Dec. 1, is World AIDS Day. Theme: Zero new HIV infections. Zero discrimination. Zero AIDS-related deaths.

On World AIDS Day, organizations and world leaders hold events to commemorate and raise awareness around the struggles of people suffering from HIV/AIDS.

Over the last month, world leaders have been speaking publicly in honor of the day, highlighting the need for not just medical interventions in treatment and prevention but education and awareness too. In her speech to the National Institute of Health, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlined the U.S.’s goal of “creating an AIDS-free generation.” She said, “Although the past 30 years have been a remarkable journey, we still have a long, hard road ahead of us. But today, thanks both to new knowledge and to new ways of applying it, we have the chance to give countless lives and futures to millions of people who are alive today, but equally, if not profoundly more importantly, to an entire generation yet to be born.”

At Hope Ofiriha, education through microloan, health and life-skills training is an integral part of our services to people we serve. In Omilling, as part of HIV –AIDS Awareness training modules offered in the village, Villagers have access to education that promotes better understanding and prevention of HIV/AIDS. We’re committed to life-skills training and education like this in order to improve all aspects of our beneficiaries’ lives.

We’re grateful that you are partnering with us to implement crucial services, including our training programs, which do so much to improve our beneficiaries’ lives. Thanks you for your ongoing partnership and support.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the United States and around the world!

Hope Ofiriha wants to send a most sincere thank you to all of our supporters, donors, child sponsors, partners, volunteers, and everyone else playing a role in our success. Together, we are making a huge difference in the lives of South Sudanese women and children struggling to build a better future for themselves, their families, and their community.

Enjoy this special day of Thanksgiving and remember that we could not do this work without all the ways you help us.  We’re so thankful for everything you do!

Omilling is about 62 kilometers from Torit’s state capital. Accessing either is virtually impossible for villagers because there are no paved roads or public transportation to get there.

A volunteer worked 50 hours in the past two weeks to ensure that a donated Land Rover is prepared for its new role in south Sudan.

The Land Rover is cleaned, passed EU traffic test, and painted Green. It has left the Sweden port of Wallham on November 19 by EUKOR Car Carriers Inc, and is expected to arrive Mombasa, on December 25th, 2011.

The numbers of people calling to volunteer are enormous, but they have always asked if Hope Ofiriha provides a car for field work. We always replied “no”, but the phone lines haven’t kept quiet ever since we appealed for more volunteers to help build Mairo primary school. Their demand is a dream came true, and the car is only driven 35000 kilometers.

The car is capable of transporting 2 tons, or carries 10 people including a driver. It will be able to reach communities in remote, difficult-to-access rural areas as it will be able to travel off-road. This is a good match for extremely bad brush roads in Magwi county.

Reaching rural communities have been a major challenge not only for Hope Ofiriha, but also for other humanitarian agencies working in south Sudan. The size of the land Rover and its capabilities will go some way towards meeting that challenge.

The car is expected to be on road early January when it gets a new registration number plate in Juba. The car will also be put at the disposal of Onura Maternity Survival project.

Astrid Wang and Lunde Arneberg’s second trip to Omilling has been postponed/rearranged. Their schedules are tight in November.

Between now and December 15, they are to deliver their thesis. They are also redesigning the school’s structures. If they return in November, they will only spend two weeks, but in January they can stay for four weeks. The New Year is better because it is more time. Returning in January, Astrid and Lunde will build more classrooms, and train villagers in red soil block production skills.

With our small-scale projects, we are continually learning, and the first school building should be quicker to set-up because of interlocking soil blocks. We are short on supplies at the building site, but these problems will be addressed by keeping larger stocks of materials. First, Hope Ofiriha needs to buy these  materials from Gulu, Uganda, and use the lorry to get the supplies to Omilling during the dry season. The plan is underway to do this in coordination with Magwi County Authority.

In case Plan “B” fails,  then “A” will be implemented.  We still need lots of help so we build uninterrupted. There is a tremendous pressure to secure the supplies. We are so grateful to  GlobalGiving who have been involved with fundraising activities for this project, and we hope our donors are pleased with the initial results.

