EDUCATING OTHERS: Gua Africa, Emma Academy ~ Southern Sudan

Check back on this section,

it will be up-dated on a regular basis,
scroll down to last report.

12 July - Toilet blocks now complete with photos
Total Funds raised to date for Phase 1 of Emma Academy
20 July - Update with photos
28 July -Nearly there! Latest Total.

http://gua-africa.org/

http://www.facebook.com/daveinuk?ref=profile#!/guaafrica?ref=ts

Emmanuel Jal
Founder of GUA Africa, part of which is
The Emma Academy

Emmanuel Jal was born in Southern Sudan, and spent the early years of his childhood in the midst of its longrunning civil war. At the age of 7, after the death of his mother, he was recruited as a child soldier for the Rebel army (SPLA).

Amazingly, he survived front line action and eventually managed to escape with 300 other "lost boys", enduring a 3 month trek on foot without any supplies to reach safety. One of only a handful to survive the journey, Emmanuel was rescued by Emma McCune, a British Aid Worker, who smuggled him to freedom in Kenya and enrolled him in school for the first time.

Tragically, Emma died shortly afterwards in a car accident. Gradually, after so much sadness and trauma in his life Emmanuel began to find healing through the church and through music.

Some ten years later Emmanuel is now a world famous rap artist with a Number 1 record under his belt. He has performed at Live 8 in Cornwall, supported massive UK groups Faithless and Razorlight and his song Baai featured in the smash hit film Blood Diamond. "War Child", a documentary film telling Emmanuel's life story has recently premiered at the Berlin and Tribeca Film Festivals, and his album of the same name is also now on worldwide release.

On 27th June 2008 he performed at Hyde Park at the 90th birthday concert for Nelson Mandela.

Throughout all this, Emmanuel has worked tirelessly with the United Nations, Amnesty International and Oxfam to campaign against the employment of child soldiers and the illegal trade of arms.

His work with GUA Africa remains his overriding passion.

Our mission is to work with individuals, families and communities to help them overcome the effects of war and poverty. Each of our projects focus on providing an education to children and young adults who would otherwise be denied such opportunity. Currently our work is in Kenya and Sudan, however in the future we would like to expand into other areas of Sub-Saharan Africa - working with other experienced partner organisations where ever opportunities arise.

In April 2008 we were granted full UK charity status and later the same year we received our NGO registration in South Sudan.

GUA Africa has been granted 15 acres of land in Leer, West Upper Nile, by the government of South Sudan. Our goal is to build a high quality education centre for the whole community, which is to be called the Emma Academy, as a legacy to Emma McCune who lies in rest in Leer.

The twenty year long Sudanese civil war has meant that schooling in South Sudan today mostly consists of teaching under trees. Many former child soldiers have not found their way back into education, and traditionally only 1 in 5 girls are supported to finish High School.

Back in November 2008 GUA officials agreed with the local Leer community that the Emma Academy project should be split into two phases. The first phase will see the renovation of the existing Leer primary school, which is in desperate need of repair with only two out of four classrooms currently being fit for use. The budget for Phase 1 has been set at $250,000, which includes the construction of 5 extra classrooms.

Due to some fantastic fundraising efforts we have recently been able to replace the collapsed roof and erect a strong perimeter fence around the whole site - essential to keep out roaming livestock. While we continue to fundraise for the new classrooms, work will now continue on refurbishing and repainting the school, plus the construction of the first ever toilet blocks. Each of these improvements will make a massive difference to the welfare of the pupils attending the school.

During the recent trip made by GUA officials in April 2009 more detailed plans were also completed for Phase 2 of the Emma Academy. This will see the development of a top quality educational academy built on the 15 acres of land given to GUA. The academy will include a secondary school – the first in the area - as well as vocational training, sports, and teacher training facilities. We hope to introduce soil stabilisation technology to the area, which will enable us to make strong, durable building blocks using the local soil and sand. As well as being environmentally friendly, this will also generate income and development opportunities for the community in the years to come.

Survivors of War

GUA Africa currently supports seventeen young people in Nairobi and Uganda who have all survived against unimaginable odds. Some were forced to fight as child soldiers in Southern Sudan, two survived the genocide in Rwanda which claimed the rest of their family, and all have trekked hundreds if not thousands of miles under desperate conditions to seek safety in the UN refugee camp at Kakuma, NW Kenya. Most of them are orphaned, and have no homes they can return to or extended family to support them.

