Help Build Schools for Girls in Sudan

Notes from the Field- Yei, SUdan

Emma Vick — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 14:49:07 GMT

NESEI’s Sudan Field Officer Lauren Servin reported today that the site of the first school is right on schedule, with construction, student recruitment, and teacher training moving along at an efficient pace. The school, which is being built in Yei, South Sudan, will open to 150 students in late April.

Servin reported that the floors and roofs have been completed on both the classroom and the dormitory buildings, and construction of the dining hall and kitchen has begun. The construction of the classroom blocks should be finished on March 19. In addition, fencing around the perimeter of the campus is nearing completion.

While the field staff are busy building up, they’re also digging down: the foundations for the latrines and showers have been finished, and the borehole, which will pipe in fresh water for the campus and adjoining school farm, is being drilled this week.

Essential agreements and partnerships for construction and recruitment have also been recently created, which will ensure the school's steady progression. The contract for the Staff/Guest housing has been signed and construction on those buildings is set to begin immediately. NESEI’s innovative design for a solar energy system is almost complete, which will provide clean, sustainable, and reliable energy to the entire campus.

The school will welcome six teachers from Kampala, Uganda, who will be joining our school staff on March 24 to begin training and NESEI orientation. From March 26-April 20 curriculum and staff development, as well as classroom preparation will be completed. Interviews of potential students will be conducted in Yei starting March 22, and in the neighboring towns of Juba and Arua beginning March 29.

All of the hard work and waiting will be rewarded on April 21, when NESEI’s new students begin arriving. Classes are scheduled to begin around April 28.

Student's Sudan Efforts Win 'Teen Vogue' Contest

Emma Vick — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 18:06:54 GMT

Student's Sudan Efforts Win 'Teen Vogue' Contest
Contact: University Communications Staff
Email: newserv@uvm.edu
Phone: (802) 656-2005 FAX: (802) 656-3203

It was a slow summer afternoon in the New Sudan Education Initiative office, so intern Emma Vick idly surfed over to Teen Vogue.

The site's motto is "fashion starts here!", but as Vick scrolled down the page, it was a question that got her going, not a celebrity.

"Are you passionate about anything?" asked a small link announcing the publication's $5,000 "Sweet Charity" contest. Well, yes, thought the sophomore anthropology and political science major, so she started typing.

Over the next half hour or so, she described her involvement with the nonprofit, emphasizing its goal of building 20 schools in impoverished Southern Sudan by 2015 and explaining how that mission connects with her deep belief that educating women can change an entire community. The next day, after editing her essay and running it by more experienced NESEI staff members, she sent it in and soon forgot about the whole thing.

Until she received an e-mail from the magazine. Vick read the message twice to be sure: Actor Natalie Portman, who appears on the cover of Teen Vogue's current December/January issue, had selected Vick's essay as the contest's winner. Vick would be mentioned in the magazine (and in a follow-up article) and the New Sudan Education Initiative would receive a $5,000 donation. Vick herself had to stay silent until the magazine went to press.

"That was the hard part, I couldn't really tell the necessary people," Vick says. "I was dying for two months to tell everything."

After the magazine was published, Vick attended meetings with NESEI's leaders to decide what to do with the windfall money. The group decided upon Vick's preferred approach — using the contest winnings to seed a micro-lending program aimed at women in the communities where NESEI is building schools. Vick is now writing Portman a thank you note and trying to enlist the celebrity, who is also interested in development through micro-lending, as a NESEI supporter.

"It would be nice to have a high-profile supporter," Vick says. "We're at least going to try to keep in contact with her."

Vick, who is vice president of the nonprofit's on-campus club, prizes her experience with NESEI: professionally, socially and intellectually. The start-up group, which won a prestigious World Bank grant in May and will open its first school next May, allowed her to contribute in a variety of ways. "One of the best things was that it was new and emerging," Vick says. "If they had a bigger staff, I probably wouldn't have been doing all the things I was doing."

The summer was a "blur" for Vick; she helped design and format the group's materials and collaborated on designing a campus lecture tour for NESEI founder (and UVM alumnus) Abraham Awolich, dealing with everything from content to logistics to negotiating honoraria. The best part of the work, though, wasn't work.

"It was collaborating closely with Sudanese people and learning about them," she says, pointing out that the heavy involvement of Sudanese at every level of the group will be crucial to the success of the nonprofit's mission in Africa. Vick's new friends were personally meaningful, as well. "All the American interns lived together in a house downtown, and the Sudanese would come over Monday nights for dinner and movies. We formed a little community," Vick says.

Vick will make her first trip to Africa this summer. She hopes to attend the opening of NESEI's first school and has arranged to volunteer for three months in a refugee camp in Ghana, a stint which she will follow with a semester abroad in the country. The time, Vick hopes, will help her accomplish her goal of making a career out of working with women in developing countries, a path inspired by her mother's long history of working in women's health.

In the short term, Vick is looking forward to talking more about NESEI in Teen Vogue's follow up article about her efforts — and maybe, just maybe, a call from Natalie Portman.

