Update from Dane Smith
We bring you in this issue a remarkable story of the Good Hope School in South Kordofan. Funds were collected in Denver in memory of the late Fr. Oja Gafour, a Sudanese priest from the region, who served many years at the Episcopal Cathedral in Denver. The funds were transmitted to South Kordofan by Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail, Bishop of Kadugli, where they were used for a well-organized activity to promote the education of girls at the Good Hope School. AFRECS thanks Colorado donors and the Episcopal Foundation of Colorado and pays tribute to Bishop Andudu and the leaders of the Good Hope School.
A clue to the Biden Administration’s views on South Sudan came late February when U.S. Representative to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, speaking as President of the UN Security Council, called on South Sudanese leaders to expedite implementation of the 2018 peace agreement. Noting rising inter-communal violence, she urged the South Sudanese Government to “accelerate the peace process, lower levels of violence and work with the UNMISS [peacekeeping force] to protect civilians.” She expressed concern that South Sudan was falling far short of ensuring that women constitute 35 percent of appointments in government, as required by the agreement, concluding that real transition of civil war required “full, effective and meaningful participation of women.”
Unfortunately, the US has not had an ambassador in Juba since the departure of Thomas Hushek in mid-2020. Likewise, no ambassador has been named to Khartoum even though Sudan’s late 2020 agreement to a settlement of claims related to the 1998 terrorist bombing of Embassies Nairobi and Dar es Salaam and its signature of the Abrahamic Accords with Israel set the stage for a formal exchange of ambassadors. These appointments presumably await the Biden Administration’s appointment of an Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and completion of an ongoing review of policy toward the Horn of Africa.
AFRECS is delighted to note the return to Juba of the Reverend Joseph Bilal, Acting Vice Chancellor of the Episcopal University and Chair of the Episcopal Primate’s Task Force on COVID-19. Dr. Bilal reports he has completely recovered from respiratory infections for which he was being treated in the UK. 
Executive Director
A Brief Report on the Dr. Father Oja Gafour Fund for Hope Primary School
By the Rt. Rev. Andudu Adam Elnail
Hope Primary School is in Omdurain County, in South Kordofan State, Sudan. In the area controlled by Sudan People Liberation Movement-North (SPLM/N). The school was established in the year 2004. It is one of the Episcopal Church Schools owned by the Diocese of Kadugli. The second war in June 2011 affected the Education sector in Nuba Mountains and many schools were closed. Fortunately, Hope Primary School is still in operation but in a very challenging financial situation.
However, in April 2019, the Islamic government was ousted, and bombardment and battles stopped in the Nuba Mountains. The renewal of the ceasefire is continuing. There are still political tensions.
Last academic year, schools were closed because of Covid 19. But this academic year, schools opened in the normal time frame. We thank God there are no Coronavirus cases in Nuba Mountains. Thank God for the grace of health given to the Nuba People. We do continue to ask God for protection over the Nuba and other nations.
Relatively, schools in the Nuba Mountains are doing well due to the cease fire and the current political situation, which generated some peace among school children, and this has been reflected in students’ academic performance. All the eighth-grade students except one passed the national exams.
The school has 358 students enrolled, 195 girls and 163 boys in Preschool to 8th Grade. The staff includes eleven teachers, one water porter man, and two female cooks for the teachers.
The late Dr. Father Oja Gafour had a heart for the children and his people of Nuba Mountains. I worked with him for five years when I was in Colorado. Fr. Oja and I worked jointly with our dear friend Anita Sanborn of AFRECS. Funds were raised in honor of Dr. Father Gafour after his death and were transmitted to the Diocese of Kadugli to support the children in the Nuba Mountains. AFRECS transferred $ 6,202 to the Diocese of Kadugli Account in Juba. South Sudan.
When I arrived in Juba, we had a meeting in the Diocese of Kadugli office to choose one of the schools that would benefit from the fund. We selected Hope Primary School because it has a more significant number of female students.