GUA has linked each of them with an individual sponsor who pays their school fees, and all of them are studying hard to catch up on the years of education they missed. Because they have missed so much, they are often attending school with children much younger, but they have such a thirst for education that this does not deter them. They know that if they can finish their schooling they stand the best chance of either making a new life for themselves in Kenya or returning to their homeland with the skills to help rebuild their former communities. Several hope to proceed to university, if the financial support is still there. Paying for their education is only part of the story however, and GUA Africa needs your support to pay for their housing, food, clothing and other basic living expenses.

There is no welfare system or free medical care in Kenya, so they are totally dependent on GUA Africa to support them in every way, and if we fail to do so adequately all our and their efforts will have been in vain. With your donations we are able to rent a house for them in a safe part of Nairobi, from where they are able to travel to school, college or university. Our aim is to guide them into young adulthood not just through education but by helping them acquire the life skills needed to forge new relationships and find means of supporting themselves.

Kariobangi

Ever imagined living in a 6ft x 8ft home made of old metal, cardboard and mud, without a bed, electricity, water or a toilet? You have to go out to get water, and the nearest toilet is shared among around 100 people. You have to pay for both. Those who cannot afford toilet costs wait until dark to use the open sewer or open space. A tin filled with kerosene and a piece of cloth for a wick acts as a lamp at night.

This is the glaring reality for approximately 600,000 people living in Kariobangi and Mathare Valley, which is one of the largest slum areas in Nairobi with over 80% of its' population living below the Kenyan poverty line. In addition, it is estimated that one in every three adults in this region is HIV positive and because of the deprivation their life expectancy once diagnosed is less than 5 years.

It is here that a local Christian organisation named Mathare Community Outreach has established Kariobangi School and Orphanage, which 400 local children now attend. Many are orphaned and most have lost at least one parent to HIV/AIDS. The school was also caught in the midst of the post-election violence in January 2008, which caused many families to flee the area and others to take refuge within the compound.

Despite this, Kariobangi School is a thriving happy place staffed by an enthusiastic, dedicated team of teachers and carers. GUA Africa is proud to have entered into a partnership with the school in a bid to provide individual sponsors for up to 50 of its' children.

With the help of NGOs like the World Food Organisation it is helping fight malnutrition and promote health education, and provides a basic but loving home for those with no-one else to care for them.

12 JULY - TOILET BLOCKS ARE FINISHED

BREAKING NEWS: The 3 toilet blocks at the Leer Primary School are now finished!! These are the first ever at the school, a big thank you goes out to everyone involved in the fundraising for them.

Photographs posted on Facebook on 12 July 2010

20 JULY - Various up-dates

Hi David,

The blog is great! Please feel free to announce when you have an update on there via our facebook page. Here is this months on the Emma Academy project for you:-

As of this week the Leer Primary School has their first ever functioning public toilets available for use thanks to Gua Africa. The construction has taken longer than expected due to the recent Sudanese national and local elections but we are pleased to say that the three toilet blocks are now fully complete. An official handing over ceremony has taken place where our building contractors AMA handed over the keys to our Gua Sudan official John Mayiel, and then he handed the keys over to the school caretakers and management.

As you can see from the photos the toilets are already blending into the back ground of the school, and according to John the children rushed up to him with joy and were celebrating with him when it was announced to them all that the toilets had been finished and were available for use.

Fundraising for the 5 classrooms has been progressing well in recent weeks, we now have only $18,106 / £11,900 left to raise. The end is starting to feel close now! In the past few weeks an important decision has been reached regarding the building of the classrooms, in response to changed circumstances on the ground in Leer. Another international NGO has offered to build additional classrooms in Government run schools, and as a result Leer Primary is to benefit from at least 3 additional classrooms. Meanwhile, the other primary school in Leer, named Mary John, has no permanent buildings at all and its' pupils are being taught under the trees (please see photos). We already have a good relationship with Mary John as we constructed a bore hole for them during our last visit, so after lengthy consultations with the management of both schools, and the Local Education Director, we have decided that our five classroom block will now be located at Mary John.

We feel very confident that this is the right decision for the whole community, as it will maximise the effect the classrooms will have on the children of Leer. As we look in future to establishing the first independent Secondary school in Leer, it is important that we help develop each of the primary schools whose pupils will feed through to us. This decision is hot off the press; we will be updating all our press, website, facebook, over the next few days.

If you or any of your members have any questions about this decision please feel free to ask and we will be happy to answer them for you. I have attached some photos of the Mary John school, which is right in the heart of Leer town, so your members can get a feel for the standard of the facilities there.

Many thanks for your continued support,

--
Kate Gumm
Gua Africa