Stories from the Field

The Sudanese Association for Disability and Rehabilitation in Fasher area, north of Darfur region in Sudan was established in 1987. HCI relationship with SADR started in 2003 when HCI supported the development of the SADR’s library with books and training materials about small income generation activities.

With the help of HCI, SADR has now 2865 members. 2120 members in Fasher area, 127 in Malit area, 385 in Kabakbiyeh area, and 297 in Ala’et area. All in Northern Darfur state. The majority of the members are physically challenged, and the remaining are either blind (207 members) or deaf (336 members.)

This extraordinary outreach and membership expansion was further supported by HCI. In 2007, a micro-credit scheme targeting unemployed physically-challenged people was initiated. The project provided the beneficiaries with needed training and technical assistance as well as seed funding over two phases to manage and run a micro-credit scheme to provide beneficiaries with loans to setup small income generation activities. In 2008, HCI provided SADR with mobility equipments for its physically-challenged members.

In January, HCI launched The Building Opportunities for Sudanese Disabled project to further support SADR’s 2865 members with special needs and its 5110 registered beneficiaries, also with special needs. This project touches on the economic aspect of the lives of people with disability, and this is often either absent or invisible as a need to the community they exist in. The project is also designed to provide aid for the community as a whole, not only the physically challenged. The increased employment and income generated by vocational training, on-the-job support, and business development services that the project provides, also gives an economical boost to the community. The project combines vocational training, on-the-job support, and targeted micro-grants offered to the community members and disabled people.

In this phase, groups (each consisting of 10 pre screened and identified disabled individuals by HCI and its local partner SADR) are formed and receiving training concerning micro-business management; each group is responsible for the management and follow-up of the initiatives submitted. Each group has a group leader, a secretary and a financial leader to facilitate the loans/grants scheme moderation in each site and credit collection. Initiatives are being developed by the people with disability to generate income. Feasible ideas will be provided with a combination of grants and loans, and they will be implemented.

Some of the initiatives being designed include: a refrigerator project (where the beneficiary has purchased a refrigerator to rent it out to other small business for storage and protection), a men’s wear workshop (where the beneficiary has purchased a sewing machine to make clothes) a wood chopping and coal production business (where the beneficiary has purchased the tools needed to chop wood and make coal for heating purposes), a school uniform workshop (where the beneficiary has purchased a sewing machine to make uniforms), a water station (where the beneficiary has purchased a carriage to sell water) a home based cafeteria, and a bean canteen.

Also In this phase the vocational skills of physically challenged individuals in the areas of Fasher, and Mahaliya northern Darfur has been improved.

In May 2009, the HCI team launched two projects in Sudan that will provide credit capital and the necessary training and coaching to two new communities in two settlements in the south and the north of the capital Khartoum as well as a project which will promote entrepreneurial spirit among impoverished Sudanese orphans, and giving them the proper training in setting up and managing their own small businesses. Human Concern International has always made an effort to work with poor communities in Sudan; with 2 million Sudanese at risk of death, in addition to those who have been injured, displaced and have lost all of their support and care networks due to the continues civil unrest, poverty and lack of proper infrastructure, one should feel concerned. The living conditions in these settlements are extremely unsafe; while visiting the community leaders, we witnessed the cruel effect of poverty on people; in these two settlements people had built their houses from scrap metal, water was insufficient and unclean, sanitation services were nonexistent and the scarcity of food was visible on the children, someone even pointed out those dying from malnutrition.

This difficult image that we witnessed will soon be changing with these projects that were launched in partnership with several local long-time partners in Sudan, including Peace and Development Volunteers (PDV) and African Charity for Child and Mother Care (ACCSOM). One project will assist the rebuilding of Sudanese lives through micro credit, and provide access to finance programs for low-income Sudanese widows. The second project aims to unlock and unleash the economic potential of Sudan’s orphans that HCI has been sponsoring since 2003. Through the micro-credit initiative: 100 widows will receive loans for income generation and small businesses, 2 revolving loan programs will be established and will be operated by local communities, 2 local credit committees will be established at two targeted communities, and 16 people at two local credit committees will receive training in basic credit provision.

The second project’s objective is to assist orphans shift their mindset from being passive receivers of donations to active income generating entrepreneurs. Instead of being drawn into a passive cycle of receiving charity and relying on the kindness of others, 30 orphans will receive the training and materials necessary to embark on their own business ventures. They will also be given the opportunity to test their ideas under real-life circumstances, and take part in the “Business for a Day” program, in which they will operate a business for one day. An investment club, run by the orphans, will be set up. The club will be endowed with a trust fund, which will be invested towards implementing club activities. Thirty orphans, fourteen years of age and older, will take part in the first phase of the program.

