By Taban Gabriel
SOS Children Village an international organization based in Juba, has on Tuesday launched an initiative to support children at Gumbo basic primary school
The initiative dubbed Emergency Respond Program (ERP) targets over 200 school going children from the most vulnerable families in Sherikat area
The rolled out includes provision of exercise books, mathematical sets, school bags, pencils and pens.
The project has a propensity to support its beneficiaries for all the three terms of the 2022 school academic year.
Bismark Hakim is the SOS Children’s Village Community mobilization officer; he gave an overview about the initiative “The educational support we are implementing today is part of an all out emergency respond program being implemented in Rajaf Payam of Juba County and the school supports particularly targets orphans and children from the most vulnerable families” He said
Bismark expressed his organization’s commitment to support the most vulnerable families in South Sudan
“We are really committed to support these most vulnerable families and also hoping to extend the initiative beyond the borders of Juba County” He added
The atmosphere at Gumbo basic was filled with excitement as beneficiaries expresses their ecstasy at the good gesture of SOS children village
Smiles could be seen on the faces of the recipients as they walk home flanged in their new school bags filled with scholastic materials
17 year old Victoria Kaku, could not hide her pleasure with the gifts she received “I lived with my uncle who doesn’t have any job but he struggles to send me to school; this support will help him a lot since he will not have to struggle to buy me scholastic materials” she said
Kaku however urged SOS to also consider covering other school needs in the next project “As you can see me now, I don’t have a school uniform because my uncle is still struggling to clear my school fees, if you can consider these in your next project, you would have done a lot of favour to my struggling family” the jolly Kaku added
Meanwhile 18 years old Peter Kon emphasis were on the issue of school’s shoes and uniform; Kon who was in sandals and also in non-school uniform said his school mates kept taunting him whenever he is in class “sometimes I just don’t feel like coming to school because I look different in the class and the pupils keeps making jokes about me not wearing school uniform” a weary Kon said
On the other hand the Headmaster of Gumbo basic Daniel Ladu, urged other humanitarian organizations to emulate SOS Children’s Village work of reaching to the most vulnerable children
“ The gesture by SOS Children Village will encourage a lot of children to continue with their school; I encourage other Non-governmental organization to come up and support SOS work since we still have over 400 hundred vulnerable children left without support” Ladu said
The next distribution of scholastic materials will be in second term according to Bismark Hakim.