St.Irene Mother and Child Center
The brilliance behind construction of the Mother and Child Care (Nursery school) deep in Lobur mission in Ilemi Triangle through the full support of SCCRR is something short of amazing. The Ilemi Triangle is a highly disputed area between Kenya and South Sudan and Ethiopia. The dispute proceeds from the seemingly unclear wording of a century-old treaty seeking to grant the nomads free movement within this area. This area has been marred by conflicts between Toposa of South Sudan, Turkana of Kenya and Merille of Ethiopia, a factor that attracted Shalom’s – SCCRR intervention.
Through SCCRR partnership with the residents of Lobur and Kokuro, a positive framework for community dialogue and sustainable peaceful co-existence (among or with the Merille) people from the side of Ethiopia has been established. This has in turn resulted to Shalom-SCCRR establishing a trained peace group comprising of the key community leaders who have been continuously engaged in peace building activities. As a matter of practice SCCRR’s development program intends to help the community to eventually build a school for their children so as to empower and harness their future. This will be fostered through education enhanced by the collaborative partnership between the Lobur mission and Shalom-SCCRR. Shalom-SCCRR has so far donated construction materials that have helped in constructing A Mother and Child Centre which is to gradually progress into a primary school.
The Dining Hall and kitchen area for the children
SCCRR team’s mission to inspect and certify the project, left the team both amazed and impressed owing to the creativity and progress they witnessed. At SCCRR, our relentless efforts are focusing our attention on the factors that threaten and ignite hostilities between these communities. Even as we channel ways to expand into other parts of the Illemi triangle, we continue to join hands with the groups in Kokuro, Lobur as well as Tondonyang with the sole objective of addressing the structural causes of violence which emanates from the available resources that is livestock, wells and pastures. We are committed to continuously appeal to them to coexist and resolve their problems peacefully.
The outside and inside views of the classroom
In our efforts to ensure this is achieved a baseline survey was conducted and it was also discovered that literacy levels in the conflict areas are very low and this is one of the contributing factors triggering the conflict. These communities are therefore vulnerable and Shalom sees that the intervention in boosting educational resources will be very instrumental in the eventual mid to long term strategy in conflict prevention, management and resolution.
SCCRR’s Education projects main objective is to help improve students’ learning environment, raise academic performance, increase accessibility to quality education and develop new learning infrastructure as well as fostering peace and unity among interethnic student population. With the unwavering support from our donors, students in these areas can gain necessary skills and knowledge that will percolate to their communities.
By Austin Ngacha (B.A, M.A)
