Richmond's Sabrina Meherally went to Tanzania as a volunteer teacher, but she returned having learned a valuable lesson herself:

The 24-year-old Simon Fraser University grad had travelled to the East African country in September 2010 as a volunteer with Cross Cultural Solutions and taught English for a month at a school for underpriviledged youth called the House of Learning in the rural town of Moshi.

But it was the students themselves who taught her something special, inspiring her with their committment to education and determination to succeed in the face of poverty and adversity. Their hard work and faith in education as a route out of deprivation prompted her to start a B.C. non-profit called Friends of the House of Learning to support their education -- and their future.

"It was very eye opening. It is a very beautiful place with a lot of hardship," Meherally said of Uganda, where her mother is originally from.

"You read and hear about poverty over there, and you see things like World Vision and these organizations that are trying to support countries in need, but before you go there and interact with locals and inmmerse yourself in the culture, you can't really understand," said the business graduate.

"It is something that changed the way I choose to see life and what I want to do with my life."

Meherally was moved by the stories of children who walked miles to school and struggled to learn all day on an empty stomach.

"They would walk to school in intense heat almost two hours just because they wanted to learn. That's not something you see over here. Here, students want to skip school. Education is a luxury, it's something we take for granted," she said. "They will come in any condition because theywant to change their lives and they want to get an education and help their families out."

So once back home she wanted to try to make sure that they could continue to access free education.

"I quickly realized that The House of Learning is a centre that families and children depend on," she explained. "I became determined to help ensure the sustainability of The House of Learning so that it can continue providing education to underprivileged children who are so eager to learn."

The Friends of the House of Learning is run by a core group of six other volunteers, including fellow organizers include Aachal Goundar, a Fijian native studying political science at SFU, Jermaine Sequeira, another SFU business grad who grew up in Banglalore, and so knows the challenges youth face in a developing country, and Sharon Fan, a UVic Masters in social work grad.

The Tanzanian non-profit NGO educates more than 220 underprivileged students in Moshi, a town of about 150,000 in the Kilamanjaro district each year. The group also runs a boarding school called Valley View Secondary, which it took over in 2010 and profits from this venture are used to pay for free education for the needier children in the region. The Canadian group is helping to get this income-generating project up and running in the hopes it offers a sustainable source of income for the House of Learning's charitable work for the future. The goal is to have 70 per cent of the students attracted from families that can afford to pay, subsidizing the other 30 per cent and also supporting the free Quality Training Centre.The aim is to have vulnerable students educated at the Quality Training Centre be able to attend Valley View as they go further in their studies.

To help build the program, the Friends of the House of Learning have fundraised to help build a new boys and a girls' dormitory, and have bought new books for the library. In future, they will be working on raising money for a dining hall, a library, washroom renoviations, teacher salaries and more.

At the House of Learning's free Quality Training Centre itself, which was launched in 2009, the need is also great. The centre povides free education from nursery school to secondary school to orphans and underprivileged youth and also widows.

Students can't afford textbooks and there is only one book for each subject, which the teacher uses.Desks and chairs are also needed: the children use benches and when they are full, others stand. The school was recently able to offer all the children a breakfast porridge called mandazi with tea to supplement the often only one evening meal they get at home. The family personally supports 23 children and has been trying to provide the students with uniforms out of their own pocket, but can't afford shoes for all the students.

Some of the children that the House of Learning educated for free include Christine, a girl who never knew her father and lost her mother to AIDS at age three, then was neglected by her grandparents who feared she was infected. She is HIV-negative and has turned into a bright student who has skipped two grades and lives with the founders of the House of Learning, Marco and Bunga Masala, with the dream of becoming a doctor. Another girl, Maua, also lost both her parents and lived with an abusive aunt before running away and living on the streets. She was taken in by the founders and now is doing well in school and has plans to be an accountant. Another students, Onesmo, lost his father in an accident in 2004 and was left with his poor grandmother who had no money to send him to school when she remarried. He got a job at a hotel next to the House of Learning, and when he learned of their programs, asked his boss if he could join. He takes classes three hours a day, but still needs to work everyday for just $15 a month, which he mostly uses to support his grandmother. His ambition is to become an engineer.

