Group resumes charity work in South Sudan

One of the downsides of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the inability for charitable organizations to travel to other countries. Canadian Aid for South Sudan (CASS) is one of those groups, who decided Monday to book flights and leave for Sudan just days later.

“We've been talking for the past number of years about going back to South Sudan, but of course, the pandemic has been on, and, you know, safety has been an issue. And so last year we talked about how we needed to get back this year,” said member Jane Roy, who has been travelling to the African nation for nearly two decades.

The group has been at the forefront of building close to 10 schools, providing dozens of scholarships and providing critical training to improve health conditions.

“The WASH program brings in 50 women at a time from all over and they treat water by putting it in clear plastic bottles and leaving it in the sun for 24 hours or 48 hours if it's cloudy, and that gets most of the bacteria out of the water,” said member Carol Campbell.

Sudan has suffered from not only the pandemic in these last few years, but from drought, famine and floods.

“We know from pictures that a lot of tools, the houses they live in have been devastated. They are flat on the ground and they're sleeping out in yards. And so we want to see how they're living and when [were] the last crops they got,” Campbell said.

However, according to Roy, returning to Sudan will mean assessing the level of need after so much time.

“So it's going to be difficult in many ways for us to go because, of course, we haven't been there and there's so much need and we can't fulfill all of that need,” she said. “So it's really about getting being in solidarity with the people, seeing what's going on, and then coming back to the board and making some plans for the future.”

This is an exploratory visit that is expected to last a couple of weeks, and that will allow the charity to access and plan for future trips with larger groups to start their work again and try to improve the lives of those in South Sudan.