Basic information
Why supporting education in South Sudan matters
Five years of civil war, prolonged drought, a food crisis and 4.5 million internally displaced people — South Sudan is still recovering from all of this. Even more painfully, up to 3.5 million of those displaced are mothers with their children. If these children lose the chance to learn, the situation will never change. Because only educated children have any hope of changing their country’s future.
Illiteracy is a major obstacle to the country’s development. In South Sudan, even basic education is far from a given. Schools are few, they lack proper buildings, equipment and qualified teachers. For many children, schools remain out of reach — either because of long distances or because of high study costs.
How the Salesians provide education for thousands of children
The Salesians of Don Bosco and the Salesian Sisters run 20 schools at various levels in several towns and surrounding settlements. Together with our local partner BOSCOAID, our Adopt a Class in South Sudan programme has been helping since 2009 to cover part of the costs of electricity, school supplies, uniforms, meals and hygiene for more than 5,000 pupils.
What your regular gift brings to a class in South Sudan
Our goal is to ensure, through adoption, steady support for whole schools. That is why we invite groups of donors from Slovakia — schools, companies and other communities, as well as individuals — to adopt a class in South Sudan and to support it with regular monthly contributions. Help us raise, in this young country, a new generation that will lead its society towards further development through its knowledge, skills and moral values.
Your gift to a Salesian school can do a great deal:
- €35 covers part of the electricity costs for one class for a month
- €50 covers part of the food costs for one class for a month
- €100 covers part of the costs of the items above, plus hygiene, uniforms and school supplies for one class for a month.
Why supporting education in South Sudan matters
Five years of civil war, prolonged drought, a food crisis and 4.5 million internally displaced people — South Sudan is still recovering from all of this. Even more painfully, up to 3.5 million of those displaced are mothers with their children. If these children lose the chance to learn, the situation will never change. Because only educated children have any hope of changing their country’s future.
Illiteracy is a major obstacle to the country’s development. In South Sudan, even basic education is far from a given. Schools are few, they lack proper buildings, equipment and qualified teachers. For many children, schools remain out of reach — either because of long distances or because of high study costs.
How the Salesians provide education for thousands of children
The Salesians of Don Bosco and the Salesian Sisters run 20 schools at various levels in several towns and surrounding settlements. Together with our local partner BOSCOAID, our Adopt a Class in South Sudan programme has been helping since 2009 to cover part of the costs of electricity, school supplies, uniforms, meals and hygiene for more than 5,000 pupils.
What your regular gift brings to a class in South Sudan
Our goal is to ensure, through adoption, steady support for whole schools. That is why we invite groups of donors from Slovakia — schools, companies and other communities, as well as individuals — to adopt a class in South Sudan and to support it with regular monthly contributions. Help us raise, in this young country, a new generation that will lead its society towards further development through its knowledge, skills and moral values.
Your gift to a Salesian school can do a great deal:
- €35 covers part of the electricity costs for one class for a month
- €50 covers part of the food costs for one class for a month
- €100 covers part of the costs of the items above, plus hygiene, uniforms and school supplies for one class for a month.
We currently have 80 classes from the following schools in the programme:
▸ Vincent de Paul Primary School – Juba, Gumbo
▸ Don Bosco Vocational Training Centre – Juba, Gumbo
▸ St. Dominic Savio Primary School – Mori
▸ Don Bosco Primary School Manguo- Maridi
▸ Don Bosco Secondary School Manguo – Maridi
▸ Don Bosco Vocational Training Centre – Wau
▸ St. Joseph Primary School – Wau
▸ Auxilium Primary School – Wau
▸ Don Bosco Primary School – Tonj
▸ Don Bosco Secondary School – Tonj
▸ St. Bakhita Primary School – Tonj
▸ St. Bakhita Secondary School – Tonj
The goal of the Class Adoption programme in South Sudan is to give children and young people access to education and formation, and to provide them with shelter and support in difficult conditions of poverty and conflict. Through our adoption programme we therefore want to actively support the local Salesian community in its efforts to:
- meet basic human needs (both primary and secondary)
- mitigate the direct consequences of war for children and young people
- preserve culture and values through education and formation at each of the schools
Fill in the Adopt a class form and we will promptly send you a Pledge and further instructions by e-mail. The Pledge is concluded for at least one year, so that we can plan resources for the given class more accurately. On the basis of the Pledge we will assign you a class (several donors may independently support the same class — see question no. 3), and we will send you a photo of the class together with information about it and about the school. Unless you decide to end your support, you will continue to support the same class — meaning that the children in the class will change, but the class itself will not. By joining the Class Adoption programme in South Sudan you support the creation of a suitable educational environment where children can grow and develop with the awareness that they are loved and that someone cares about them.
