SALEM on the road to Sudan

In Europe, the image of Sudan has been dominated by news about the Darfur conflict in the North-West of the country. A civil war between the northern dominated central government and Southern Sudan caused much damage over several decades. Religious differences between Christians and Muslims fuelled the conflict. Even now people are being abused by those who seek power and who have political interests, giving more reasons for common mistrust between the people of the two religions. The results of the war are bitter, with more than two million dead and another four million people displaced from their villages – most of whom are now housed in refugee camps.

Although a peace agreement was reached in 2005 enabling many refugees to return to their home regions, the situation for the civil population has remained critical. There is not only a general sense of uncertainty, but also a serious lack of clean drinking water and the diseases that accompany this are rife. There is no real health system and hospitals are few in number with only 1 out of 4 people having access to medical supplies. Education, which may be a way out of poverty, is hardly accessible in Southern Sudan. Less than half of the children there attend school at primary level. If all the children were able to attend school there would be 1,000 pupils for every teacher!

Agua Moses knows of the problems in Southern Sudan having been born and raised there. As a young boy, he learned from his father how to thatch the roofs of houses with grass in the traditional way. But the first civil war forced him to leave the country. In 1966, aged 24 years, he fled to Uganda. As a SALEM co-worker he has passed on his knowledge. Until now he has thatched from house to house in SALEM where there are over 50 grass roofed buildings. He has also been responsible for undertaking the repair and maintenance of roofs and constructs new ones whenever they are needed. Soon, however, he is going to return to his old home to help establish the basic conditions needed for a new SALEM project. He will be acompanied by Sebastian Müller, the new SALEM co-worker for Africa.

What can we do now?
Help for Southern Sudan is still urgently needed. But we are going to be cautious. Many development co-operation organisations have made mistakes in the past. Either the people concerned were not involved in the project or the difficulty of local conditions was underestimated. Consequently, numerous expensive and seemingly practical projects came to nothing. SALEM will examine the needs in the area first to find out how SALEM can become active there. We will work in a way that enables people to become self-sufficient like in SALEM-Uganda which neighbours Sudan. In this way, we guarantee that donations will be used sensibly and effectively.