Lakes state’s Aber rural women appeal for support
By Manyang Mayom
June 20, 2009 (RUMBEK) – The Aber Rural Women Development Project (ARWDP) has appealed for international support to fund their local farm founded in 2007 by Lakes state former minister of Information, Culture, Telecommunication, Youth and Sport, Hon. Adak Costa Mapuor.
The farm was created and named by local women’s groups aiming to boost up local marketing of vegetables, but now those behind the initiative hope to gain the support of a non-governmental organization working locally, Women for Women International. Aber is located at the Western part of Lakes state in a distance of 10 kilometres from Rumbek town centre.
Ex-Minister Adak Mapuor affirmed that “Aber project was created with aim of taking a town to the people in their village rather taking village to town.”
“I was ousted from the government and Aber project immediately seemed to die off due to no support from government or any non governmental organization; I hope Women for Women will take over the project to help their sisters who are really without support from government,” he said.
According Mrs. Rebecca Ajook Theem, who settled in Aber since Rumbek fell under SPLA control in 1997, Aber is only the place where Lakes state government has neglected in various activities; women in these areas are not recognized and the education situation is a gloomy with no teachers.
Aber Primary School is under a huge tree as well children are attending their daily classes without uniform and indeed they complain about the lack of teachers. “We have no teachers who can teach us mathematics and English,” said one student.
Local women in these areas usually base their lives on local alcohol brewing as a source of income; they use the funds to support their children’s education, buy salt and sugar, and medication for the children.
Alcohol (Marisha) is made from grain composed of sugar and kamara. Locally, one bottle of alcohol (Marisha) is sold out for four Sudanese pounds and half of a bottle is only two Sudanese pounds.
Theem said that there is only a destroyed clinic in the town, and a little medicine provided by Lakes state hospital, but the medicine is kept at a private house without doctors who would be able to medicate in a professional manner.
“We daily called upon the government of Lakes state to provide us with water points like hand-pumps, butcher and granting mail machine to ease our work in making a family meal,” she said.
Despite this, the country director for Women for Women International, Karak Mayik Nyok, affirms that hope is the basis of the life of any human-being and it is also a solution to suffering.
Karak affirmed that “Donors are not ready to offer funds to us due to the financial global downturn. So we cannot wait for donors to do something to us before we did something better for ourselves as Sudanese women. She also advise Southern Sudanese women to adopt togetherness with Northern Sudanese women so that women’s discrimination in various areas is avoided.”
She appeal for Aber Women to dig their financial support from the land by farming, growing vegetables and auctioning them, as a means to get their money without having to lobby their respective husband to support them. She pointed out that anyway the majority of their men are neither working in the government institutions nor in private non-governmental organizations.
Furthermore, Aber area has became a dangerous zone of robbers whereby a number of commercial lorries and government land-cruiser cars were hijacked. One government official’s land-cruiser was destroyed in May by an unknown group of gunmen firing bullets that completely destroyed the engine.
With effort from Lakes state police, a few of these robbers were captured and now Aber territory is returning to normal since mid-June – though travellers still fear to go at late hours.
(ST)