Sudan Vision Daily News Paper Official Website - ECS/SUDRA in operation theatre in comma

By: Jonathan Mayen Nguen "Suppose one of you want to build a tower, will he not sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete?" Luke: 14:28

ECS/SUDRA in operation theatre in comma By: Jonathan Mayen Nguen "Suppose one of you want to build a tower, will he not sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete?" Luke: 14:28 Over thirty participants from ECS organs and other Denominations participated in a broad and well spelt out workshop from 24 - 28 May 2004, in planning at the Sudan Council of Churches Hall, to find out why the Sudan Development and Relief Agency in operational theatre, in comma, having lost its credibility of the development principle and was pronounced dead and everyone working was laid off. SUDRA was founded in 1982 by the Resolution of the ECS House of Bishops. SUDRA gained ground when the Southern Sudan Refugees Assistance Project reached its completion. The Project SSRAP was initiated to assist the Sudanese refugees who were repatriated from Uganda after the overthrow of Idi Amin's Administration The SSRAP was financed by the Presiding Bishops Fund for World Relief of Protestant Churches of USA (ECUSA) UNHCR, Band Aid, Catholic Relief Services of America and others. When the SSRAP Programme reached its objectives, SUDRA inherited the infrastructures of SSRAP such as the provision of basic education, health, cooperative programmes, and other development activities. In 1990, SUDRA was officially registered as a Church non-profitable organization working with national and international NGOs like Fellowship for Africa Relief (FAR), CARE - Sudan, FAIR, Ministry of Health, UNICEF, Sudan Council of Churches and other denominations in the Sudan. Those were the best days of SUDRA before it could reach the staggering stage in management. SUDRA entertains the needs and programmes of the twenty-four dioceses throughout the Sudan. The vision of SUDRA is to be self-reliant, capable of meeting the socio-economic basic needs of the poor and the disadvantaged. Its mission is striving to build the capacity of the ECS Dioceses to provide the socio-economic needs of the poor and the disadvantaged in order to improve their standard of living. Aims and objectives of SUDRA are the facilitation of development programs, building capacity, improvement of health conditions, raising the standard of education, alleviate suffering of disaster affected-people, provision of food security needs. SUDRA values are committed to an integrated approach to development, encourages inclusiveness and gender sensitivity, intends to have transparency and integrity, team work, unity, believing in sharing and good stewardship of resources and it is accountable to a Board of Governors and donors. It has love and compassion for the poor and the disadvantaged. During the four-day workshop to diagnose why SUDRA has collapsed suddenly in operation to assist the poor and the disadvantaged, many papers were presented; whether SUDRA could be brought to the critical list instead of being in comma to be able to recover its humanitarian activities. The exercise began with the participants brainstorming on what expectations and objectives they hope to gain or have in the aftermath of the death of SUDRA, which it has been claimed that corruption or mismanagement might have been the cause of its collapse. The papers covered planning cycle visions and mission statements, needs assessment, project writing and budgeting. The participants participated with enthusiasm, and with feedback. As a humanitarian agency, the assessment of needs for the participants was of great focus for their next operations in their dioceses as development officers, especially in times of disasters requirements. Usually, the objectives of assessment is to know the causes and location of the disaster, provide information about the nature and extent of the disaster, keeping the public accurately informed about the event, determine the demographics of the affected population and the number of the people affected, find out the conditions of the affected population, such as mortality and morbidity rates. Identify the extent and types of live-saving needs and priorities, know the local response capacities and available resources including organizational and logistics capabilities. Identify the needs for international assistance. Determine the likelihood of additional future problems such as long term recovery and development. Develop and support requests for disaster resources and recovery assistance. In urgent disaster situations, the first-hand assessment includes very essential needs like water, sanitation, food aid, shelter and site planning and health services. The assessment team in such cases comprises local and external team members team coordinator or leader. Food and nutrition specialists, public health or medical personnel, shelter specialist, education specialist, communicator and gender balance. During the opening and closing sessions of the workshop, His Grace the ECS Archbishop, the Most Reverend Dr. Joseph B. Marona, Rt. Reverend Daniel Deng Bol, Bishop of Renk Diocese and Chairman Board of Governors of SUDRA, Reverend Engineer Enock Tombe Stephen, ECS provincial secretary, and Reverend Paul Chol, Sudan Council of Churches General-Secretary spoke with confidence. They gave encouraging speeches of the past and the present new SUDRA with a new life injected into its future ands stressed that any success in our world of today should have the application of the team work, cooperation crowned by love and faith in what you do and expect to succeed. The present General Manager of new SUDRA is Reverend Wilson Kamani, who assured the participants that he will cooperate with them, especially in the writing of diocesan projects and forwarding them to donors for raising funds. The era of old SUDRA with its problems is gone and the people should hope for a better future of SUDRA to resume its activities in full and to help the poor and the disadvantaged. To commit healing the wounds of the past to reach the principle that it is for the poor and the disadvantaged as its best targets.