Stories from the Field

Desolated land, unpaved roads, dry landscape, hazy horizon, donkey carts, small motorbikes, roaming barefooted children, makeshift houses, no schools, health facilities, water, electricity or sanitation. This is how I describe the Salama settlement south of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, which I visited last week with my colleagues. HCI has been operating in this area since 2003 empowering three community organizations in the area.

The poverty-stricken Salama settlement, home of more than 11,000 internal refugees, was founded 20 years ago by individuals and families fleeing conflicts in the West and the South of the country. Many live in stick frames temporary houses with waste plastic sheeting as a cover.

HCI operation in this area stretch back to 2003. HCI has been helping people in the area through three community-based organizations established by local residents. The history of each of the three organizations is a story by itself reflecting how few heroic residents had the courage to lead the change toward self-directness and self-support in the face of enormous challenges.

A case in point, community-based organization Disability People International (DPI) which was founded in 1995 by residents to provide the physically disabled with opportunities to share their talent and skills for the betterment of their entire community. They were determinant to lead the way towards a better life for their peers and their entire community.

DPI sponsors the community school with an enrollment of 600+. DPI students are required to pay a basic fee of US$ 25 per year. In fact, only about a quarter have the money and most of those that do pay can average only $6-7. More than half of this money is used to maintain school facilities and the rest to compensate basically volunteer teachers, who themselves are generally disabled.

These people founded the school to serve the community. All staff and teachers are disabled…disabled people serving the community, rather than being served.

DPI focuses attention on “dropouts,” early leavers from either the DPI or other schools, often in the communities they left behind. Over 200 such children are now in the DPI program and receive basic education and follow-up. They attend afternoon classes from 2 to 4 p.m.

Teachers and staff in the DPI school and other programs are volunteers, including the principal.

Over the years, HCI has provided for DPI training, a library, school books, food supplements, credit capital, blankets, and holiday distributions. More recently, HCI is providing school bags, stationary and training suite for many of DPI’s students, particularly primary and elementary students.

In 2005 a group of teachers from DPI, themselves disabled, founded El Nahda (Society for Well-being of the Physically Disabled) as a “sister organization” focused on the special needs of the disabled and their families.

Al Nahda surveys and registers the disabled, provides informal counseling and referral, and advocates for their rights within their community and with larger organizations and the government.

Al Nahda has 300 members, each pays $1 per month for membership. This money is used to maintain a small one-room office where the disabled can meet and which HCI has helped cover an area in back for outdoor meetings. Also with the help of HCI, plastic chairs have been added to complete this facility that is used for adult literacy and health/disability education in the afternoon. More recently, Al Nahda established a pre-school and an adult literacy class - also with the help of HCI, independent of DPI, for residents who need to remain close to home since DPI lacks sufficient space for either of these services.

Further, HCI helped both societies to offer credit for income-generating activities for low-income residents, and for the disabled and their families. Al Nahda’s new program, funded by HCI, focus on those with disabilities or parents of disabled children.

Both societies, along with another local society Al-Hannan Association, are now working with HCI to implement a health campaign targeting resident children, particularly students served by the three NGOs. The project is conducting a needs assessment/research of health issues of greater concerns to the local community. The first intervention is eyesight tests and the provision of eye glasses for resident students. This will allow for the implementation of quick impact interventions that will build confidence between the partners and provide solid ground to expand much-needed health interventions in the area.

I want to conclude this by remembering Alfonse Muni’s words, who founded DPI and was the director until he passed away last year in sad accident: “We wanted to help others. We as disabled people had suffered much and we couldn’t simply stand by and let others suffer. Our struggle was one with our community…we were from the same background and lived under the same conditions and constraints. In fact, we were lucky, most of us are educated and have managed to make something of our lives. We thought we could help others do the same. That was our dream.”