The village teams have been very committed and everyone has worked hard. Women will be carrying water on their heads for building work. They want the school build so their children escape from the cycle of poverty. Anthony, the only village carpenter, will be making the desks when the school is built and ready to open.

Here is a list of what we still need to raise for 2011:

• Cement to make soil blocks -$10
• Timbers and nails – $20
• Corrugated iron sheets – $25
• a door and a frame – $240
• a window and a frame – $200
• 100 bags cement builds 4 classrooms – $887

I’ve got great news to share! Today, thanks to our generous donors, we reached $50,000 in GlobalGiving donations, more than $32,000 of it this year. GlobalGiving has given us an invaluable boost at a time when many of our regular donors are cutting back due to the global recession.

Thank you Global Giving! Thank you Hope Ofiriha supporters! Thank you donors!

As you may recall, last July GlobalGiving’s participated in (or turbo charged) our rally to throw a baby shower for our Onura clinic in South Sudan, raising nearly $4,000 in less than a day and bringing in more than $13,000 since. Up until that point, the Onura clinic had been one of our least popular projects on GlobalGiving. Countless lives will be saved thanks to GlobalGiving’s help!

You may also recall last February, Hope Ofiriha was listed as a SUPERSTAR on GlobalGiving’s Partner Rewards Program. This is the highest level that an organization can reach on GlobalGiving! We were able to achieve SUPERSTAR status just a little over a year after just barely getting enough support to join GlobalGiving in December 2009.

We’re so thankful GlobalGiving has enabled us to expand our donor pool, and I can’t really find the words to express all my gratitude!

Impoverished South Sudanese children in Uganda often become slaves to their new “families.” Some, especially the girls, are sexually or physically abused, and all of them are expected to work hard.

Polly’s story is unique. In fact, it is common for South Sudanese refugees to live as squatters in slums in the outskirts of Kampala, Uganda, often homeless. More than 1,000 children, most of them girls, have become “impoverished children” or “independent orphan children.”

Their parents, too poor to feed, and educate their children, send them to live with families in better economic situations, much as Margaret’s did in recent months, hoping they’ll receive a better life and even an education. But often their children become slaves to the new “families.” Some, especially girls, are sexually or physically abused, and all of them are expected to work hard. They are the first to rise in the morning and the last to go to sleep at night – sometimes on a scrap of cardboard outside, like a dog.

They must cook breakfast for the family, clean the house, and help with the children. Several times a day they have to fetch fresh water for the family, a task that can take hours. Little girls and boys balancing jugs of water almost as large as they can be seen walking down the dusty streets of on the outskirt of Kampala. Their salaries are food and a place to sleep.

The host families, not wanting to spend money on these impoverished children, don’t let them go to school. In Uganda, even “free” public school costs money since there fees for books and uniforms each year. Without an education these children grow up illiterate and virtually unemployable, with no hope of changing their situation. Instead they must continue living as virtual slaves or run away to escape the abusive treatment. Those who run away have nowhere to turn, especially since they have no skills to secure a job and cannot even read or write. They are forced to live on the streets where they continue to suffer abuse and hardship. Many depends on the kindness of strangers to get food, while others resort to stealing. Some teenage girls are even forced to grant sexual favors in exchange for food.

Without help, these children are doomed to a life of poverty and sadness. But there is hope, and it begins with providing these impoverished children an education that will help break the vicious cycle of poverty that dominates their lives.

Our partner Inovati has paid a year school fees for Margaret N. Achan, Polly Amitto, Christine Anyero, Lee Ben Ibo, and Saterina Lakang.

Omilling’s former child-soldier problem is a complicated one!

Astrid Wang and Lunde Arneberg from the Oslo School of Architecture & Design are returning to Omilling to construct Mario primary school in November. The plan A – is to build one classroom, girl-pit latrine, and a teacher’s house. They are busy re-designing the school’s structure to match village’s standard.

Fighting against decades of marginalization and intense state of poverty that spawn the practice, it is sometimes hard to imagine there is a way to help. Funding school building may seem like a small thing to do when thousands of children are living in such a hard conditions, but this school provide more than an education. It provides hope, dignity, and a sense of well-being. But most of all, it brings the new-beginning into the lives of these precious former child-soldiers.