Marco Masala, the director of the House of Learning in Tanzania said Meherally's help has been much appreciated.

"Sabrina is a wonderful woman who [is really] eager to support orphans. The FOHOL team is struggling and working hard to do fundraising for orphans," said the 31-year-old managing director in an email. "The textbooks bought by FOHOL have contributed in positive way a lot to students' performance."

He said that he and his wife were inspired to start the organization as they too were orphans who benefitted from others' goodwill growing up.

"We wanted to help other orphans and empower underpriviledged widows as well," he said.

Currently, they have 228 children taught through House of Learning, 182 at the Quality Training Centre and the remainder at the boarding school, and they shelter 10 orphans at their home and use his salary to fund operations and raise cattle and chickens and sell produce to support the school.

"I want to help these kids," said Meherally, who plans to return in February. "I saw their passion for learning and education and in class, I heard a lot of of ambitions and a lot of dreams.These kids have hopes and dreams the ability to be someone and do something with their lives. I don't want that to fall apart."

The Friends of the House of Learning are holding a fundraiser at the Starlight Casino in New Westminster on July 7 at 7 p.m. featuring music and a silent auction of Tanzanian art. Tickets can be purchased for $15 online here.

For more information, visit Friends of the House of Learning or email info@friendsofHOL.com. 

Learn more on their Twitter feed or Facebook page.

Learn more about the Tanzanian non-profit House of Learning or on ther Facebook page.

Read more at the blog Meherally kept during her time in Uganda.

To be alerted to the latest B.C. Without Borders features and related news, follow http://www.twitter.com/elainereporting.

 If you have any tips on B.C. residents' work in or for the developing world, email them to eoconnor@theprovince.com.

 

 

Richmond's Sabrina Meherally went to Tanzania as a volunteer teacher, but she returned having learned a valuable lesson herself:

The 24-year-old Simon Fraser University grad had travelled to the East African country in September 2010 as a volunteer with Cross Cultural Solutions and taught English for a month at a school for underpriviledged youth called the House of Learning in the rural town of Moshi.

But it was the students themselves who taught her something special, inspiring her with their committment to education and determination to succeed in the face of poverty and adversity. Their hard work and faith in education as a route out of deprivation prompted her to start a B.C. non-profit called Friends of the House of Learning to support their education -- and their future.

"It was very eye opening. It is a very beautiful place with a lot of hardship," Meherally said of Tanzania.

"You read and hear about poverty over there, and you see things like World Vision and these organizations that are trying to support countries in need, but before you go there and interact with locals and inmmerse yourself in the culture, you can't really understand," said the business graduate.

"It is something that changed the way I choose to see life and what I want to do with my life."

Meherally was moved by the stories of children who walked miles to school and struggled to learn all day on an empty stomach.

"They would walk to school in intense heat almost two hours just because they wanted to learn. That's not something you see over here. Here, students want to skip school. Education is a luxury, it's something we take for granted," she said. "They will come in any condition because theywant to change their lives and they want to get an education and help their families out."

So once back home she wanted to try to make sure that they could continue to access free education.

"I quickly realized that The House of Learning is a centre that families and children depend on," she explained. "I became determined to help ensure the sustainability of The House of Learning so that it can continue providing education to underprivileged children who are so eager to learn."

The Friends of the House of Learning is run by a core group of six other volunteers, including fellow organizers include Aachal Goundar, a Fijian native studying political science at SFU, Jermaine Sequeira, another SFU business grad who grew up in Banglalore, and so knows the challenges youth face in a developing country, and Sharon Fan, a UVic Masters in social work grad.