The implementation of these two projects will provide the solid ground on which these widows and orphans can build their lives on, where the knowledge and the technical assistance will be provided by the project’s workshops and volunteer trainers and the revolving funds and loans will be in the hand of their own community to make use of, nurture and pass on to other needy members of their community to slowly but effectively reduce poverty levels within these two settlements.

Our field visits were not only to launch new projects, but to also follow up and connect with other local partners in these two settlements, where HCI has long been implementing relief and development projects that offer Sudanese orphans economic security through the child sponsorship program; where devastated, left out and marginalized orphans are given access to food, security and education throughout their sponsorship period. Our local partners took us to a library that HCI helped establish, where many of the sponsored children are able to have access to knowledge and information.

During the same visit, HCI and the Canada-based International Development and Relief Foundation (IDRF) launched a new interesting initiative in Sudan, related to International Water & Sanitation (IWS) and targeted in the first phase at building the capacity of Canadian international institutions in this area of technical assistance. To have a better understanding of the situation, HCI will prepare a comprehensive country analytical report in partnership with HCI local partner, Peace and Development Volunteers (PDV). The result of the report should formulate the ground in which HCI and other Canadian based organizations can implement large-scale interventions in Sudan to ensure water sufficiency, and opportunities for related income generating activities. Projects like these are vital and have the potential to fundamentally change many lives, especially in impoverished settlements like these ones. HCI also witnessed the launching of a new civil society-public partnership for the provision of family-based health insurance that our partners are engaged in.

In the last part of our very dynamic and productive field visit, we also got the chance to visit the health clinic that was established with the help of HCI to serve the new settlements in northern Khartoum. The health clinic has outstandingly been operating autonomously, self sufficiently and effectively to serve the population with a professional team of health experts that are semi volunteering to cover the health needs of the area, from treating chronic illnesses to dental care. During our visit at the clinic, we came across a group of young boys in the process of being circumcised; our local partners explained the importance of having such traditional operations take place in a clinic by the hands of medical practitioners, instead of having them done the traditional way in an unsanitary environment that often yields harmful outcomes. Wandering around the clinic, we were content to see the staff operating professionally; taking care of the patients and maintaining the medical equipment to make sure that as many people as possible are able to benefit from it.

It was a busy week in the field in Sudan, but those few days have made us more confident after seeing the efforts of our local partners to sustain themselves and sustain project impacts and use all the available opportunities to help their communities. As the humanitarian situation in Sudan is deteriorating, HCI feels obliged to double the efforts to provide immediate relief to those who are in need, especially those that are most vulnerable; orphans and widows.

Two jobs were created at the Al Mona center for hearing imparities & mental development in Tripoli the week that Yazan, a member of the fundraising team in Canada visited the HCI team in Lebanon. The center, a subsidiary of the Charity of the Islamic Women Society was where the first meal of HCI’s Farm to School program was served to schoolchildren in Lebanon. Farm to school brings healthy food from small local low-income farms to underprivileged school children at schools located in low-income areas. Vulnerable women, particularly widows and women with special needs are employed to prepare these meals and the targeted local farmers are given agricultural support and assistance to improve their economic stability. The center’s students were served a nutritionist designed meal of locally produced organic sautéed green beans and beef served with rice and a yoghurt salad, with an apple each for dessert. “The kids enjoyed the meal and were really happy to be able to play with each other and make new friends afterwards” Inaam Aloosh, the president of the CIWS told us as we toured the premises and witnessed the students happily engaged in their lessons despite the many challenges they are faced with. The Al Mona center has been a longtime local partner of HCI and hundreds of children with special needs have been able to benefit from many of the facilities secured by HCI such as equipment for testing hearing abilities and a psychomotricity room that helps the children coordinate the movement of their bodies with their brains.

We drive away from Tripoli northwards until neighborhoods are replaced by slums; grimy and bare concrete homes in disrepair randomly layered over each other and navigable only by uneven dirt paths. We have reached Beddawi, our second destination for the day. We are here to visit Mona; a widow and a single mother of nine. Her son Abdel Hadi is one of the many orphans aided by HCI’s child sponsorship program. She runs a tiny dimly lit grocery shop which also includes a sewing machine in the corner that allows her to double as a seamstress “I am barely able to make ends meet on my own; Beddawi is a very poor area, there is hardly any work here, I don’t know what I would have done without the child sponsorship program” she says to us as we sit in her modest home waiting for Abdel Hadi and his siblings to arrive from school (despite her difficult situation, she makes sure that all the children get an education).