I met with the school administration at Hope Primary School and shared with them Dr. Father Oja Gafour’s work with Anita among the Sudanese in the Diocese of Colorado. It was a good meeting. They have decided to use the money to cover the salaries of several teachers and staff, for some food supplies for teachers, and for materials to make menstrual supplies for the schoolgirls in Hope Primary School through sewing centers sponsored by the Diocese of Kadugli. Necessary materials for hygiene management during menstruation have been scarce to non-existent in Nuba Mountains. As a result, young schoolgirls miss several days of school each month, negatively affecting their academic performance.
On behalf of Hope Primary School and the Diocese of Kadugli, with gratitude, I thank Anita Sanborn for her work and support for the people of Nuba in diaspora and Africa. And heartily thank AFRECS for facilitating funds and their immense support to Sudan and South Sudan. May God almighty bless the work of your hand.
Rt. Rev. Andudu Adam Elnail
Bishop of the Diocese of Kadugli
News and Notes
Teaching Financial Management in South Sudan
By Larry Duffee, Member of the AFRECS Board of Directors
My first effort to help build financial capacity in the Episcopal Church of Sudan (now Episcopal Church of South Sudan) began in the spring of 2011. I taught classes on math and administration to students in both years at Bishop Gwynne Theological College in Juba. BGC was populated with students from various dioceses (only 31 then, now 61!), many of whom were slated to become diocesan secretaries or administrators and who could benefit from management training. Many of the dioceses wanted to apply for grants for projects but knew they needed help learning how to account for funds, or they would be unable to attract grants. What I found were classes full of bright students well trained in the rote memorization that characterizes traditional Sudanese education, but who needed help developing critical thinking skills to apply their knowledge to real-life conditions where problems were non-standard.
Beyond my teaching at BGC, I made visits to many dioceses where I taught pastors and administrators basic bookkeeping skills and how to prepare simple income statements or reports accounting for grant funds. I was struck with how eager people were to learn these skills and how well they understood the importance of managing their resources. I especially tried to get local pastors and staff to appreciate was the fact that they were managing a business — a business that, when the Church’s assets in terms of lands and buildings were considered, was one of the largest in the country and needed to be managed seriously. I recall that I taught at the dioceses of Malakal, Wau, Aweil, Rejaf, Mundri, Lui, Maridi, Ibba, Yambio, Nzara and Ezo, and probably more.
Cultural differences became occasions for learning. When I would inform pastors how, when you enter any Church of England parish, there is a sign by the door clearly stating the costs for such things as weddings, baptisms and funerals, the pastors were aghast. They thought people would accuse them of wanting to profit off people’s deaths. I will never forget a pastor in Wau telling me how he had spent 12-hours conducting a funeral service and was not given so much as a bottle of water. In time the pastors began to understand that their time had value. I used to advise them, “If you hire a painter or carpenter to work on your house all day you expect to pay them, so why should pastors be expected to work for free?”
Part of the problem was an issue of trust. Wherever I taught, pastors stated that talking to their flocks about money would raise suspicions, that congregations were wary of why pastors needed money. I encouraged them to be transparent about their church’s receipts and expenses to develop trust. At that time, the attitude in the ECS was that parishioners did not need to know such things. I was happy that not long before I left South Sudan in 2020, at least at All Saints Cathedral in Juba included in the announcements a statement of how much had been collected at the different services the previous Sunday.
I had gone to Sudan in response to a request from Archbishop Daniel Deng Bul at the 2009 Rumbek Partners’ Conference (attended by Richard Parkins and Buck Blanchard of The Episcopal Church in the U.S.) for someone with management skills to come help get the Province’s financial systems in order. The Archbishop wanted the Province to better support healthcare, schools, and leading peace-building efforts in the country. I was supposed to be in Sudan for only four months. In the end I remained with the ECS nearly 3-years. My time visiting dioceses was some of the most rewarding and enjoyable of all this time in South Sudan. More than one participant stated, “For the first time since Adam was made, we have been given this knowledge.” Wonderful praise indeed!