The Tanzanian non-profit NGO educates more than 220 underprivileged students in Moshi, a town of about 150,000 in the Kilamanjaro district each year. The group also runs a boarding school called Valley View Secondary, which it took over in 2010 and profits from this venture are used to pay for free education for the needier children in the region. The Canadian group is helping to get this income-generating project up and running in the hopes it offers a sustainable source of income for the House of Learning's charitable work for the future. The goal is to have 70 per cent of the students attracted from families that can afford to pay, subsidizing the other 30 per cent and also supporting the free Quality Training Centre.The aim is to have vulnerable students educated at the Quality Training Centre be able to attend Valley View as they go further in their studies.

To help build the program, the Friends of the House of Learning have bought new books for the library. In future, they will be working on raising money to complete a boys' and girls' dormitory, dining hall, a library, washroom renoviations, teacher salaries and more.

At the House of Learning's free Quality Training Centre itself, which was launched in 2009, the need is also great. The centre povides free education from nursery school to secondary school to orphans and underprivileged youth and also widows.

Students can't afford textbooks and there is only one book for each subject, which the teacher uses.Desks and chairs are also needed: the children use benches and when they are full, others stand. The school was recently able to offer all the children a breakfast porridge called mandazi with tea to supplement the often only one evening meal they get at home. The family personally supports 23 children and has been trying to provide the students with uniforms out of their own pocket, but can't afford shoes for all the students.

Some of the children that the House of Learning educated for free include Christine, a girl who never knew her father and lost her mother to AIDS at age three, then was neglected by her grandparents who feared she was infected. She is HIV-negative and has turned into a bright student who has skipped two grades and lives with the founders of the House of Learning, Marco and Bunga Masala, with the dream of becoming a doctor. Another girl, Maua, also lost both her parents and lived with an abusive aunt before running away and living on the streets. She was taken in by the founders and now is doing well in school and has plans to be an accountant. Another students, Onesmo, lost his father in an accident in 2004 and was left with his poor grandmother who had no money to send him to school when she remarried. He got a job at a hotel next to the House of Learning, and when he learned of their programs, asked his boss if he could join. He takes classes three hours a day, but still needs to work everyday for just $15 a month, which he mostly uses to support his grandmother. His ambition is to become an engineer.

Marco Masala, the director of the House of Learning in Tanzania said Meherally's help has been much appreciated.

"Sabrina is a wonderful woman who [is really] eager to support orphans. The FOHOL team is struggling and working hard to do fundraising for orphans," said the 31-year-old managing director in an email. "The textbooks bought by FOHOL have contributed in positive way a lot to students' performance."

He said that he and his wife were inspired to start the organization as they too were orphans who benefitted from others' goodwill growing up.

"We wanted to help other orphans and empower underpriviledged widows as well," he said.

Currently, they have 228 children taught through House of Learning, 182 at the Quality Training Centre and the remainder at the boarding school, and they shelter 10 orphans at their home and use his salary to fund operations and raise cattle and chickens and sell produce to support the school.

"I want to help these kids," said Meherally, who plans to return in February. "I saw their passion for learning and education and in class, I heard a lot of of ambitions and a lot of dreams.These kids have hopes and dreams the ability to be someone and do something with their lives. I don't want that to fall apart."

The Friends of the House of Learning are holding a fundraiser at the Starlight Casino in New Westminster on July 7 at 7 p.m. featuring music and a silent auction of Tanzanian art. Tickets can be purchased for $15 online here.

For more information, visit Friends of the House of Learning or email info@friendsofHOL.com. 

Learn more on their Twitter feed or Facebook page.

Learn more about the Tanzanian non-profit House of Learning or on ther Facebook page.

Read more at the blog Meherally kept during her time in Uganda.

To be alerted to the latest B.C. Without Borders features and related news, follow http://www.twitter.com/elainereporting.

 If you have any tips on B.C. residents' work in or for the developing world, email them to eoconnor@theprovince.com.

 

 

Langley farmer Joe Krentz didn't want to see his dairy barns sit idle after the cows went home.

So instead, the 81-year-old who had sold his herd and was winding down his business, turned his farm buildings into food warehouses for the hungry. Now, instead of collecting milk for local consumption, he is collecting food aid for the poor in far-flung needy countries, as a volunteer with the charity Canadian Food For Children.