Hundreds of former child-soldiers find hope in the fact that they attend school each week. For many it is their escape from a harsh reality. They are getting an education that will help them get a job one day and keep them from being marginalized.

Ten in 10 girls in Omilling cannot read and write. And only one out of 300 girls in Omilling is at Juba University.

Omilling is building a school for the first time in the village’s history. But they lack the building materials. Could you consider helping to build Mairo primary school?

What will you give?

• cement to make soil blocks -$10
• Timbers and nails – $20
• Corrugated iron sheets – $25
• A door and a frame – $240
• A window and a frame – $200
• 100 bags cement builds 4 classrooms – $887

Work on the Mairo Primary School is at a new stage! Last August, Astrid Rohde Wang and Lunde Arneberg from the Oslo School of Architecture & Design, and I visited Omilling to  meet with the villagers. The Traditional Authority has approved the building plan and the community has already taken the ownership of the project.

The two volunteers visited the donated plot and measured the site where the school will be built. The villagers gave a helping hand, and also assisted in searching for the red soil  discovered near the house of the local chief,  and certified by the government builder as “a good quality soil” suitable for building. The volunteers collected the red soil sample in the bottles  for further analysis in Oslo. The school will be built by soil block, which will reduce the building costs and time by 65%.

To build 4 class rooms only 95 bags of cement (50kg – each) are needed to produce 8000 soil blocks, including the foundations and the ring beams. The soil block needs 4 hours to cure and to start building. To cure the soil blocks there are no need for fire and woods. Only water!  A team of two workers can produce 500 blocks a day. One bag of cement (50-kg) mixes with 8 wheelbarrow of red soil produces 105 blocks in one hour.

The commissioner of Magwi County, H.E Ochilo Peter, gave his approval to the project when we met in his office.

The school will be built in cooperation with Omilling Traditional Authority, local chiefs, and all our donors. It will provide a much needed opportunity for the pupils from the local villages. We are hopeful the building project will start in November 2011.

The primary school is the focal point of the community which understands the importance of education, and Hope Ofiriha is keen to improve the standard of education by constructing the primary school through overseas and local volunteers. We also want to recruit volunteers who would be able to give training to the teachers locally in Omilling to make learning fun and interesting for the children.

Our hands are open up with these current changes. Not only did we have Astrid and Olav this time, Silje has connected Hope Ofiriha to the Inovati, which is considering helping with one of our needs. Good news!

Thanks to both Astrid and Olav for traveling to Omilling and for re-designing the Mairo primary school.

UPDATE: Due to the overwhelming support of GlobalGiving’s donors, we’ve raised our funding goal to $14,074 to save even more mothers and babies.

I am over joyed to report that GlobalGiving’s participation in our rally to throw a baby shower for our Onura clinic in South Sudan has raised nearly $4,000 so far in less than a day.

Our Onura Maternal Survival Project has gone from being one of our least supported projects on GlobalGiving to being fully funded (between May 2010 and yesterday, donors had only given $840).

This project will save the lives of hundreds of mothers and babies (right now, one in five mothers in Onura die in childbirth). It will fund the supplies midwives need to deliver babies safely. It also will train midwives to deal with childbirth complications.

Thank you GlobalGiving! Thank you Global Giving donors! Thank you Hope Ofiriha supporters!

On July 9, 2011, planet Earth welcomed its newest country. Having declared independence after a decades-long civil war, South Sudan is a newborn nation full of promise.  South Sudan is the 193^rd player in the United Nations playground, its 6-year old government is learning to run, and its even starting to tweet from @RepSouthSudan!

Up until now, moms in Onura village have been dying in childbirth because the midwives delivering babies lacked simple sterile supplies. What better way to celebrate the birth of a nation than to ensure safe deliveries for moms and babies in South Sudan?

Let’s rally this week and throw a baby shower for South Sudan’s Onura clinic. No silly games or gift wrap necessary for this party; just simple supplies that will save lives. What gift will you give?

