About
Who We Are and Our Mission: The South Sudan Scholarship Foundation (SSSF) is a grass-roots, non-profit organization created to help the children of South Sudan attain their dream of an education. As an organization we provide scholarships, tuition assistance, and other educational support to vulnerable children from the Republic of The Sudan.
Our mission is to provide Sudanese children with the universal right of a happy childhood, and to help them achieve their dreams through the provision of education.
Why South Sudan
Why South Sudan? Following its independence, Sudan experienced a half-century of civil war between the largely Arab-Muslim North and the black-African South. Nearly 2 million South Sudanese were killed, and 4 million more displaced from their homes. Innumerous human rights abuses were committed against the South, and development there has been at a standstill since the fighting began in the late 1950’s.
Even after the signing of a peace deal in 2005 the South has remained marginalized, and as in all humanitarian crises, the children have suffered the worst.
Your Gift
Donate Today! Your donation will go directly to the education, health care and safety of SSSF students who are today, thriving at a fantastic school in Uganda. SSSF operates with as little organizational costs as possible meaning: no paid employees, donated marketing services and grassroots fundraising campaigns. It costs $475 per year for each student to attend schools with proper uniforms and supplies. Sponsor a year of school today!
Origins
The South Sudan Scholarship Foundation is a grassroots nonprofit organization founded by three Skidmore College students during the spring of their senior year. Today the board of directors remains those three friends. In the Fall of 2007 Tyler Arnot took a semester off to work with a large humanitarian organization in South Sudan. There he met many impressive young Sudanese students whose lives and education were at risk. In order to ensure their safety, health and education Tyler's colleague and survivor of the Sudanese Civil War, Acen, told him that they had to be sent to more stable and developed countries. Tyler contacted his friends at Skidmore who organized a fundraiser to help one of these children, Manasseh. The event was so successful that they could pay for three students to travel to Uganda and enroll in one of East Africa’s best boarding schools. Upon Tyler’s return to Skidmore he and two of those friends, Evan Bjorklund and John Kotsinonos, established The South Sudan Scholarship Foundation to make the dream of education a lasting prospect for the children of South Sudan. Help us continue this work by donating today!
SSSF Today
Our original students are exemplary of the type of children SSSF strives to support. They were selected as high-achieving students with severe obstacles to their health, safety and education.
Today Madalena, Manasseh and Rhoda are in one of the best boarding schools in East Africa located just outside of Uganda's capital, Kampala. They started at their new school in the spring of 2008 with specialized tutoring in English and Swahili, the languages of instruction in Uganda. Since then they have begun to flourish as they once did in South Sudan. Furthermore they have begun to participate in athletics! Considering their health upon leaving South Sudan this is a remarkable sign of their improved situations!
Help to ensure the health, safety and education of Madalena, Manasseh and Rhoda by donating to SSSF today!
Today Madalena, Manasseh and Rhoda are in one of the best boarding schools in East Africa located just outside of Uganda's capital, Kampala. They started at their new school in the spring of 2008 with specialized tutoring in English and Swahili, the languages of instruction in Uganda. Since then they have begun to flourish as they once did in South Sudan. Furthermore they have begun to participate in athletics! Considering their health upon leaving South Sudan this is a remarkable sign of their improved situations!
Help to ensure the health, safety and education of Madalena, Manasseh and Rhoda by donating to SSSF today!
| South Sudan: Illiteracy Denies Women Rights |
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Reprinted from The Sudan Tribune
Tuesday March 10, 2009
By Philip Thon Aleu
March 9, 2009 (BOR TOWN) – Organized groups of women marched to Bor Town Freedom Square on Sunday March 8 as expected to mark the
International Women Day but few could express how their rights are
being violated. High rate of illiteracy in South Sudan, debits about 80% women, has always denied women opportunity to claim their rights.
Margaret Atim Oola, an Acholi working in Bor Town whose home is in
Juba, acknowledges that educated ladies are better than their
illiterate counterparts but traditional norms challenge this
emancipation.
"Illiterate women are more harassed than those educated. But as a
lady, each time I return home, I encounter some problems from in-laws
who say my husband has made a mistake to allow me working in a
distance place like Bor," she said.
There is no clear cut between cultures in South Sudan as far women
treatments. A woman is solely a man’s property primarily from marriage
procedure, domestic works and tight food taboo. Men have
responsibility to meet dowry prices and an over-all choice of spouse.
In Dinka, Mudari, Murle, Toposa and Nuer of South Sudan, men choose
ladies and meet the 30 or so cattle to bond marriages which are
occasionally forceful.
In most cases – particularly in Dinka, fathers have optimum rights to
choose spouses for their daughters. In Zandi, Acholi, Kaku and others
however, the dowry price is lower but women’s choices are
traditionally unacceptable. Women are confined to kitchen, Mrs. Atim
Oola says "but you have to appreciate the harass work which is a sign
of [tolerated] mistreatment" in domestic duties.
EDUCATION A BIG CHALLENGE
Girls and boys enroll equally to school at lower primary but fell
below 30% before upper classes. Mary Achol attributes this decline to
the fact that girls are entrusted with a lot of domestic work and the
traditional believes that educated girls become prostitutes.
"This is a very big challenge which the government must address," she
stressed. According to Achol, government should enacted legislations
for compulsory education for all children then leasing it to parents.
Fortunately enough, South Sudan has a campaign of ’take all children
to school’ though it is ineffective due to strongly rooted cultures
against women. In Jonglei State, there are only two girls’ primary
schools: Aguei and Anyidi in Bor County. Numerous other girls’ school
Speaking at the poorly attended rally here on Sunday, SPLM women
league representative calls on the government to increase the 25%
representation. In the Government of Southern Sudan, influential
positions taken by women include Ministry of Labour and Public
Services headed by Awut Deng Acuil, Governor of Western Equartoria
State Jemme Nunu Kumba, Speaker of Eastern Equartoria State Sabina
Dario and SPLM Secretary for Southern Sector Anne Itto among others.
However, the representation does not address violation of women rights
deep in villages and specially the illiterate ones. More still, women
leaders have been accused of not addressing potential harassments
including force marriages, impregnations by teachers while at schools
and other sexual abuses. Instead, the women leaders say "we need incentives to facilitate our work," colleagues in villages told the
Sudan Tribune on Saturday.
Representing a poem, Bor "A" girls claims ’Days are gone when girls
were denied education. Days are gone when girls were forced to early
marriages’ and so days are gone.
Asked what could be the way forward, Margaret Atim says: "I hope the
government hears my voice. Non-Governmental Organization and
Governmental Organizations should be extended to villages to address
the situation. We need change," she said.
Presence at the rally on Sunday in Bor Town includes Jonglei Governor
Kuol Manyang Juuk, Deputy Governor Hussein Mar Nyout, State ministers
and NGOs representatives. For the first time in such events, Murle
women group participated in the entertainment. Anyuak/Acholi, Nuer,
Dinka and women associations also performed traditional dances.
(ST) |
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