Monday, October 19, 2009

ECSS Feeds Starving School Children


Dear friends, thank you very much for helping to feed hungry children in South Sudan and encouraging them to attend school, improve their academic performance and have a brighter future.

This month or October 2009, The Evangelical Church of South Sudan (ECSS), in partnership with Christian friends in USA, has been providing daily lunch to over 1000 pre-school, kindergarten and primary school children in four schools in Eastern Equatoria State (EES), Southern Sudan. The objectives of this kind of feeding are to help starving children because of crop failures caused by drought this year in Sudan, to help the children's nutrition (malnutrition is killing childre) and to increase attendance, reduce dropout rates and improve overall academic performance, especially among girls.

This year in Sudan (and most probably also next year 2010) hunger and malnutrition continue to be a national pandemic affecting thousands of Sudanese population, particularly children. For teachers, school feeding gives them more gravitas. "Sometimes parents find it hard to understand why schooling is important for their children as it doesn't provide any immediate benefit to their lives," says Joseph. "Now at least they know that their children will be fed even if they didn't catch a fish that day." "We come to school for the food," said Joyce Avelino a young girl in Torit town, "and we also get to learn too" she continued.

One of our school head teachers, Barnabas Oller Anthony described school feeding as being "to attract poor and hungry children to school and ensure that they get the food, education, health and other basic services they need to thrive. Food for Education can bring children into school and out of hunger," he told us.

In fact starvation rates in children seem to correspond to school attendance rates, Jenthy Amal says. We have no doubt those Sudanese families who can't get food are less likely to send their children to school. Surprisingly, these two weeks the number of school going children in ECSS elementary schools has tremendously increased!

Please Continue to Help! Help us to feed vulnerable school children in South. You may send your contributions immediately to the address in the contact information section of ECSS blog. It is sent to WorldVenture in Littleton CO and be sure to include the account number and note designating for the Feeding program. Online giving is available also.

2 Cor8:3-4 "For they gave according to their means, as I can testify and beyond their means, of their own free will, begging us earnestly for the favor of taking part in the relief of the saints----"