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SUDAN Food or Emer Kerrigan Gulu, northern Uganda, near Sudan Lobone, seven kilometres from the northern Uganda border, is now home to many displaced communities from the recently ended 21-year-long war between the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army and the government of Sudan. The 1994 war displaced many Dinka people south to Lobone. As many as four-fifths of the 33,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Lobone are Dinka. Families were forced to leave their cattle behind and turn to crop cultivation as the main source of food. Inadequate farming methods and an over-reliance on three crops has had a damaging effect on the nutrition of the community. Malnutrition rates have risen causing children to be regularly admitted to the local hospital and mothers to miss adult literacy classes to take care of sick relatives. In 2001, JRS began providing communities with education and pastoral services, including guidance, schools materials and financial support to teachers. Consequently, education has flourished in the area in recent years. Standards rise annually and currently Lobone accommodates seven primary schools, one secondary school, 11 nursery schools and nine adult literacy centres, with a student population of nearly 8,000. Despite an abundance of fertile land in Lobone and the increasing availability of education, food insecurity remains a threat to the community. It affects all aspects of education, influencing the attendance of adults and children and the intellectual development of children. The vast majority of people in the area survive directly on what they grow; few individuals have the training or education to earn an income elsewhere. Cultivation and harvesting seasons are crucial to the survival of the family. During these periods, children and mothers, who form the vast majority of adult learners, stay off school to work. Moreover, between May and July, school attendance is also poor as food runs short in the community and the students are forced to go to Uganda in search of food. One means of addressing food insecurity is through the school meals programme facilitated jointly by Catholic Relief Services and JRS. The programme encourages the children to stay in school until the lunch hour and provides them with nutrition which may not be available at home. This food is crucial to their cognitive development and contributes to the improvement in the children’s attention span. Many of the students are orphans and reside with extended families. Providing their own lunches to take to school would place an excessive strain on their extended families. Nevertheless, the delivery of food is occasionally delayed. Food can only be transported on one road from Uganda which is frequently attacked by the Ugandan rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army. Due to the attacks, school attendance is immediately affected, often decreasing by as much as three quarters. The future of education of the internally displaced community in Lobone is entirely dependent on the food security in the area. Although education is valued for its long-term benefits, it is the basic and immediate need of food that is the most influential determinant to the success of the education programme in Lobone. Emer Kerrigan, Administrator, JRS Sudan 10
NAMIBIA school Joanne Whitaker RSM Osire Refugee Camp, central Namibia, is home to about 23,000 refugees, mostly Angolans. One day during the school year, our JRS team made its usual visit. It was late morning when we arrived and went directly to the primary school. We discovered many of the children were absent. Most were standing in the queue to receive their monthly food rations or assisting their families and others to collect their rations. Those who were not in the queue were busy working, transporting heavy loads of maize or cooking oil from the distribution point back to the camp. Distribution usually occurrs once a month, but often more. to ask for assistance and set up a project for girls between the ages of 10 to 20 called the Osire Girls Club. The purpose of the club was to help girls stay in school by offering extracurricular activities, including some supplemental food supplies which could be taken to their families. These efforts, while not completely successful, did significantly reduce girls’ absence and withdrawal from school. We felt powerless. Families needed assistance. Many students used the opportunity to supplement their rations. We needed to face reality and to plan lessons and exams for days when the children would not be needed to collect the food. An even more disturbing reality was the complete withdrawal of children from school, especially girls, to assist the family in getting food. They would work in the family’s garden or stay at home to take care of younger children while the adults looked for work on nearby farms or wherever they could find some temporary work. Work outside the camp often created problems for the refugees. The government did not allow refugees to work. In some cases, farmers would not pay the refugees and tell them to get off their farm or they would report them to the police for trespassing and stealing their cattle. Girls, especially those alone in the camp without parents, would sometimes end up being sexually exploited for money. In fact, this even happened to girls with parents. The parents would be forced to accept their daughter’s prostitution out of desperation. Once this started, the girls almost never returned to school. Again, finding an effective response to this problem was difficult. JRS met with teachers, parents, and camp leaders to raise the issue as one of major concern. We had meetings with the police and camp administration Namibia is not unique. The choice – food or school – occurs throughout southern Africa, and, indeed, across the continent. In fact in neighbouring Zambia, the UN agency, the World Food Programme has reduced food rations for refugees and estimates that, unless donations increase, they will be forced to cease food distribution to refugees in March 2006. It is an ongoing dilemma, not only among refugees and asylum seekers, but for many young people affected by poverty and made orphans by AIDS. Joanne Whitaker RSM, Regional Director, JRS Southern Africa Sudanese refugee, Kejokeji, southern Sudan SERVIR No. 37 – March 2006 11
Page 1 and 2: No. 37 - March 2006 Servir Food - f
Page 3 and 4: Hunger and homelessness regulated b
Page 5 and 6: security forces have also been accu
Page 7 and 8: THAILAND to get by in a big city wo
Page 9: TANZANIA some rations. Oil is the f

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