Information: New Sudan Education Initiative

Notes from the field-Uganda

Emma Vick — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 18:36:00 GMT

Notes from the Field:
Since September, I have been in Uganda piecing all sorts of logistical parts together. Uganda is still a place many Sudanese call home until returning to Sudan is possible. I have had chances to reconnect with many Sudanese I met in 2005 on my first trip to Africa.

Often the conversation turns to Sudan and what is hindering them from returning home. What I hear reinforces my belief in NESEI and encourages all of our efforts to build peace through education in Sudan. I rejoice even further when I know that NESEI is creating the next generation of human resources for Sudan, starting with the health care sector. I have come to understand, once again, that education and health care are at the top of the list of what is missing from Southern Sudan, and a major reason why many Sudanese are still in Uganda.

One family I met had gone back to Sudan, but all five family members became ill with worms and malaria. Returning to Uganda was the only option for them. They are now receiving medical care, and the father is hoping to return to Sudan in the next month or two. His hope is that his family can join him in the future, but until there are schools and other needed services this will not be possible.

We can, and are, influencing the state of development in Southern Sudan. Education is the first vital step, and NESEI a key player. I can not thank you enough for your support, dedication and energy to allow peace and education to shine throughout Sudan!

-Katie Hatch

News!

Emma Vick — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 23:52:41 GMT

Implementation of the New Sudan School of Health Sciences has officially begun!

Significant progress has been made this summer in Yei, Sudan by Robert Lomude - our local field coordinator - on road construction and site preparation for the renovation of classroom buildings, dormitories a nd living quarters for teachers and staff.

Robert Lomude is our local partner in Yei River Country, who became our full-time implementing partner in June. We met Robert in Inveppi refugee camp in Northern Uganda, where he lived for 11 years and was the coordinator for community development for over 25,000 refugees.

Katie Hatch has just left VT to join Robert in Yei. Together, they will oversee every aspect of the school project, including land and building renovations, student, teacher, and headmaster recruitment, and curriculum development. Together, they will make possible the opening of our first school and we wish them the very best and thank them for their hard work in the field!

Join the NESEI Group!

Emma Vick — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 16:38:13 GMT

The New Sudan Education Initiative is a small non-profit based in Burlington, Vermont. We are breaking ground on our first secondary school in Yei, Sudan in early september! It will focuse on Health Sciences and the majority of the pupils will be girls!
please support this group by joining up!
To get more information, visit NESEI.org!

Who we are-NESEI

Emma Vick — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 18:51:22 GMT

NESEI is organizing South Sudanese Diaspora Organization that is mobilizing people in 32 cities across the United States, and also in cities in the U.K., Australia and Canada to work in Unison to bring education to South Sudan. NESEI works with all of SudanÂ’s Diaspora groups in addition to support networks of volunteers and friends and experts in international development from 4 continents. This alliance of motivated people provides a dynamic pool for ideas, resources, and skills, which provides NESEI with the most affective project implementation capabilities both in and out of Sudan.

NESEI is based in Burlington VT USA and Juba South Sudan. We are registered as an indigenous NGO with the South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (SSRRC) and the Government of Southern Sudan. We are registered with MOSEST (USAID) and OCHA (UN) in Juba and Nairobi, Kenya. We have received our sanctions exemption license from the U.S. Treasury

Because of the signing of the CPA - Comprehensive Peace Agreement - between the North and South in 2005, we believe that this is a historic opportunity to do our part to rebuild the livelihoods of our people through educational development. There was a brief period of peace between 1972 and 1983, which was squandered due to the lack large-scale infrastructure development, especially that of education. Our people paid the price for the lack of education and infrastructure development and the result was a relapse to war in which millions of lives were lost. We believe that this cannot happen again if we create a system in which people can be educated leading to a life of prosperity.
We are focused on large-scale projects that will have a significant impact on SudanÂ’s future. Our initiative will facilitate the creation of Secondary Education in South Sudan, having a large impact on national stability and aiding in the permanence of the current fragile peace. Our plan is to be educating over 20,000 secondary school students a year in 20 'accelerated learning' and leadership academies located throughout Southern Sudan by 2015.
Secondary school education according to Southern Sudanese Government officials and international NGO directors is the 'black hole' of education development policy in Sudan today. You cannot run a country economically, politically or socially on an eighth grade education. No one else is doing this work on such a large-scale and this is why we choose to dedicate our energies to spear heading secondary education in South Sudan. We have the power and resources as members of the Sudanese Diaspora to fundamentally transform Sudan's education system, and thus having a major impact on the future citizens and leaders of Sudan.

World Bank Grant Development Marketplace

Emma Vick — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 18:32:23 GMT

NESEI has won the World Bank Competition. The New Sudan Education Initiative is the winner of the World Bank Development Marketplace competition of the year 2007. The competition was very tense and NESEI was among the 22 winners out of 104 finalists. There were 3000 applicants in total which means that only less than 1% of the total applicants have gotten the grant.