The Rev. Robin Denney’s Webinar on Sudan and South Sudan
By Frederick E. Gilbert
Before she graduated from the Virginia Theological Seminary and became a priest and rector, Robin Denney served as an Episcopal Church Agricultural Missionary during the two years preceding the 2011 referendum that led to South Sudan’s becoming the world’s newest independent country. Her work was to supervise the development of pilot farms for the province, train clergy, assist the bishops in conducting agricultural assessments of their dioceses, and conduct trainings in improved sustainable methods of agriculture with small scale farmers. That work took her to every state and diocese in South Sudan and gave her experiences and insights which she shares. In addition, she provides clear historical overviews of Sudan’s interactions with Pharaonic Egypt, Greeks, and Romans, early and medieval Christianity, its conquest by Moslem empires, its time as a colony of Egypt and Great Britain and its history since gaining its independence in 1956. This YouTube video is a recording of a live conversation she held with her parish on the 10th anniversary of the referendum vote (1-9-2021) and provides a highly interesting introduction to Sudan and South Sudan.
To view it, click on the link below.
Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?
A Sudan Reading List
Richard Jones, Member of the AFRECS Board of Directors
1. Andrew S. Natsios, Sudan, South Sudan, & Darfur: What Everyone Needs to Know
2012, Oxford University Press, 256 pages. Natsios served as USAID Administrator 2001-2005 and US Special Envoy for Sudan 2006-7.
2. Edward Eremugo Kenyi, Sacrifice and other Short Stories
2020, Africa World Books, 133 pages. Kenyi is a public health physician and poet, currently working at Johns Hopkins University; stories are set mostly in South Sudan and Khartoum, with one in Washington, DC and one in outer space.
3. Zack Vertin, The Rope from the Sky: The Making and Unmaking of the World’s Newest State
2019, Pegasus Books, 497 pages. Vivid descriptions of Sudanese leaders and villagers woven into a coherent chronology of US diplomatic work between 2005 and 2016, as witnessed by a notetaker for the U.S. Special Envoy to Sudan.
4. Francis M. Deng, War of Visions: Conflict of Identities in the Sudan
1995, Brookings Institution, 577 pages. Sociological and historical analysis of ethnic and political background of conflict, 1860-1992, including detail on the Ngok Dinka.
News from Other Sources
Sudan Tribune
Church Leaders call for peace and stability in South Sudan
02/23/2021
The South Sudan Council of Churches called on the government to take steps to promote peace, security and national cohesion as the country celebrates the first anniversary of the creation of its Transitional Government of National Unity.
The appeal is contained a joint statement issued by the South Sudan Council of Churches, Civil Society Forum and South Sudan Women’s Coalition. Noted the statement, “This is not the first time we have called on the same leaders to fulfil their responsibility to their country and the citizens of the nation”. It added, “Unfortunately, these calls have not yet yielded any meaningful change to the ongoing crisis in the country and the living conditions of the common citizens.”
Acknowledging the reduction of military confrontations among parties to the peace agreement, including positive steps to hold armed forces accountable for crimes against civilians and the reconstitution of the executive of the unity government, the joint statement signatories said they are “deeply disturbed that the overall situation has not convincingly improved.”
The church leaders also expressed concerns about the “devastating intercommunal violence, displacement of civilians, sexual and gender-based violence, unnecessary roadblocks for extorting money and inflicting pain on travelers and humanitarian workers, alongside an economy that falters with soaring inflation rates.”
According to the statement, parties “remain recalcitrant to implementation of the 35% affirmative action quota” which obliges them to legally uphold women representation and participation in the peace deal implementation.
Voice of America: South Sudan Focus
Women’s Representation in South Sudan State Governments
Misses Mandated 35%
March 4, 2021 By: Seba Martin Murangi
JUBA, SOUTH SUDAN – Women’s and human rights activists in South Sudan say parties to the 2018 peace deal are violating a provision that calls for 35% of government positions at all levels to be allocated to women.
President Salva Kiir’s decree reconstituting Western Equatoria state’s government was read on state television on February 25. Out of 17 ministers appointed to the state Cabinet, only four are women. Out of 10 county commissioners, only two are women. All five state advisers are men. Although seven women were appointed commissioners on independent commissions, all five chairpersons of the commissions are men.
Tambura County women’s activist Clementina Anite said that while she is pleased the parties are finally forming a state government, she is concerned about women’s representation. “The concern is we are talking about our representation of 35% of women in all entities because women are educated in South Sudan and all-over public places like the market, you find almost 100% of them trying to make a living. The more we are represented, women can do a lot,” Anite told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus. “While most seem to agree women should be equitably represented in government, the appointing authorities often do not put that belief into practice”, said Anite.