• Sterile birthing mats and scissors ($10 for each new mom)
• Birth kits: cord clamps, forceps and sutures ($30 for each new mom)
• Four sets of medical instruments ($202 per midwife)
• Two delivery beds ($450 each)

Whatever you give will go a long way. Thank you for your generosity in helping the Onura women  in South Sudan.

Child Details

First Name: Lee Ben
Last Name: Ibo
Gender: Male
Country: Uganda
Lives with: Grandmother
Date of Birth: February 15, 2005
Favorite Activity: Playing football (soccer)
Monthly Sponsorship Amount: 15 EURO/$20 per month (day school option)

Personal and Family Information

Lee Ben, the child of South Sudanese refugees, lives in Uganda with his grandmother. When his father disappeared in 2008, his mother began working three jobs to support her two children—as a night watchman at an industrial area, boda-boda (bicycle taxi driver), and gardener. She is currently attending a training program away from home to become a tailor. When she is done, she plans to open a tailor shop, so she can better support her children.

Lee Ben is a good student who loves studying English. He is currently in P.1 (first-year primary school). He needs your assistance, so he can stay in school and escape a lifetime cycle of poverty. Your monthly support will pay his school fees; provide him with food, clothes, and medical care; and ensure he does not have to drop out of school to work petty jobs to help support his family.

Please pick a donation option in the menu above and then click the “Sponsor This Child” button to become his sponsor right now!

Child Details

First Name: Brian
Last Name: Lobene
Gender: Male
Country: Uganda
Lives with: His family
Date of Birth: March 8, 2000
Favorite Activity: Playing football (soccer)
Monthly Sponsorship Amount: 26 EURO/U.S. $35 Per Month (boarding school option)

Personal and Family Information

Brian’s parents flee Sudan in 1996 during the civil war and settled in Masindi County, Uganda. In 1999, they moved to Kampala to look for better opportunities. Brian was born in 2000 in Kwate, a slum on the outskirts of Kampala, where they currently live in a rented home. His parents move from place to place around Kampala begging for employment, but it is nearly impossible for uneducated refugees to find a good one.

Brian’s father does odd jobs to get by and his mother does local breweries and tailoring whenever she can find a client. The five children are malnourished and do not attend school because Brain’s parents do not have the money to pay the school fees. In Uganda, parents or guardians must pay school fees to fund school buildings, books, writing materials, school meals, and uniforms.

Brian needs your love and support, so he can go to boarding school, have regular nutritious meals, and escape a lifetime cycle of poverty. He dreams of becoming a school teacher when he finishes his education. His favorite subject is English and he also enjoys playing football (soccer). Your monthly support will pay his school fees and provide him with nutritious food, clothes, and medical care.

Please pick a donation option in the menu above and then click the “Sponsor This Child” button to become his sponsor right now!

Child Details

First Name: Christine
Last Name: Anyero
Gender: Female
Country: Uganda
Lives with: Family
Date of Birth: June 13, 2003
Favorite Activity: Drama & Singing
Monthly Sponsorship Amount: 26 EURO/U.S. $35 Per Month (boarding school option)

Personal and Family Information

Christine’s parents are South Sudanese refugees who fled to Uganda in 1997 to escape the civil war. The family settled in Nakawa Acholi, a slum in the outskirts of Kampala. Although, Christine, and her six siblings have been living with their parents, it was their aunt who was the family breadwinner until her death in May 2011. As largely uneducated refugees, both of her parents have had a hard time finding descent work. Right now, her elderly and frail father is unemployed and her more able-bodied mother is barely supporting the family doing local breweries. The children supplement her income by begging for money and food.

Life is really hard for the family, and all seven of the children are not in school due to poverty. In Uganda, parents or guardians must pay school fees to fund school buildings, books, writing materials, school meals, and uniforms. Christine is the only child in the family who is literally crying for an education.

Christine needs your love and support, so she can go to boarding school to escape a lifetime cycle of poverty. She dreams of becoming a businesswoman when she finishes her education. Her favorite subject is Christian religious education, and she also enjoys drama and singing. Your monthly support will pay her school fees; provide her with food, clothes, and medical care; and prevent her from having to beg during school hours to help support her family.

