New Kids Alive Care Center, Malakal, South Sudan

Program Development Funding Request
Introduction

Kids Alive International works with children at risk: orphans, street children, those who have been abandoned or abused, and those who are victims of war, disease, and extreme poverty. We accomplish this through three types of program:

• Children's Homes: House parents provide 24/7/365 care for the children in a safe, loving atmosphere.
  
  
• Care Centers: Needy children come to our Care Centers each day to receive food, clothing, and education. At the end of the day the child goes home to their family, often to a house with a dirt floor, and no electricity or running water.
  
  
• Schools: We provide quality schooling for children who otherwise wouldn’t have access to education. In addition, we provide meal, medical care, tutoring and devotions.

Kids Alive, which currently operates in 17 countries around the globe, is growing rapidly. We now care for approximately 6,200 children worldwide and have the goal to rescue 10,000 children in crisis by 2010!.

One of the steps we have recently taken is to open a new country of ministry, Sudan.  Our goal is to reach out and provide at least 1,000 children in Sudan with quality, holistic care within five years. Programs will primarily be residential programs and care centers and are being set up in partnership with local churches. A key emphasis of all of our programs is to encourage children to follow Christ and disciple those who make commitments.




Kids Alive International currently operates four programs in Sudan:

• The Boys Hope Center, Khartoum has 40 residential children, a school for 120 children in Kindergarten and Grades One to Three, and a Drop-In Center, where 70 other street children can come each day, wash their clothes and have a shower, eat a hot meal, and have Bible study and other activities.
  
  
• The Kharnheim Orphans’ Center, Kalakala, Khartoum is a children’s home half an hour’s drive from Khartoum. The Home has fourteen children all of whom are orphans aged between two and seventeen years.
  
  
• Kids Alive Orphans’ Center, Mayo, Khartoum is in a displaced people’s camp. Opened in January 2006, the Home cares for twelve needy children.
  
  
• The Good Shepard Care Center provides care to more than 40 street children in Wau, a town in the south of Sudan that is estimated to have over one thousand homeless children and many others without access to education, adequate food or clothing.

In total, around 300 children are cared for in Sudan. Over the next three years we plan to open eight more children’s homes and care projects, primarily in the south of the country which has been worst affected by the civil war in Sudan.

Needs of Children in Sudan

There are a number of key issues facing children-at risk. Many of these are a direct result of the civil war that has ravaged the country in recent years. The situation in Darfur has been most widely reported, with widespread killing, looting, rape of women and girls, destruction of villages and displacement of millions of people, including an estimated 500,000 children.

Some of the other key problems faced by children in Sudan are:

• Street Children: There are a large number of street children, many of whom are refugees who have fled the fighting. There are many social problems that affect these children, including glue sniffing, drugs, sexual abuse and pregnancies in girls as young as 9 and 10 years of age. Many street children die because of a lack of access to clean water and medical treatment.
• Orphans: There are a considerable number of orphans in Sudan (estimated at 9 per cent of all children), many as a result of the war. A significant proportion of these children end up living out on the streets or in camps.
• Refugee Camps: There are a number of enormous refugee camps in desert areas on the outskirts of Khartoum. These are primarily people fleeing the war from other areas of the country. The conditions in these camps are extremely basic, with no electricity and limited access to water.
• Poor Medical Care: Hospital and medical facilities are often not accessible to the poorest sections of the community because of the cost. HIV / AIDS is a growing problem in the country. 30,000 children were estimated to have been infected by HIV/AIDS in 2001, with 62,000 children orphaned by AIDS.
• Lack of Education: Education is not free in Sudan, and since the introduction of school fees in 1999, many children have failed to complete their schooling. Instead up to 13 per cent of all children are sent out to work as child labourers. Schools find it difficult to recruit good quality teachers as salaries for teachers are very low (between $60 and $150 per month). There is little provision for Vocational Training.
• Other Issues: One strategy of Muslim fundamentalists has been to take children away from Christian families in the Nuba Mountains and other areas, promising them food and an education, and putting them into Islamic camps where they are taught the Koran. The children’s names are changed from Christian to Islamic names. Conditions in these camps are very basic, with reports of abuse widespread. There are also a significant number of child soldiers in Sudan. Children as young as 12 are known to have been rounded up and forced to fight in the country’s civil war.

For some time Kids Alive has been exploring the possibility of opening a care program in the town of Malakal, located in the south-east state of Ali-Annir. Malakal is accessible by air from Khartoum although access to the airport is limited during the rainy season. Road access to other southern towns is also difficult and there are very few telephone links, and consequently little email access. Keeping southern towns isolated from one another was a deliberate strategy adopted by Khartoum’s Islamic government during the civil war.
The population of Malakal is extremely poor and basic public services are very limited. The availability of government electricity is sporadic, although many people do have small electricity generators. Access to water in the street pumps can be a difficulty during the dry season. The majority of roads in the town are unpaved, and therefore are flooded frequently during the rainy season. Since much of Malakal’s food and other goods are flown in from Khartoum, costs are much higher than in the capital.

Our plan in Malakal during 2008 is to open a small Care Center for 20 children. These children would be able to come to the Center each day, wash their clothes, have a nutritious lunchtime meal, be given assistance with their education, and receive regular teaching from the Bible.

We intend to rent and furnish an apartment in Malakal for the first year, and select some of the more needy children in the community to join the program. For the past six months we have been training a young man to run the program in Malakal, and another member of staff will be appointed. A local Christian organization, ‘Young Christian Fellowship’ has pledged its support and will provide volunteers to assist with the program.

The program will be monitored by Field Director Francis Tombe and Kids Alive’s Vice President of Operations for Africa, Matt Parker. We believe that, as it grows, Kids Alive’s new program in Malakal will have a great impact in touching the lives of many at-risk children in this needy community.

Funding Required

This critical funding will enable us to bring more children out of desperate situations.
Thank you for supporting the work of Kids Alive Sudan!