Jackline Nasiwa, founder of the Center for Inclusive Governance, Peace and Justice in South Sudan, said the 35% participation of women provided for in the peace deal was “far from being met.” Out of the six reconstituted state governments, Western Equatoria state has the highest number of women appointed to high-ranking positions. “The few women who have been appointed so far make up less than 20% at the national and state levels. In some states including Warrap, Jonglei, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal and Unity state, women representation is 11% to 17% while at the county level, women make up only 2%,” Nasiwa told South Sudan in Focus.
Information minister and government spokesperson Michael Makuei denied Kiir’s office was part of the candidate selection process, saying it was the responsibility of the state governors and the chairpersons in the various parties to the peace deal. “We had some allocation of portfolios. As to who would occupy them, [that] was not our problem. This was the office of the governor’s and the chairperson of the parties, not the office of the president,” Makuei told South Sudan in Focus.
Mary Nawai, who represents Ibba County at the National Legislative Assembly, said she is disappointed to see women so poorly represented in the new Western Equatoria state government, even though the law requires that women be represented as part of affirmative action. Nawai argues South Sudanese women are development-minded, noting most still manage to put food on the table despite the country’s economic crisis. She said women would perform as well as men or even better if appointed to government positions. “I am urging the state government to at least appoint a woman to the chair of the speaker so that we women can feel we are capable of holding top positions,” she said.
XinhuaNet
Safety and security of aid workers in South Sudan deteriorated in 2020
02/20/2021
JUBA– Nine aid workers were killed in South Sudan and more than 300 violent incidents reported in 2020 alone, the UN humanitarian agency said Friday. The deaths bring the total number of aid workers who have lost their lives since the east African nation plunged into civil war in 2013 to 124, according to a 2020 humanitarian access overview report released by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Juba.
OCHA attributed the increase in aid worker deaths to intensified sub-national violence, compounded by the intensity of ambushes against aid workers. “An increase in sub-national and localized violence, including the resumption of politicized conflict in parts of the country, impacted humanitarian operations and impeded humanitarian assistance to vulnerable people,” OCHA said. “Based on available information, the compromise of humanitarian access in 2020 was mainly as a result of active hostilities and violence against humanitarian workers and assets.”
South Sudan was ranked the most dangerous place to deliver aid, according to the Worker Security Report for 2018.
XinhuaNet
South Sudan faces acute food shortages as harvest falls by 50%
02/20/2021
in Yambio, South Sudan. (Xinhua/Gale Julius)
JUBA, March 5 (Xinhua) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned Thursday that South Sudanese are facing life-threatening food shortages following last year’s drop in harvests. In its latest assessment they noted that communities in nine out of 10 states harvested on average 50 percent less cereal and vegetables in 2020 compared to 2019.
“Our assessment shows that climate shocks, combined with continuing conflict and armed violence, make the transition for communities from receiving food assistance to independent food production extremely difficult,” Robert Mardini, director-general of the ICRC said in a statement issued in Juba.
As the lean season begins, it said, tens of thousands of families, especially in Jonglei, Upper Nile, Warrap, Unity and Lakes States, are struggling for survival without an adequate harvest from 2020 and following the loss of other food reserves to conflict, armed violence and floods.
According to ICRC, a renewed outbreak of armed violence or the intensification of conflict would increase the chance of immediate, life-threatening food shortages for hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese. And combined with the impact of COVID-19 and climatic shocks, many South Sudanese in remote and vulnerable communities face challenging months ahead in 2021.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR GENEROUS SUPPORT!
We are grateful that contributions from you, our supporters, continue to nurture AFRECS in expanding our impact. You make a difference in the essential peacebuilding work of the Episcopal Church of South Sudan. We hope you will consider an additional gift — of whatever you can afford in this time of COVID. You can contribute online at https://afrecs.org or send a check made out to AFRECS to P.O. Box 3327, Alexandria, VA 22302
Please Note: AFRECS’ former address c/o Virginia Theological Seminary is no longer valid.
This issue of the AFRECS E-Blast was compiled by Caroline Klam.t was compiled by Board members Richard Jones, Steven Miles, and Caroline Klam.