Educating Girl Groups in South Sudan

Arms of Caring

Long arms of caring reach around the world.

In 2001 a group of young Sudanese refugees came to Denver Colorado from Kakuma Refugee Camp in northern Kenya, a neighboring country that welcomed Sudanese who fled their home country years earlier to escape civil war.

Many new friends in Denver surrounded the lost boys and lost girls of Sudan with attention, helping them settle into their new home. The USA offered numerous opportunities for education and personal growth, but most importantly, it provided safety from fighting and hunger. Out of this new community grew an organization, Project Education Sudan (the word South was later added - PESS), to help these young refugees reconnect with their families in Sudan, and then help to rebuild their homeland, building school buildings, drilling freshwater wells and providing grinding mills so girls could go to school rather than stay home, occupied by family chores.

When South Sudan obtained its independence in 2011, Daniel Gai, one of these lost boys, returned to his homeland, now a college graduate and an American citizen. Daniel is now surrounded by his reconnected family in Bor, South Sudan and is raising his own family as well as a number of war-orphaned relatives. Over the past five years, Daniel has guided PESS efforts to assist 140 girls to graduate from high school. Another 80 girls are now enrolled, dreaming of graduating and contributing to the future of their community and their country. They are undeterred by the seemingly intractable problems of the world’s youngest nation.

This year a group of high school students in Adelaide, Australia contacted us in Denver to ask if they could contribute to the girls' education in South Sudan. The students raised enough money to cover tuition costs for two girls for a full year.

The girls who benefited from this international gesture of goodwill and support from students in Australia wrote letters of thanks. In one of these letters, Anyier wrote “I am really excited for the nice and amazing hard work…to support me in my education.” Anyier then added, “My plan on what to do to give back to the world is to… help other needy people in my community, country, and the entire world as I am being helped.”

Long arms of caring have reached from Sudan to Kenya to Denver and back to South Sudan, then from Australia to Denver to South Sudan, then to the entire world. All of you in the GlobalGiving family who help support the girls in South Sudan are a part of this global reach of support. I know that Anyier’s words of thanks reach back to you. THANK YOU from Anyier.