05 Aug 2021
We were delighted to received recent communication from our OLSH Sisters in South Sudan, where a project funded by generous donations from our mission friends here in the Irish Province will see a new vegetable garden, with its own solar-powered irrigation system, established in Aluakluak, Mapuordit.
The Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart recently marked 25 years of service in South Sudan, where they have been involved in everything from education and nursing to general pastoral work. The region of Mapuordit is currently home to a small community of OLSH Sisters who minister to the needs of families in the area, facilitating the care and education of over 700 children at nursery and primary level.
Since 2020, the Irish Province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart have been helping our OLSH family in South Sudan, by raising funds to build gardens around the OLSH schools in Mapuordit, which will help to provide a stable and sustainable source of food and water to families in the region who have very little. Further fundraising took place in 2021 as part of our annual MSC World Projects Appeal, with a wonderfully generous response from our mission friends here in the Irish Province.
The Sisters grow vegetables such as sweet potatoes and green vegetables for consumption by local families, using the natural resources available to provide a much-needed food source. The land in the region is extremely fertile, but with six months of regular rain and a six-month dry season, the gardens need a simple irrigation system, made up of bores which are drilled and fitted with a pump, a tank, and a watering system, to allow them to be used on a year-round basis.
These gardens are used to grow a variety of vegetables, and, when cultivated to their full potential, will be hugely beneficial in the long-term provision of nutritious food supplies to local families, who are up against a daily struggle to afford to feed their children. The gardens are an investment which will provide years upon years of profit to local communities, from being a source of nutritious food to providing local students who tend to the crops with the physical and mental benefits of gardening.
A place to grow in Aluakluak
The current project aims to provide a fully solar-powered irrigation system for a garden that will assist in supplementing a food supply for at least 30 families in the region of Mapuordit, especially during the six-month dry season in the area.
The initial plans placed the project in the Jur area of South Sudan, with preliminary meetings taking place at state level, at regional level, and at a local level, with the local Jur chiefs involved in the decision-making process as a location was chosen. However, project supervisor Sr Rita Grunke FDNSC reports that an “intense disunity” and “instability” among the Jur chiefs meant that it was “impossible to proceed” in the proposed location at this time.
The decision was then made for the project to go ahead in Aluakluak, an extremely active area of the parish where “a strong, dedicated women’s group” had been applying for funding for a development such as this one for several years. Here, the garden will be located between the primary school, which currently has approximately 560 students enrolled, and the nursery, which last year catered to 160 registered students. Both the primary school and nursery are run by the parish at a very high standard, with older Primary 8 students having won places at the Loreto Girls’ Secondary School and the De La Salle Boys’ School, both located in Rumbek.
Families of the primary and nursery students in Aluakluak will all benefit greatly from the project; the students themselves will have vegetables to supplement their school meals, and parents will be able to take away vegetables for evening meals for their families.
“A community willing to help itself.”
In February of this year, a well was installed to provide a source of water for the garden in Aluakluak. “Things move slowly in the region,” explains Sr Jenny Christie FDNSC, International Development Office for the Daughters of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart. “All of the materials have to be brought in from elsewhere, and then the workmen have to be available” – and naturally, COVID restrictions and lockdowns have made progress even more challenging in recent times.
Despite the challenges, the local community has been working together to ensure progress moves as efficiently as possible, where 25 ladies from the area each dug four holes for the metal fence posts.
Project supervisor Sr Rita Grunke FDNSC expresses her “deep gratitude and blessings abundant” for the €25,000 funding sent by our MSC Missions Office here in the Irish Province, as without irrigation, crops cannot be grown, and local people will be unable to become more self-sufficient and develop their own food security.
“Deep gratitude for your generous involvement in this project,” writes Sr Rita. “Be assured it will serve very needy families, as well as a community that is willing to help itself.”
“Thank you for keeping Mapuordit alive.”
Two of the six female students graduating from the OLSH primary school in Mapuordit this year.
The solar-powered water tank for the new OLSH garden in Aluakluak, funded by the Irish Province of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.
One of the flourishing OLSH gardens, which will provide sustenance and self-sufficiency for many local families.