Please pick a donation option in the menu above and then click the “Sponsor This Child” button to become her sponsor right now!

Five days after the United States celebrates its independence, South Sudan will become the world’s youngest nation.

Decades of brutal fighting have decimated South Sudan’s already fragile infrastructure. Little more than 120 doctors and fewer than 100 registered nurses care for 8 million people.

The result: the people of South Sudan are suffering. With one of the world’s worst maternal mortality rates, women face a 1 in 7 risk of dying during pregnancy. A young girl in South Sudan is 3 times more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than she is to reach 8th grade. More than 1 in 4 children will never see their 5th birthday.

South Sudan’s government has made improving health care a priority, with a target of one primary health care worker for every 25,000 people, and a hospital for every 50,000 people. As one official explained: “It will not be easy. It will take us up to 20 years to meet these targets. We need to find ways of training as many health workers.

That’s where Hope Ofiriha comes in. For more than 5 years, we have been providing lifesaving medicines in Omilling rural settlement, and we remain committed to helping the country recover and rebuild. Through our network of 6 donors, we reach more 15,000 people a year and other newly returned people with min health cases, maternal health, HIV/AIDS, and water program.

Celebrate the long-awaited birth of a new nation, the Republic of South Sudan, by showing your support and making an investment in the future of this country. Millions of Southern Sudanese have sacrificed their lives for this achievement. Your donation can go a long way in helping them secure critical resources for their new nation. For example, a gift of $50 can support the medication to treat 200 children with pneumonia.
Join us at: Give medicines in South Sudan

Child Details

First Name: Annet
Last Name: Lamunu
Gender: Female
Country: Uganda
Lives with: Family
Date of Birth: May 8, 2000
Favorite Activity: Playing football (soccer)
Monthly Sponsorship Amount: 26 EURO/U.S. $35 Per Month (boarding school option)

Personal and Family Information

Annet’s family fled to Kampala, Uganda, in 1997 during the peak of Sudan’s civil war. The refugees settled in the Nakawa Acholi-Quarter, where her South Sudanese father was born and lived as a child before returning to South Sudan as a SPLA combatant.

When Annet’s father died in a LRA attacked in 2002, her mother supported her 10 children selling local breweries and bananas from land a kind Ugandan let them use. This good Samaritan died last year, however, and the family could no longer harvest and sell bananas. On March 30, they were evicted from the home they had been living in since 1997 because they had not paid rent in several months. Annet and her siblings are no longer attending school because their mother cannot afford to pay school fees. In Uganda, parents or guardians must pay school fees to fund school buildings, books, writing materials, school meals, and uniforms.

Annet needs your love and support, so she can go to boarding school to escape a lifetime cycle of poverty. She dreams of becoming a pilot when she grows up. Your monthly support will pay her school fees; provide her with food, clothes, and medical care; and prevent her from having to work petty jobs during school hours to help support her family.

Please pick a donation option in the menu above and then click the “Sponsor This Child” button to become her sponsor right now!

Child Details

First Name: Polly
Last Name: Amitto
Gender: Female
Country: Uganda
Lives with: Her younger siblings
Date of Birth: October 14, 1992
Favorite Activity: Singing and playing basketball
Monthly Sponsorship Amount: 26 EURO/U.S. $35 Per Month (boarding school option)

Personal and Family Information

After both of her parents died, Polly and her two younger brothers and three younger sisters went to live in the Kakira slum outside of Kampala, Uganda. No family or friends stepped forward to care for the children. The children started a hair salon to generate income for school fees, house rent, and food. They didn’t have enough resources and training, however, to compete with other salons, so their business went under and they ended up homeless and hungry.

A woman who is a microloan beneficiary in our Kampala project introduced Polly to Hope Ofiriha. Since then, Hope Ofiriha has been providing for the children’s basic needs and working to find Polly a sponsor. Polly needs your love and support, so she can complete her “A” level studies, continue on to university, and help her siblings escape a life-time cycle of poverty. She hopes to become a nurse or doctor who will be able to help many people in the future. Your monthly support will pay her school fees and provide her with food, clothes, and medical care.