The CFFC's mission is to feed starving children in developing countries -- mainly in Africa -- purchasing food in Canada and shipping the oats, dried peas, rice flour, blankets and linens, and school supplies overseas to refugee camps, orphanages and other emergency food aid programs or disaster hot-spots.

Krentz, the CFFC's B.C. division president, initially stepped in just to help the then-White Rock based charity find a new place to store its shipments after a 1998 windstorm destroyed the greenhouse they had been using. His wife had been volunteering witht the group for six years before that, and he knew it was a worthy cause.

But what he didn't know was that his involvement would grow to the point where he is now working up to 40 hours a week securing food for the organization, packing containers, fundraising and doing paperwork. Some retirement. But then Krentz says he feels compelled to do what he can and help as long as his health allows.

"Our number one mission is to feed people who are starving," he said.

"I think it's our responsibility. We weren't put on this earth just to sit around and have it easy. When something comes along to help your fellow man, you'd better do it," Krentz said, adding that his Christian faith also drives his passion to help the needy.

In 2010, the charity sent three shipments to Haiti, four to Ghana, two to the Phillipines and one each to Kenya, Congo, and the Ivory Coast. They sent 193 tons of food overseas in total in 2010 and 108 tons of other goods like mattresses, linens, soap, bicycles and school supplies.

Each container can hold about 45,000 pounds of food -- mostly peas, oatmeal, rice and flour, at a cost of more than $12,500. The charity buys Canadian crops at a bulk reduced rate from Alberta and Saskatchewan and also receive bulk donators from food distributors and from groups like the Oliver and Fraser Valley Gleaners. Most of the linens are donated from hospitals in the Lower Mainland, and other linens and toiletries from hotels in Whistler, Vancouver, Surrey, Richmond, Chilliwack and Harrison. They have also shipped donated medical supplies and vitamins, as well as school supplies from students at B.C. schools. Gordon Food Service on Annacis Island donates thousands of pounds of flour to the cause each year.

The B.C. division of the registered charity has shipped food direct from Vancouver to organizations in Haiti, the Phillipines, Kenya, Congo, Ivory Coast, Sudan, Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, Romania, Ukraine and Nicaraugua.

The CFFC, a non-denominational, volunteer charity was founded in 1985 by an Ontario resident, Dr. Andrew Simone and his wife, Joan, and the cause was quickly taken up by a group of church women in White Rock, B.C. The B.C. division was founded in 1990, and Joe and his wife Loretta turned over the use of three dairy barns on their property to use as warehouses for the shipments. In 2005, a second chapter in Kelowna and Penticton was formed. The B.C. group began making their own shipments from Vancouver in 2005, after years of contributing to the larger Toronto chapter's shipments.

Right now, the charity's top priority right now are Ghana and Haiti. Haitian shipments -- the most recent sent on June 2 -- have included 100-pound sacks of oatmeal, flour packed in sent to the Light and Peace Mission of Haiti, which runs 22 shcools and nine orphanages. The shipments have allowed the group to feed the orphans oatmeal in the morning, rice and beans for lunch and for dinner "la bouillie," a kind of porridge.

"It's terrible," Krentz says of the situation and corruption on the island nation. "So much cash was sent to Haiti and the poor people don't even see it. A lot of food was shipped to Haiti and yet the people who need it aren't getting it."

 

Bob LeFranc, a pastor with the Haitian mission, thanked the CFFC in a letter earlier this year for their assistance. "We do receive medical supplies and equipment from some other charities but food is the most critical and very rare. Thanks a million for all you are doing," LeFranc wrote. The charity maintains direct contact with the organizations that recieve the food and require pictures and letters as assurances that it gets to those for whom its intended. They average about two shipments every month.　

The last Ghanian shipment was sent from Vancouver in mid-May to the country's Ministerial Development and Relief Program in Accra, a load 48,600-pound load of oatmeal, flour, split peas, sugar and linens. The oats from Canada have gone to feed many of the 20,000 children in a Buduburam refugee camp in Kasoa, Ghana and at Sacred Heart Catholic School in Breman Essiam oatmeal each day, often the children's one main meal. The country has been inundated with Liberian and Ivory Coast refugees fleeing war in their countries and settling in refugee camps, one of the largest called Buduburam.

