カクマ難民キャンプの活動が朝日新聞に

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1月9日　南スーダンで選挙が実施され、南部の独立が確実視されています。わかちあいプロジェクトは、1993年以来、ケニヤ、北西部にありますスーダン難民を収容するカクマ難民キャンプを支援してきました。2000年-2001年当時、私たちのスタッフであったバレンチノは、そのごアメリカに移住し、自らの自伝を出版、その売り上げをもとに財団を設立、現在はスーダンで学校建設なの教育活動に取り組んでいます。
今回、朝日新聞に取材してもらいました。
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2000年8月から2001年７月7日まで、わかちあいプロジェクトの現地スタッフとして高村憲明さんがカクマ難民キャンプに赴任していました。ヴァレンチノは、現地スタッフとして高村さんのもとで働いていました。その後2001年9月アメリカに移住することがゆるされました。
　 スーダン難民としての彼の体験とアメリカでの生活を、Dave Eggersが自伝的に書き下ろしたのが、“What is the What”です。このなかにも高村さんとの出会いが書かれています。
　高村さんがカクマでやろうとした青年のための様々な活動を、いまバレンチノは郷里のスーダンで取り組んでいます。http://www.valentinoachakdeng.org/ 　　The Valentino Achak Deng Foundation Story（you tube2008.10)

オバマ大統領、カクマ難民キャンプ、難民自伝“What is the What”推薦
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/23114.html　

Dave Eggers’s What Is the What is the novelized autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, from his pre-war life in southern Sudan to his resettlement in the United States. All proceeds from the book go to aiding the Sudanese in America

Friends and supporters,

Tomorrow night, Dateline NBC will be airing an hour-long special on Southern Sudan, and Valentino and our high school in Marial Bai will be featured.
George Clooney and NBC News’ Ann Curry recently traveled to Southern Sudan to bring attention to the issues facing the region in the coming months. With Southern Sudan’s referendum on independence scheduled for January 9, many analysts are concerned the vote could reignite conflict.
Our school is featured as a positive counterpoint to the potential crisis. Clooney and Curry visited Marial Bai to see firsthand the work that Valentino’s foundation is doing to promote education in the region. The Marial Bai Secondary School is an example of what has been accomplished since the end of the civil war in 2005　and an example of how much could be lost if Sudan returns to war.

SUPPORT THE SCHOOL
oin Clooney　and help the students of Southern Sudan
Between now and December 31st, we’re raising funds to help the Marial Bai Secondary School grow in 2011, and to lay the groundwork for our future schools across Southern Sudan.

George Clooney, after meeting our students and teaching a class at the school, decided to help launch our holiday fundraising campaign with a capital donation of $20,000 to the VAD Foundation. Clooney’s gift will supply our brand new library with thousands of books,but we need your help to support our students and expand the school.
Here are just a few of our plans for 2011:
Admitting 150 new freshman students
Enrolling nearly 100 young women　more female students than any other high school in Southern Sudan
Hiring female teachers from Sudan, Kenya, and Uganda
Installing clean water wells on campus and in the dorms
Building new science and computer labs, all powered by solar
Expanding programs for teacher training, adult literacy, and community education
Help the students of Marial Bai and join actor and activist George Clooney by making a contribution to the VAD Foundation this holiday season!

Or send a gift! A donation to Valentino’s school makes a great holiday gift for a loved one. We’ll send them a letter, letting them know that you supported the Foundation in their name.

 

In October, George Clooney visited our school in Marial Bai while traveling in Sudan with NBC’s Ann Curry and John Prendergast of the Enough Project. In December, we will be featured on a special Sudan episode of Dateline NBC.

 

In September, Valentino made a great speech at the Clinton Global Initiative conference in New York. He was introduced by President Clinton, then spoke about the importance of education in Southern Sudan and announced our goal to build ten secondary schools in the region in the coming years. To hear President Clinton’s
introduction and Valentino’s speech, click here.

