A YEAR IN
NORTH SUDAN
SUMMARY REPORT
2010
The School Improvement Plan at this school has seen education standards improve
3
OUR PRIORITIES
GOOD REASONS
in North Sudan
why Plan works in North Sudan
• 30 per cent of the population do not have access to safe drinking water
• Improving poor families’ access to quality healthcare
• Only 54 per cent of children attend primary school
• Ensuring that children grow up with clean water, decent sanitation and an understanding of hygiene
• One child in ten dies before the age of five
• Improving standards of care and education for children, from preschool level to adulthood • Reducing families’ poverty and hunger by helping them increase their crop yields and household income • Supporting families affected by the conflict Tig in Darfur
‘The people of Um Okaz are keen to pass on what they have learnt to neighbouring villages.’ ISRAEL
IRAQ
JORDAN
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IRAN
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KUWAIT
BAHRAIN QATAR
U. A
Nil
North Sudan Facts Languages: Arabic and English
Darfur
Khartoum
An Nahud
SUDAN
Wad Madani Kosti Guli North Kordofan
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DIJBOUTI
ETHIOPIA
Wau Southern Sudan
UGANDA
KENYA
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Fimi
SOMALIA
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DEM REPUBLIC Lo Ts OF CONGO
Lokoro
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RWANDA
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Ruki
YEMEN ERITREA
SOMALIA
Representative Office Plan Operations Program Units
Loba ye
Edduweim Kassala River Atbara
Alaga
Al Fashir
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
SAUDI ARABIA
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as well as 400 local dialects Climate: The Nubian Desert significantly impacts on the climate of North Sudan. The dry regions are plagued by sandstorms, known as ‘Haboob’ which can completely block out the sun. In the northern and western semi-desert areas, people rely on the scant rainfall for basic agriculture.
resources are available in Sudan including: petroleum, natural gas, gold, silver, chrome, asbestos, manganese, gypsum, mica, zinc, iron, SUDAN lead, uranium, copper, kaolin, cobalt, granite, nickel and tin. Agriculture production remains Sudan’s most important sector, employing 80 per cent of the workforce and contributing 39 per cent of GDP, but most farms remain rain-fed and susceptible to drought. Despite natural resources much of the population remains at or below the poverty line.
Lualaba
(estimated)
e Port Sudan
Atbara Northern Sudan
CHAD
Economy: Rich mineral
Oubangui
Capital: Khartoum Population: 26.8 million
EGYPT
LIBYA
Birth certificates are crucial for children in asserting their rights later in life
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Focus On:
safe and healthy environments for children Less than a quarter of families in rural Sudan have proper sanitary facilities, and a third do not have safe water to drink. Plan is working with families to bring clean water and sanitation to their villages and homes. Our program includes supporting communities to install clean water systems and toilets. We teach families how to protect their water
sources and local surroundings from pollution and how to keep their children healthy by adopting good hygiene practices. We also work with communities to reduce the impact of disasters on their environment.
Haj Kabashi is the head of the Parent Teacher’s Association in Algardoud
People Power
The Bigger Picture
for decent sanitation
Salma had been concerned about the dirty and unsanitary state of Um Okaz, her village in North Sudan, for some time.
Many villagers started work immediately after the training. Soon, out of 160 families in Um Okaz, 157 had dug their own basic pit latrines.
‘We can’t continue like this,’ she said. ‘We need to do something about it now.’
Working together A crucial element of CLTS is sharing information. So villagers speak up if they find anyone still using the fields as a toilet. Children pass on vital hygiene advice to their families, like the importance of washing their hands. The people of Um Okaz are keen to pass on what they have learnt to neighbouring villages.
Salma is a widow with three children. Like other mothers in the village, she worried about her children’s health, particularly as other youngsters were falling sick and dying. Um Okaz had a major problem. It had no proper sanitary facilities, a situation affecting many villages across North Sudan. For generations, families used the open ground when they needed the toilet. As a result, they were inadvertently polluting the local water supply. Imad, a pupil at the local secondary school explains: ‘We get our water from the nearby khor [a natural canal] and during the rainy season all the village waste – human, animal and other garbage – is washed from the higher areas to the khor.’ Unfortunately, families were unaware that their behaviour was affecting their children’s health. Water-borne diseases like dysentery were common and simple illnesses like diarrhoea were killing children under five years old. Community driven Plan knew that if parents were to keep their children healthy, they would have to change years of ingrained behaviour. So last year we launched an initiative to bring sanitation to Um Okaz and six other communities in North Sudan. Called Community Led Total Sanitation (CLTS), it combines practical training for villagers on how to install simple, low-cost latrines with teaching on hygiene and practices for keeping their local environment clean and healthy. To be successful, the project must be driven by the community. Plan held meetings in Um Okaz and the other villages to explain the dangers of leaving human waste out in the open, and how they could work together to put long-term sanitation solutions into practice. Each village formed a sanitation committee and set a deadline for completing its latrines and declaring itself free from the practice of open defecation.
Produced for North Sudan by Plan International Australia.
Plan is working with children, families and communities to find sustainable solutions to the challenges in North Sudan. We have only given you a small insight into Plan’s work in North Sudan with this report but over the past year we also: • Helped to establish six rural hospitals and six health units, giving 24,044 families in 19 communities access to basic health services • Supported 68 microfinance organisations, helping members to set up small businesses and secure their finances
Two villagers from each of the communities practising CLTS took part in a national sanitation workshop in Khartoum, where they shared their experiences with representatives from the government, other non-governmental organisations and United Nations agencies.
• Worked with the State Council of Child Welfare to help children establish forums and meet decision-makers to talk about their welfare and rights
‘It will not be overstating it to say that for the first time the Sudanese people witnessed the power of local community action in total sanitation,’ said one delegate, after hearing how families had worked together to bring permanent change to their communities.
Your support as a sponsor is crucial to achieving these results. With the resources provided by sponsors, Plan expertise and the collaboration of communities and local partners we are making a big difference to the lives of people in North Sudan.
Villagers were so confident of meeting their deadline for achieving complete sanitation and cleanliness in their communities they invited everyone at the workshop to visit two months later.
Thank you for your involvement!
With the enthusiastic support of neighbours like Salma, there was little doubt that Um Okaz and the other communities would attain their goal. ‘I will dig the latrine myself and I will start digging now,’ she said after learning about sanitation. She began work on her latrine before the CLTS trainers had even left the village. It’s motivation like this that is moving communities working with Plan closer to the day they are declared ‘Open Defecation Free’ – that is, closer to leaving their old, unsanitary habits behind them and giving their children life-long protection against disease. Some names have been changed for child protection and privacy reasons
‘I will dig the latrine myself and I will start digging now.’ To learn more about Plan’s work in North Sudan visit plan.org.au/ourwork/southernafrica/sudan
‘We have embarked on the formidable task of promoting children’s rights, gender parity and creating opportunities for improving the basic needs of children and families’ – Ali Adam, Manager of Plan’s Program in North Sudan