"There's about 35,000 people in that camp, and they are saying that we are the only ones shipping food to them. There are at least 20 people dying a week from starvation," Krentz said. "The Ghanian government isn't helping because they don't want them there."

 

Krentz says they send more than 20 shipments a year now, but are always looking for more ways to help, so new volunteers and donors are always welcome. Locals interested in supporting the charity can also visit its thrift shop at 3218 - 224th St. in Langley, where donated items not suitable for shipping are sold on the first Saturday of every month from May to October from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and the profits used to buy food.

To learn more or help contribute visit Canadian Food For Children or email info@cffc_bc@yahoo.ca.

If you have any tips on B.C. residents' work in or for the developing world, email them to eoconnor@theprovince.com.

To be alerted to the latest B.C. Without Borders features and related news, follow http://www.twitter.com/elainereporting.

As an Olympic-trained boxer, former Vancouver resident John Bosa knows all about beating the odds.

But as a native Ugandan, Bosa knows that the odds are stacked against African youth looking to knockout poverty.

That's why in 2009, Bosa -- with the help of his wife, Sherry, and their two B.C.-based friends, former UBC professor Geoff Bargh and Surrey corporate sales rep David Duncan -- founded the Kirabo Kids Foundation to help Ugandan youth suceed in school and help needy communties fight their way out of poverty.

"Kirabo" means gift in Luganda, the national Ugandan language and the group's goal is to give the gift of education to Ugandan youth and help poor communities launch self-sustaining businesses to counter high unemployment.

"These people are choking under poverty. There is no employment in Uganda," said Bosa, a former member of Uganda's 1988 Olympic boxing team, "so when you see something you can be a part of, it's a blessing."

Bosa knows all about blessings. If not for sports and a chance encounter, he said, he would likely still be living in Uganda and struggling for work like his fellow countrymen.

Back in 1990, after competing in the Olympics, Bosa got an offer from a British boxing promoter to come train with him. He saw the opportuinity as a chance to earn money for his family, and so planned to enter the dangerous world of professional boxing. By chance, on a flight to London from Entebbe, the then-20-year-old struck up a conversation with Bargh who was travelling from a conference. The two hit it off and Bargh convinced Bosa not to risk his life in the ring, but to immigrate to Canada where Bargh would sponsor him to go to school.

True to his word, while Bosa trained in London, Bargh got his academic papers together and secured him a spot at a Winnipeg college. Bosa took a leap of faith and immigrated to Canada, ending up graduating from the University of Manitoba in 1997. From there, he moved to Vancouver and got a job at YVR with airport security. He later retrained at BCIT in aircraft maintenance and worked in Vancouver for Air Canada until 2008 when he transferred to Winnipeg where he now lives with his wife and four children.

For years, Bosa had been using his free flight perks to fly back to his home country with gifts for needy youth and the children at the Sanyu Babies Home in Kampala. But a few years ago his wife convinced him they should create a lasting impact and the Kirabo Kids Foundation was born.

Bargh, who visited Uganda most recently in January 2011, acts as the group's Western Canadian ambassador and also sponsors more than 100 children's school fees, which pay for their exam costs and allow them to continue to progress in their schooling. The Canadian arm of the foundation collects donations such as clothing, generators, office equipment, restaurant and construction equipment and pressure washers to send to Uganda to help start local businesses.

Fellow Kirabo supporter, Surrey's Duncan, who met Bosa in university also went to visit Uganda in 2008 and donated half of a shipment of used electronics that he had imported hoping to do business in the country to local university students so that they would have laptops to complete their higher education.

Since launching the organization, mostly with donations from family and friends (Kirabo Kids is a registered not-for-profit in Canada and is awaiting registered charity status), they've begun other projects in several regions of Uganda: the capital, northern Gulu, southern Wakiso, Western Mubende, and Eastern Bugiri.

