Catholic Relief Service president visits South Sudan

June 7, 2017 (BOR) – The head of Catholic Relief Service (CRS), a U.S-based humanitarian agency is in South Sudan on an official visit.

Sean Callahan will, during his tour of the war-torn nation, particularly visit South Sudan’s Jonglei and Eastern Lakes state (Awerial county) where the agency is running life-saving resilience activities to help the communities build resilience to fit back to their original lifestyle.

During the debriefing ceremony, Callahan said CRS, under United States international Agency for Development (USAID) funding, had invested lots of resources in South Sudan to help the most vulnerable communities live in better conditions.

“The amount of resource we receive is only important if we put them to good use, the people trust us, and when you do development, the most important thing is the trust. One trust is the one the local communities have. On the stewardship front, our donors need to trust so that they continue to provide us with the funding”, he said.

CRS started its first $54 million program in 2011 in Jonglei state, providing the communities with food for assets. Among the assets created included water pans, feeder roads, alongside supporting agriculture and fish producer groups, water, sanitation and nutrition.

In addition, CRS was the reportedly the first humanitarian agency to intervene in Jonglei state in February 2014 by providing food and non-food items to those who lost their belongings during the war.

The agency also built temporary shelters for displaced communities in Mingkaman and Kalthok of Awerial counties in the same year.

“In CRS, we don’t count the program as the nest program as the one with the most resources, the best program is one that reaches the most vulnerable people to help transform their lives”, said Callahan.

New component such as peace building and conflict have been included on CRS’s programs this year.

“The program that we started here has been renewed because of collaborations we have with the state government and the local administrations, we also thank the local communities who have been receptive to programs”, said the US-based agency’s president.

Meanwhile the governor of Jonglei state, Philip Aguer commended CRS for the work done by mainly providing the main lifeline for thousands of people in the states and in Jonglei region as a whole.

“Jonglei state is peaceful, and we urged the president to go and lobby for us, to get more funding to support the roads and schools rehabilitation and farming”, said Aguer.

The governor, however, urged the agency to lobby for more funding from the U.S government to help communities currently in need.

(ST)