Please pick a donation option in the menu above and then click the “Sponsor This Child” button to become her sponsor right now!

Child Details

First Name: Saterina
Last Name: Lakang
Gender: Female
Country: Uganda
Lives with: Family friend
Date of Birth: August 5, 1996
Favorite Activity: Playing soccer
Monthly Sponsorship Amount: 26 EURO/U.S. $35 Per Month (boarding school option)

Personal and Family Information

After Saterina was orphaned, she moved to Kampala, Uganda, to live with her grandmother. When her grandmother died a few years later, she moved in with a Sudanese family headed by a single mother, mama Martha Ayaa. Mama Martha is barely able to support Saterina and her own seven children selling local breweries. Her hand-to-mouth enterprise doesn’t cover her household’s basic needs, and her own seven children do not go to school due to lack of money. In Uganda, parents or guardians must pay school fees to fund school buildings, books, writing materials, school meals, and uniforms.

Saterina helps in the home by cleaning the house and cooking for her host family. Sometimes she works as a house-girl to buy herself clothes. She dreams of becoming a pilot and flying away to a better life. Your monthly support will pay her school fees; provide her with food, clothes, and medical care; and give her a ticket out of poverty.

Please pick a donation option in the menu above and then click the “Sponsor This Child” button to become her sponsor right now!

Each year on May 17 Norwegians fill the streets with cheers and flags in celebration of Norway’s constitution, adopted in 1814.

It sometimes happens that foreigners inadvertently walk out of Oslo’s main railway station and stumble into the capital city’s May 17 parade. Either they then join in, or they run for cover and exit the country muttering about total chauvinistic madness.

There may well be an element of madness about Norway’s May 17th celebrations, everything being relative. The event commemorates the Norwegian Constitution, signed at Eidsvoll on May 17 1814. For a country which has spent more than 500 of the last 600 years under foreign domination, most recently the German occupation during World War II, freedom and sovereignty take on a special significance.

The celebrations of May 17 start early in life with the early morning school parades. The tradition when you are a bit older is called “waking up the teacher” in the early morning with the help of fire crackers, bleaters, trumpets and car horns. The climax comes when you get to experience the thrill of being a russ—a post secondary graduate who in the days leading up to May 17 is allowed, if not encouraged, to paint the country red and blue.

As the years roll on you find yourself on the sidewalk watching as your own children march down the streets, waving flags and frantically proclaiming how happy they are to be Norwegian. (This is the part that confuses some visitors to the country, who may inadvertently associate this burst of national pride with other, negative forms of nationalism.)

The People’s Parade, review upon review on television of the King’s Speech of the Day from the Palace balcony, hot dogs by the score and, for many, just generally walking around town, saying hello to everyone, waving their flag and yelling “Congratulations with the Day!” these are also part of the day’s celebrations.

The People’s Parade is a bit like American July 4, Remembrance Day and the Stanley Cup play-offs combined. Grandmothers, young families with baby carriages, military bands, trade union orchestras, trumpet-blaring recent high school graduates, veteran-car parades and the common Norwegian all walk side by side or arm in arm, dressed in their Sunday best and waving their small or large red, white and blue flags. Many wear a ribbon-emblazoned rosette in the national colours. So, whether you are celebrating this day in Norway itself, are participating in a Norwegian community event abroad, or are just curious what all the fuss is about.

Happy May 17th, Norway!

Like hundreds of thousands of people around the world, you will wake this morning and twist a knob, granting you access to a stream of warm water. You might then proceed to make a call to your favorite flower shop and/or gift store and ask them to prepare something fit for a queen for your mother on Mother’s Day. You would like your mother to feel every bit of a queen today. If she is not that far from you, you may opt to take her the flowers yourself, topping the delivery with a lovely lunch or dinner in one of her favorite restaurants or with some jewelry. “It is her day” you will say, “…and beside, nothing is too expensive for my mother.”