Two communities have been supplied with sewing machines and training so residents can make money tailoring and selling clolthing at local markets. A youth group has been set up that goes to feed 80 poor children in the Makerere Kivulu slum on the outskirts of the capital every Sunday. And the group is fundraising to build a clinic and school in future and have plans to make it self-sustaining through an agricultural business.

Uganda, a landlocked East African nation of more than 32 million people with a history of dictatorship and civil war, is home to a more than two million orphans as of 2003, according to UNICEF, nearly half of whom have lost their parents due to HIV/AIDS. Uganda's northern Gulu region has been brutalized by civil war for 20 years as the government battled the Lord's Resistance Army, known for its atrocities. Families were evicted from homes, children fled to avoid becoming child soldiers and an estimated one million internally-displaced people are still living in refugee camps there. In recent years, an uneasy peace has settled, but the uprooted residents are still struggling to rebuild their lives and livelihoods.

Bosa says the youth of Gulu in Northern Uganda are particularly hard hit and need help to recover and thrive.

"There there are a lot of kids who are disturbed psychologically and are traumatized by the war," he said. "When you ask them to draw a picture, they draw a guy wtih a gun. That is all they know. And we have 15-year-old kids who have no idea what "a, b, c, d" is, and these are your future African leaders. We are forgetting the kids. It's a time bomb waiting to happen."

Bosa says he and his friends and family have been blessed to be able to help and that the people Kirabo Kids reaches are grateful.

"If you don't do something, nobody else will. The politicians aren't going to," he said.

"If somebody gives you hope, it's just like, 'Oh my goodness, somebody remembers us.'"

To learn more about the Kirabo Kids Foundation and to learn how to help visit www.kirabokidsfoundation.com.

If you have any tips on B.C. residents' work in or for developing world, email eoconnor@theprovince.com.

To be alerted to the latest B.C. Without Borders features and related news follow twitter.com/elainereporting.

 

　

Chagai Lual knows firsthand what it's like to struggle to survive in the midst of upheaval.

The Sudanese-born New Westminster resident was just 14 when war forced him to flee his home country in the late 1980s and live as a refugee in Ethiopia.

He survived along with other displaced persons in makeshift shelters on rations of food aid, making the most of his time in the refugee camp by learning English. But he was forced to uproot himself again when Ethiopian rebels overthrew the government in 1991, pushing him back over the border into Sudan. He began a new life there, finishing school, marrying, and having children, only to have to leave again in the early 2000s as civil war once again wracked the country. Lual eventually ended up in Egypt, where a number of Sudanese refugees fled, and finally made it to Canada in 2003.

It's a harrowing, war-torn history. And the memories of how he struggled amid this chaos are a big part of the reason Lual is now trying to bring new infrastructure and stability to those left behind to rebuild their lives in Sudan, now that peace has been achieved.

In 2005, Lual banded together with a group of other Sudanese-born Canadians to found a charity called Padang Lutheran Christian Relief, with the goal of improving the lives of their countrymen back home. Padang means, "different peoples coming together to fulfil a common goal," in  one of Sudan's tribal languages, Dinka.

"When I came here, I knew how hard it is for the refugees and the returnees, so we decided to found the organization to help people there," explained Lual, the PLCR's executive director.

The registered charity works in two regions of South Sudan -- Tonj South County in Warrap State and Baliet County in Upper Nile State -- trying to bring water and wells, schools, orphanages, medical centres, churches and food and agriculture programs to locals. Their goal is to help improve the health, education, water and sanitation, emergency relief and other services to the South Sudanese.

The group, which draws many of its members from the Mount Zion Lutheran Church in New Westminster, recently finished building the Sobat Lutheran Academy in the village of Nyongrial in South Sudan -- the first permanent school built in the community of 10,000 since the end of the civil war. It took four years to raise money for the school, but in 2010 a group of volunteer engineers accompanied Lual and completed the building and drilled two wells. The school, which opened last June, replaced a fig tree -- the site of all previous classes for students in the community. In the dry season, they studied under its shade. If it rained, they went home.

