Aweil Food Aid | Nutrition Initiative | South Sudan
In South Sudan, an estimated 1.4 million children will be malnourished in 2023.
What: Through three village schools and one orphanage, we provide supplemental nutrition assistance for over 1,500 orphan children.
Where: Four locations in the Aweil, South Sudan area.
When: We launched our Nutrition Initiative in South Sudan in 2016.
How: Through funding support provided by our funding partners, and our partnership with Christ Mission to the World (CMW) in South Sudan, we provision food aid to children in need.
This initiative at these locations supports more than 3,000 children in total. The other contributing organizations are Kids for the Kingdom and World Food Program.
You may send support for this Mission Project to Global Orphan Relief, 16352 Prairie Farm Circle, Parker, CO 80134 or you may give also give electronically at Nutrition Initiative or give on this website at the upper righthand corner under ‘Donate’ and select Nutrition Initiative under the Fund designation.
Background
We had come into contact with Bishop Garang Chan long before considering the needs of children in South Sudan. In 2014, we had begun to consider how we might serve orphan children beyond an orphanage environment.
With all of the challenges experienced in the newest nation of the world, we understood that children in South Sudan were dealing with considerable challenges.
CMW was at the work of providing food to vulnerable children but had funding and provision challenges that was affecting 100’s of children at the time. We stepped in in 2016 to offer a helping hand and began by working with CMW to feed 300 orphan children at two village schools.
Since we have taken our first steps to serve orphan children in South Sudan, we have grown the number of children that we serve there by five times, we have deployed a mission team to visit the sites, we have hosted Bishop Garang in the United States, and have invested $527,000 in the care of vulnerable children in South Sudan, in addition to coordinating $145,000 in capital infrastructure projects with other partners.
Aweil Food Aid
Local volunteers prepare food for children at a local school.
Nutrition: Christ Mission of the World employs an approach with local volunteers to provision food to over 3,000 vulnerable children at four locations. This effort provides life-sustaining nutrition for many with limited food availability within the community. For some, the meal at school may be the only meal received for the day. A secondary result of this mission project is that enrollment at these schools where meals are provided has increased over time. The staple food in South Sudan is sorghum.
Our roadmap for these three schools includes building actual classrooms for the children. Today, most classes meet under big trees, while few attend to their classroom work in nearby churches.
Care: The Care component of the project includes providing noontime meal five-days a week. We have also provided medical relief to these locations periodically. Local households and communities are dealing with multiple challenges as the local area has experienced extreme weather and instability.
Geography
South Sudan is the newest country in the world after its secession from Sudan in 2011. Data suggest the population is 8 to 11 million with many living as refugees in surrounding countries.
Aweil is the capital city of Northern Bahr el Ghazal and several NGOs providing aid in South Sudan are based here. Aweil is located in the northwest part of South Sudan and is not easily accessed by ground or air transport.
There is limited access to medical care and the local population are typically subsistence farmers.
Project Costs & Approach
Due to the scale of the care provided, the Aweil Food Aid mission project is our largest project based on costs.
Since the recipients of aid are enrolled in school, the population served is fairly stable. The variables that create some challenges are local inflation and the availability of food.
Limited assistance has been received from the World Food Program at Beliek Primary School which as offset some cost at this location.
Please prayerfully consider how you might support this mission project.
You may send support for this Mission Project to Global Orphan Relief, 16352 Prairie Farm Circle, Parker, CO 80134 or you may give also give electronically at Nutrition Initiative or give on this website at the upper righthand corner under ‘Donate’ and select Nutrition Initiative under the Fund designation.