Girls’ education is a major challenge in Southern Sudan less than 1% of girls attend high school, and 91% of women are illiterate. Boys are sent to school while girls are kept at home to look after siblings, prepare meals, fetch water, and help with chores. When girls do enroll in school, early forced marriages and pregnancies result in extremely high drop-out rates.

Our new dorm will provide a safe learning environment so that young women can pursue their education without distractions or the threat of early forced marriage. Construction on the dorms will be completed in the coming weeks, just in time for the start of the second academic year in May. We are hiring female teachers and a “dorm mother” to look after the girls, and we will make sure our students have everything they need to succeed.

Thanks to everyone who supported the girls’ dorm fundraising campaign. Many sent their gifts in the names of friends and loved ones. Without your crucial support, this new girls’ dormitory would not exist.?

Elizabeth Alekiir Akoon, 17, will be a sophomore at the Marial Bai Secondary School this year. She grew up in a small fishing village outside Marial Bai. She was married as soon as she graduated from primary school, and now has a one-year-old baby girl, named Maria. Her husband is attending university in Kenya.

Under normal circumstances, Elizabeth would have to stay at home to raise her daughter and help with housework. “It’s difficult,” she says. “You send boys to school and keep the women at home to cook, to pound grain, to fetch water.” It’s part of a larger problem in Sudan. “Women are not equal,” says Elizabeth. “We stay at home to cook for the boys — and then the boys become men, and they are the ones to go to school.”

But when the Marial Bai Secondary School opened, she told her parents that she wanted to attend. Her parents, at first, were opposed. But then she talked to her mother. “I said to her, ‘Every human being should have a chance to go back to school. Give me a chance.'” Her mother agreed to take care of her baby during the day, while she was at school. Elizabeth was one of the first female students to enroll at Valentino’s school last year.

Our major focus at the Marial Bai Secondary School is to support and educate Southern Sudan’s future women leaders. Elizabeth will be among the first generation of women to pursue secondary education in Southern Sudan. Research shows that investing in girls’ education can help decrease poverty, prevent disease, and lessen violence. When a woman prospers, her family prospers when families prosper, whole communities prosper.

Elizabeth is hopeful about school and her future. “I want to be a nurse,” she says.

To learn more about the Foundation’s efforts for girls’ education, click here.

We’re also raising support and seeking sponsors for the following initiatives:

• A new elementary school. Due to low standards of education in the region’s struggling school system, we realized that students were not adequately prepared for the challenging level of study at our Marial Bai Secondary School. We have decided to develop our own curriculum for primary education, which will be offered at a new elementary school located on the campus of the Marial Bai Educational Center. This will be a new feeder school to prepare students for our high school.

• Sports facilities behind the school for soccer, basketball, and volleyball.

• School farms featuring sustainable agriculture, to provide school meals for the students, and to generate a future source of income for the school.

• Creating a solar-powered computer lab at the school with dozens of computers and internet connectivity. This is a huge undertaking in a remote village like Marial Bai, but we’re determined.

• Stocking our library with tens of thousands of books and educational materials for the entire Marial Bai community. Shipping books to Sudan is expensive, so we’re buying most of the books from within Africa.

SUPPORT THE SCHOOL

You can also send a tax-deductible check to The Valentino Achak Deng Foundation, 849 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA 94110. We are a registered non-profit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. All donations are 100% tax-deductible and go straight to Sudan for the Marial Bai Secondary School.

HOST AN EVENT OR FUNDRAISER

Valentino recently finished a ten-city speaking tour across the U.S.; he visited schools, universities, churches, and community groups to talk about his collaboration with Dave Eggers to write What Is the What, his return to Sudan, and the work he’s doing now to help send Southern Sudanese children to school.

This fall, we’re scheduling more speaking events and fundraisers. To plan a benefit in your town, learn more here or email info@valentinoachakdeng.org.