What would we do without mothers. They are the backbone of any society. In South Sudan, mothers are more than backbones. They are the society. Their men—husbands and sons—went to war, and only a handful re-united with their families. So South Sudanese mothers have been forced to be both provider and protector of what was left behind. This Mother’s Day, she would love for her son who was killed in the civil war to call her and thank her for the nine months she carried him despite the unrest, thanking her for the mornings she carried him on her back as she made countless trips to the nearest water source with a bucket of water on her head. But her son is long gone and all she has are thoughts, thoughts of how to make things better for her, the children under her care, and her country.

She would not mind the flowers, the jewelry, or the expensive meal. But they would not be priorities to her. Her mind is constantly thinking of how to provide for her children and rebuild her country because no one else can do it for her. She is constantly looking for ways to make life better, bearable, and easier. All she wants this Mother’s Day is to be saved from those countless trips, each and every morning, and have easily accessible water. She too would like to wake up this and every morning, twist a knob, which will grant her access to a stream of water. She would be happy with cold or warm water, either would grant her access to clean drinking water; save her from countless trips to the nearest water source; and free up her time to grow food, start a business, and rebuild her country.

Happy Mother’s Day from the Hope Ofiriha family.

I’m deeply saddened that more than 1,000 people are dead after clashes between South Sudan’s army and militias. The unrest reminds me of the speech Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia gave in 1963 before the United Nations. Here’s the English translation, which was popularized in a song called War by Bob Marley:

“That until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned: That until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation; That until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes; That until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race; That until that day, the dream of lasting peace and world citizenship and the rule of international morality will remain but a fleeting illusion, to be pursued but never attained and until the ignoble but unhappy regimes that hold our brothers in Angola, in Mozambique, and in South Africa in subhuman bondage have been toppled and destroyed; until bigotry and prejudice and malicious and inhuman self-interest have been replaced by understanding and tolerance and goodwill; until all Africans stand and speak as free human beings, equal in the eyes of the Almighty; until that day, the African continent shall not know peace.”

With your support we can keep Selassie’s dream alive.

Reproductive health problems remain the leading causes of death for women of childbearing age worldwide. The impact is far worse in developing countries, which also have high fertility rates. Besides terrible reproductive health outcomes, these counters score poorly in poverty and education outcomes. South Sudan is no exception to this picture.

The long civil war between the North and the South made reproductive health a crisis for South Sudan’s women, many of whom are widows and girls who had their sexual and reproductive rights abused during the hostilities. As many as one in nine women refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in South Sudan die in pregnancy or childbirth, and a girl born in the region is more likely to die in pregnancy or childbirth than finish primary school. South Sudanese families yearn to feel the joy of having a close-knit intact family.

As the 44th Session of the Commission on Population and Development  meets this week, its main focus is on reproductive health and sexual rights. So far the commission has noted that 65 percent of maternal deaths occur in high fertility countries and are preventable. But a shortage of $24 billion for population programmes in developing countries makes preventing deaths a hard task. The commission also called for universal access to reproductive health as an integral part of achieving the Millenium Development Goals. A joint effort between the public and private sectors and NGOs will go a long way in hastening achievement of those goals.

For South Sudan to move forth from its teething stage, it needs to start now with the women currently pregnant. They need to deliver safely with all risks of maternal deaths elimanted or greatly reduced. The women need to be treated as the assets they are. To paraphrase keynote speaker Amy Tsui, professor at the John Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, if you don’t invest in women, you miss out on huge economic gain. Invest in women as investing in them is no expenditure. In other words, as we say at Hope Ofiriha, when you teach a woman to fish, everyone eats (of course, they have to live for that to happen).

Work on the Mario Primary School—which will give hope to war orphans, former child soldiers, and other vulnerable children in Omilling village—is racing along! I recently met with Astrid Rohde Wang and Olav Lunde Arneberg, two students from The Oslo School of Architecture and Design, who have volunteered to redesign the school’s structure at village Standard.

For several months nothing was happening on the project, keeping the door closed for hundreds of vulnerable children to ever receive an education. Behind the scenes, the Hope Ofiriha team was busy working t