Empowering 300 Women/Youth in South Sudan

Empowering 300 Women/Youth in South Sudan

Report #3

October, 31^st, 2022

Project Scoop:

South Sudan has been affected by armed conflict for so long. And this has affected the economics, social fabric and the whole population. The vulnerable groups such as women, elders and children have been affected the most. Although youth are more than 60% of total population that is estimated at 11 million, they have been used for war and not represented in the decision-making bodies.

With over 60 cultural groups and 72 languages South Sudan is one of the richest countries culturally in Africa. That is an advantage we have to use in order to make voices of women and youth heard, and to use arts and culture to advocate for peace and tolerance. These groups will be trained on drama, craft making and drama I order to empower them and share their knowledge through skills they learn from this project. And be able to generate income and spread the message of peace. The project is meant to be implemented in Juba, Wau and Malakal of South Sudan. These cities have a lot of youth and women who needs help and capacity building program.

Project Implementation and Success:

The project implementation this time came back to Juba the capital city of South Sudan. Although the city has not been affected so much by the conflict compared to Wau and Malakal but it has the third largest internal displaced persons in the country after Wau and Malakal respectively.

HS team worked with the IDPs in the camp in Juba and the training concentrated on visualizing the memories and aspiration for the future.

The trainers were visual artists and graphic designers whom worked with the women for five (5) days, and helped them on how to put their ideas into practice and in a simple way. The works were displayed after the training and the discussion about these artworks and designs was very good in a way that it helped the participants and the audiences.

Next Plan:

After training the teams in the three (3) locations it is time to gather them in one place to do the master piece of the whole project and to pave the way for the project`s impact.

This will happen in the next cycle of the project implementation. The gathering may be in Juba or Wau, the team will do a consultation meeting and decide what is best for all!

• the report (DOCX)

Empowering 300 Women/Youth in South Sudan

Report #2

May, 11^th, 2022

Project Scoop:

South Sudan has been affected by armed conflict for so long. And this has affected the economics, social fabric and the whole population. The vulnerable groups such as women, elders and children have been affected the most. Although youth are more than 60% of total population that is estimated at 11 million, they have been used for war and not represented in the decision-making bodies.

With over 60 cultural groups and 72 languages South Sudan is one of the richest countries culturally in Africa. That is an advantage we have to use in order to make voices of women and youth heard, and to use arts and culture to advocate for peace and tolerance. These groups will be trained on drama, craft making and drama I order to empower them and share their knowledge through skills they learn from this project. And be able to generate income and spread the message of peace. The project is meant to be implemented in Juba, Wau and Malakal of South Sudan. These cities have a lot of youth and women who needs help and capacity building program.

Project Implementation and Success:

The project implementation this time went to Malakal the third largest city in South Sudan and one the three most affected states by armed conflict. HS staffs concentrated on beneficiaries’ testimonies and experiences through all the years of conflict, then came out with strategy which is helping them heal and create works that can have a huge impact on the rest of community members in shorter and longer terms respectively.

Women and youth in Malakal were trained at the ministry of youth and sports conference hall. Whereby they interacted with each other and benefited from their inputs. The team worked on improving the skills on mediation, conflict settlement, problem solving and peacebuilding, all these were connected with drama. They were shown practically how to turn these theories into plays (drama) and show them to the community at the protection of civilians site (PoC) in Malakal. The music group are yet to carry on with their activities.

The project is making an impact already on ground, as many people became interested in knowing what these youth and women are doing. Also in Wau mobile drama shows were organized and many people interacted with actors/actresses and shared their views on how building this nation should be and what role and each everyone should play to make it possible.

Empowering 300 Women/Youth in South Sudan

Report #1

January, 11th, 2022

Project Scoop:

South Sudan has been affected by armed conflict for so long. And this has affected the economics, social fabric and the whole population. The vulnerable groups such as women, elders and children have been affected the most. Although youth are more than 60% of total population that is estimated at 11 million, they have been used for war and not represented in the decision-making bodies.

With over 60 cultural groups and 72 languages South Sudan is one of the richest countries culturally in Africa. That is an advantage we have to use in order to make voices of women and youth heard, and to use arts and culture to advocate for peace and tolerance. These groups will be trained on drama, craft making and drama I order to empower them and share their knowledge through skills they learn from this project. And be able to generate income and spread the message of peace. The project is meant to be implemented in Juba, Wau and Malakal of South Sudan. These cities have a lot of youth and women who needs help and capacity building program. 

Project Implementation and Success:

The project kicked off in Wau (one of the three regions), and many women/youths turned up and attended the training that was tailored for them. The women were 27 and youth 23 which make the total number 50! 

The sessions concentrated on role of women and youth in peace and how they can use their talent in acting and painting to bring about peace. The trainers also worked on building the capacity of the beneficiaries by supervising their work and giving professional advice to them on matters that differed from painting and acting. However, women and youth that participated in the training were provided with materials to help them carry on their work with supervision of line managers in Wau.

Testimonies:

1. Angelina, is in her late 40s and she is an IDP living inside United Nation Camps known as Protection of Civilians (PoC) in Wau, said she learned what she could have not imagine was possible given her age. She also mentioned that acting was her passion but it was not possible all this time because of family commitments and society not respecting old women who try to be actresses. As a beneficiary of the project, she is very thankful because of what she learned and said she cannot wait to share the knowledge with her friends and family once the shows start. This training gave her hope and helped in relieving her stress of sitting idly at the PoC.
2. Manyiel, young visual artist Manyiel who is only 22 years old shared his insight with the team saying that as a kid he used to draw people, animals and many other things. Once he grew up, he wanted to carry on with his work which is so talented in doing it, but lacked adequate materials and knowledge. Therefore, once he heard about this training, he came immediately hoping to shape his talent and add more technics to his experience which happened. He said that he will produce more paintings using acrylic, brushes and canvas that he was provided with, so that when next training comes, he would have produced over ten (10) paintings with different styles. He also hoped for arts gallery to be established in Wau so that visual artists may showcase their works there and make a living out of it!