Together for Sudan (TFS)

In August 2004 Together for Sudan (TFS) received a grant from the MBI Al Jaber Foundation which it used to open a sub-office in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan and to expand its charitable work there.

As the result of over 20 years of civil war, the population of the Nuba Mountains in western Sudan was reduced by about three quarters and its developing social services structures were decimated. The area is remote, lacking in adequate water and food resources, without government services and populated by a variety of tribes with different religions, the majority of whom are Muslims. Declaration of ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains in January 2002 revived hope among the Nuba and allowed TFS to expand its educational projects from Khartoum to Southern Kordofan province.

TFS regards education as a human right

TFS regards education as a human right and takes its lead from what marginalised and disadvantaged people say they need: what the Nuba say they need above all else is education. It soon became apparent that TFS would need a sub-office in Kadugli, capital of the Nuba Mountains, if they were to adequately monitor their projects. These concentrate on education of women and children and educational support projects such as school feeding, medical assistance, eye glasses, solar lighting and various types of training.

The MBI grant has enabled TFS to continue their work in the Nuba Mountains and to open a small TFS sub-office in Kadugli. A community based women’s organisation known as Ru’yu is partnering with TFS in this venture.

Sponsoring women’s literacy classes

TFS have paid the salaries of six teachers in three self help basic schools in the NM, sponsored eight women’s literacy classes, and operated their Medicine Box project at three different locations. The TFS solar project, which provides lighting for students, installed two solar lighting panels.

When it was discovered two years ago that 60 students in the only girls secondary school in the Nuba Mountains were hungry and anaemic because their parents could not afford to feed them away from home, TFS began to provide the students one meal a day through the TFS Breakfast Project. In 2004/5 TFS fed one meal a day to over 100 young women attending the girls’ secondary school in Kadugli. They have also continued to fund a project to resettle graduated university scholars in the Nuba mountains as teachers and humanitarian workers. Some 20 young women have benefited from this programme.