Background of The Marol Academy
Sudan has been at war for over two decades. The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, signed in 2005 between North and South Sudan, brought an end to the hostilities, but educational services in most areas remain poor or non-existent. Like other Southern Sudanese established in Europe and America, Jok has been supporting the younger members of his family in schools in neighboring Uganda for some years. It began in 1998 when Jok took 7 children from his immediate family—2 girls and 5 boys—from South Sudan to Uganda, hoping to give them a better chance than the circumstances of war allowed. By 2006, the number had grown to 37 (5 girls and 32 boys). Jok currently sponsors these children in various schools in Kampala, Uganda spanning all grades, which costs him approximately $15,000 annually.
With peace in South Sudan, albeit a fragile peace, it was decided that instead of spending this amount of money on educating his 37 relatives outside the country, it would be better to raise funds to establish a school back in South Sudan, one that could serve the entire community. A primary school for several hundred has been established and can be maintained at a fraction of the cost per student than was spent in Uganda. The Marol School is benefitting a much wider section of the community.
The following proposal describes the justification for the Marol Academy Nonprofit and our first project, the Marol School:
For the past two decades, since the beginning of the north-south war in Sudan (Africa’s largest country and one of the poorest on the continent), a crumbling social and economic landscape has been the norm. Most communities, especially the more rural ones, have not had a functioning school system since 1983. A whole generation of South Sudanese has not attended school. A peace agreement between the Government of Sudan and the southern opposition groups was signed in early 2005, and this generation is now looking at the coming of peace as their chance to receive the education they have been so hungry for. Many civil society organizations, Sudanese local communities, aid organizations and donor countries are trying to develop ways to speed up the resumption of basic services. The problem is that the need and the level of expectation of such basic services, especially in communities most affected by the 25-year long conflict, far outweigh these efforts. The new government of South Sudan, stretched in all fields of administration, has no capacity to deal with the high demand for schools that communities in the South are now making. It is even worse for girls than it is for boys. In Southern Sudan the illiteracy rate among women is a shocking 98%.
An additional problem is the return of millions of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) to their homes in the South. This has already begun to overwhelm all service sectors. It is a daunting task in terms of the ability of the state to provide them with the capacity to resettle into their communities. The returning refugees come from the refugee camps in the neighboring countries or from the more developed north of Sudan. One of the few compensations of life in these camps was a limited degree of educational service, and the returnees hope for something comparable or better.
One of the most pressing problems, one that is becoming very evident in South Sudan is that there will continue to be a growing number of young people with a burning desire to attend school matched against a serious shortage of class rooms, learning materials, qualified teachers, and above all, the lack of funds to pay the teachers and school administrators and the lack of capacity to administer schools at the national and state level. Even when communities pool their resources together to construct a school or set it up under a tree, there always remains the question of attracting teachers, especially as many qualified teachers opt for better paying jobs as development workers with international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
The flag of South Sudan