FOCUS
Promoting Health and Fighting Disease
Creating Economic Opportunities

MDGs ADDRESSED
MDG 1: Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty
MDG 4: Reduce child mortality
MDG 5: Improve maternal health
MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
MDG 8: Create a global partnership for development

OVERVIEW
In Sudan, people have lived through two protracted civil wars in the past 50 years between the government of Sudan and groups indigenous to southern Sudan, most notably the Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement/Army. An estimated two million people were killed over the past two decades. Years of conflict decimated the infrastructure of southern Sudan.

Although a peace agreement was signed in 2005, the crisis is far from over. The continued ethnic cleansing in the Darfur region has killed nearly one million people and left nearly two million others in desperate need of food and medicine. Additionally, Sudan has more than six million internally displaced people, with another 500,000 Sudanese refugees living in neighboring countries including Kenya and Chad. Many of the displaced and refugees are children and young adults who fled the country alone. These groups are beginning to return home.

Our PARTNER
Episcopal Relief and Development is partnering with the Episcopal Church of Sudan and its development arm, the Sudanese Development and Relief Agency (SUDRA). SUDRA leads the social development and humanitarian relief efforts of the Church throughout the country.

Our CURRENT PROGRAMS
In partnership with SUDRA, Episcopal Relief and Development is implementing an integrated development program that focuses on education, primary health care, and food security in four dioceses in southern Sudan. Episcopal Relief and Development and SUDRA are also focusing on primary health services and building vocational skills in the Dioceses of El Obeid, Port Sudan, and Malakal in northern Sudan.

Episcopal Relief and Development is helping to build the capacity of church leadership by providing training in management and financial skills for senior administrators of all the dioceses. Comprehensive strategic planning was conducted in the dioceses of western equatorial Sudan—Maridi, Ibba, Ezo, Yambio, Mundri, and Lui—and formed the basis of the program responses.

In addition, Episcopal Relief and Development is providing educational and skills training opportunities for Sudanese refugees in Kenya and improving the health care infrastructure in Southern Sudan.

Promoting Health and Fighting Disease
Episcopal Relief and Development is improving health care in both northern and southern Sudan, by rebuilding damaged facilities and providing training opportunities to increase the numbers of qualified health care personnel.

• A health center provides health care for residents in Diocese of Maridi.
• A health care center in the northern Sudan Diocese of Malakal has been rebuilt and provides essential services in the community.
• A trainers’ curriculum gives nurses the knowledge they need to tutor other health care professionals and upgrade the number of skilled health care professionals in southern Sudan.

Creating Economic Opportunities
Episcopal Relief and Development is working to provide educational and job training opportunities for young people who have lived their entire lives in the shadow of war, including those who have spent most of their years in refugee camps.

• A training center for women offers skills development in the Diocese of Yambio.
• Basic schools provide educational opportunities for children in Amaki Archdeaconry in the Diocese of Maridi.
• An agricultural improvement project helps farmers improve their produce in the Diocese of Ibba.
• Computer training courses for young people forced to leave school during the war provide opportunities to gain skills needed for employment in Port Sudan in Northern Sudan.
• Secondary vocational education and training for young people living at the Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya provides opportunities to learn skills and provide food and income for their families.

Our PAST ACHIEVEMENTS
Episcopal Relief and Development has provided critical aid to help displaced people in the Darfur region and neighboring Chad, including:

• Supplying food, medicines, emergency health care, and access to clean water to protect refugees from disease and starvation during the crisis.
• Providing mental health care services to help women and children heal from the traumatic events they have experienced.
• Supporting schools in three camps in Farchana ensured children continued their education.
• Training in life skills and health education helped mothers provide care and support for their children during the crisis.