welcoming us to this wonderful community event on such a beautiful autumn day. We appreciated our booth neighbors, and we are especially grateful to the many people who stopped by to see us, to volunteer their time to help, and to donate to the life-line that extents from Arlington to the remote villages that benefit from the work of Village Help for South Sudan. We look forward to returning again next year.