When we enquire about how Abdel Hadi has been doing, she tells us that thanks to the his sponsorship he has recently been able to have surgery done in one eye to enable him to see better and will have the other one operated on soon. When he eventually arrives he greets us shyly and tells us about his day at school, he looks healthy and happy; it was worth the long bumpy journey to see his radiant smile. As he runs off to have lunch with his siblings we also remember that we have to head out to our next destination as well.

El Minieh is our next destination; we are here to visit Houriyeh, a widowed mother of two and a beneficiary of one of HCI’s micro credit programs. She welcomes us warmly and serves us chilled glasses of delicious fresh yogurt and tells us the story of how the yogurt came into being; “three years ago after my husband’s death, it was up to me to take care of the children on my own. I had heard of small microcredit loans that were being made available by HCI through a local partner and I decided to apply for one and buy a cow”. With this cow she was able to set up a small household dairy business that supplies the local community with fresh milk and yogurt. In addition to this, the manure produced by the cow is also bought by local farmers to be used as a natural fertilizer. Her cow eventually gave birth and she was able to sell the calf and settle her loan. It is amazing to witness firsthand how such a small sum of money has been able to impact this family’s life so positively; she tells us that thanks to this one cow she has been able to provide for her children and complete the construction of the house that her husband had started building before his death. We are impressed to learn that the yoghurt salad that was served at the first Farm to School meal in Tripoli was made of yoghurt provided by Houriyeh.

Our final destination for the day is in the Mhamra agricultural area; it is close to the Nahr Al Bared camp and was heavily affected by stray shelling from the 2007 Nahr Al Bared Conflict resulting in the loss of many harvests which dealt a crippling blow to the local farmers that are already caught in vicious cycles of debt. We are here to visit Khodor, one of these local farmers. Khodor and his six brothers own a small farm that they struggle to survive from.

He tells us that he has been engaged for about six years now and will continue to be unable to get married until he manages to save up enough money to build a small home for his future wife and himself to start a family in. Right now the siblings and their families live together in a small modest house on the farm and their priority is keeping the farm productive as it is their only source of income. As part of HCI’s agriculture extension services project, Khodor’s land is being reviewed by a team of volunteer agricultural engineers to determine what can be done to improve its economic stability. It has been a long day, we have seen a lot. It is time for us to head back to Beirut to prepare for the next day.

We head southwards towards Nabatiye the next day to visit another one of HCI’s local partners: Tamkeen Association for Independent Living, which is a nonprofit non sectarian and non political entity that takes care of the disabled and works on their rehabilitation. They have been around since 1987 and HCI has had a long and active history with them: some of the many projects implemented by HCI include equipping the special education center, early intervention center and the physiotherapy treatment center for rehabilitation of disabled people (particularly landmine victims), securing emergency relief funds for those affected by the July 1996 war and the numerous conflicts the area has seen, a landmine and unexploded ordnance danger awareness program and a micro loan program for disabled people and their families among others. HCI’s latest project with Tamkeen is to provide agricultural backyard production assistance to the physically disabled; the importance of this project lies in the fact that the handicapped are able to secure an income through micro farming outside their houses, without the need to commute placing them on the path towards self sustainability and improving their self esteem. Until now 10 people with special needs have been given support via HCI to help improve the viability of their backyard farms.

As we are shown around the center we meet Ali and Abdallah. Nine year old Ali was born without legs and until a few weeks ago had spent his entire life moving around on a wheelchair. Now, thanks to artificial limbs secured by Tamkeen, he is overjoyed to be learning to walk for the first time in his life. Eight year old Abdalla, on the other hand lost his leg a few weeks ago when he inadvertently stepped on an unexploded ordnance while playing in a field near his home. He too will be provided with an artificial limb once his injuries fully heal. As we visit the different classrooms and meet more of the special needs children, we can’t help but admire the spirit the challenged show in the face of adversity and a feel a deep sense of gratitude and respect towards all the individuals and organizations that dedicate their time and efforts to make positive change and empowerment come into fruition.

As we drive Yazan to Beirut, we excitedly discuss new ideas that have started to bud as a result of our collective experiences coming together on the field. The visit has come to an end. We say our goodbyes and though we head off in different directions, our goals remain the same.