"The big difference is all the kids are now in school. In one of the first classes there was a 14-year-old girl in grade one," Lual said, underscoring the fact that few children were sent to school before they built a new one. The other school was far away and families were reluctant to send their children -- girls especially -- so far away on their own. Now the school has 320 students in grades one to five. The government admits that 92 per cent of its population is illiterate, PLCR stresses, so ensuring that the next generation gets an education is a prime concern.

"When I left during the war the, area was without a school and there was nothing there," said the 38-year-old father of three who works as a security guard when he isn't volunteering for the PLCR.

"It really gave hope to the community, and they thanked Canada for supporting it and bringing relief to the people. We also provided clean water for the first time, before they had to collect water from the river. It was a good thing. The local people of the Upper Nile were very happy. I feel privileged to give back and be part of the hope."

The group continues to support the school, raising money for teacher salaries, uniforms and school supplies.

The group is also working on raising money for a host of future projects, among them a medical clinic and future hospital in both Nyongrial and Jak Payam, an orphanage to care for children who have lost their families to war, a high school for Baliet County -- the first in the region, as well as drilling wells and setting up sanitation systems for villages and providing food assistance.

South Sudan faces a host of challenges. Illiteracy is high, and fractured families and orphans are a legacy of the war. Infant and maternal mortality are among the highest in the world: not surprising when in some areas in the mid-2000s, there is only one doctor for half a million people. More than 90 per cent of Sout Sudanese live on less than a dollar a day. Drought is common and clean water scarce, leading to the spread of diseases like cholera and dysentery. Compounding the poverty, the country has suffered two civil wars since independence: one from 1955 to 1972 and the other beginning in the early 1980s, fought between the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement and government forces. More than 2.5 million people were killed and at least four million were forced to flee as refugees, with even more internally displaced.

That 22-year civil war decimated infrastructure. Peace was officially achieved in 2005, but groups continue to fight skirmishes in many South Sudanese states, and rebuilding in impoverished areas is slow going. The situation is complicated by the influx of more than 2 million displaced persons to South Sudan since the peace agreement. The governmentment estimated that more than 6 million people needed food aid in 2010. In January of this year, the more than eight million people of South Sudan voted for succession and the region will become an independent country on July 9. Although the state has a wealth of oil resources to rely on, it still faces the challenge of building a thriving new nation with little existing infrastructure.

Although the capital of Juba and larger cities have seen progress, the people of the ruiral regions of South Sudan, Lual said, remain "the poorest of the poor."

"In Sudan the people in the village they rely on farms and they are cattle keepers. In rural areas they do not have money."

He explains that even though peace has officially been acheived, "there is still fighting at the borders" and because South Sudan is gaining independence, the people there, "they need a lot of help because the area is starting at zero. When they become a country they will need to start building up their areas, they have to start from nothing to rebuild their lives and community."

In addtion to their work abroad, PLCR also runs programs for African immigrants in the Lower Mainland.

The organization offers settlement services in a number of African languages and have staff assist new B.C. residents with cultural adjustment and finding housing, as well as assistance with the Canadian citizenship process and counselling for those struggling to adjust. At Christmas, they distribute hampers to needy refugee families in the community.

Lual says he remembers how challenging his own acclimatization to Canada was, and he is glad PLCR can help others.

"Getting set up in Canada, it was hard in the beginning becuse of the new environment. But some of our friends from Sudan were here. They came together and showed us some of the new things, but it was hard because things were so different."

The group is looking for volunteers to help with fundraising for projects in the Lower Mainland, and also interested in finding skilled volunteers like teachers and engineers to join missions overseas in Sudan.

To donate, learn about the next fundraiser in June, or particpate in a mission visit www.plcr.org/ for more information or email info@plcr.org.

If you have any tips on B.C. residents' work in or for the developing world, email them to eoconnor@theprovince.com.

To be alerted to the latest B.C. Without Borders features and related news, follow http://www.twitter.com/elainereporting..