The regular monthly contribution for one adopted class is EUR 35, 50 or 100. These amounts cover a portion of the costs:
- EUR 35 covers part of the cost of generating electricity for one class for a month
- EUR 50 covers part of the cost of meals for one class for a month
- EUR 100 covers part of the cost of the items above, plus hygiene, uniforms and school supplies for one class for a month
Because the total cost of one class exceeds these individual monthly contributions, several individual donors may independently support the same class. The contribution can be sent monthly, quarterly, half-yearly or annually. Groups and communities that are interested can agree on the adoption among themselves and contribute under a single name. If you like the Class Adoption programme in South Sudan but cannot afford to contribute EUR 100 each month, you can support our work with a one-off gift or with a smaller regular gift. Every gift helps!
We renew the Pledge automatically when we cannot reach the donor by phone, post or e-mail and the donor’s contributions continue to arrive regularly on our account each month. We inform the donor about the renewal and they may cancel the Pledge at any time.
You can also make a Pledge to support a class in the Class Adoption programme in South Sudan by phone, but only if the class is still on our list. A SAVIO o. z. staff member will call you before the Pledge expires and you can arrange a renewal. The shortest possible renewal is for 1 year. After the renewal you will automatically receive an e-mail confirmation that it took place on the basis of the call. The e-mail will also contain the following information: the Pledge expiry date, the contribution amount, the IBAN and the variable symbol.
SAVIO o. z. reserves the right to cancel the Pledge if contributions for the supported class stop arriving from the donor and the donor cannot be contacted. We will cancel such Pledges according to the schedule below and we will notify the donor by e-mail and post.
- 6-month grace period for regular monthly contributions
- 1-year grace period for regular quarterly and half-yearly contributions
- 1.5-year grace period for regular annual contributions
The financial contributions do not go directly to the class you support but to the school. We send contributions from adoptive parents once a year to the account of the Salesian Delegation for South Sudan (for schools run by the Salesians of Don Bosco) and to the account of the province of the Salesian Sisters for Ethiopia, Sudan and South Sudan (for schools run by the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians – FMA). They forward the funds to the respective schools, and the school then provides what the class needs.
Your contribution covers part of the costs of energy, school supplies for pupils, meals, school uniforms and hygiene items. During the holidays, camps are organized for pupils, training courses for teachers, and repairs are carried out on school buildings and their grounds.
We use 15 % of the donors’ contributions to cover costs associated with running the Class Adoption programme in South Sudan. This means that of every EUR 35, 50 or 100 that arrives in our account, we use EUR 5, 7 or 15 for communication with our partner organization, gathering information about the classes, bank fees on money transfers, donor communication (sending letters, e-newsletters, photos), acquiring new contributors, accounting and updating the website. The remaining EUR 30, 43 or 85 is sent to the class through the SDB and FMA Salesian delegations.
We greatly appreciate your support and we respect any decision to end it on your part. However, in view of the issues that arise when a donor withdraws from a class adoption contract, we also expect a degree of loyalty from the donor. If a donor decides to end their support, they need to let us know at least one month in advance so that we can arrange a replacement donor.
You can adopt a class at any time of year. The minimum length of support for a class is one year, so that we can plan resources for it more accurately. You can start supporting the class as soon as the Class Adoption Pledge is concluded.
We update the lists of classes once a year. Sometimes the class assigned to you will not be opened in the following school year because there are not enough children — for example, you support 1.B, but only 1.A is opened the next year. We inform donors about the situation and offer them the option to adopt another class.
By completing the form and signing the Pledge, you give us consent to use your contact details to communicate with you about the Class Adoption programme and our other activities by an occasional electronic newsletter. We will communicate with you when the Pledge is concluded, renewed, when classes are changed and when correspondence with the class takes place. Each quarter we will send you Reports from the Salesian Missions by post.
Under normal circumstances, the school sends us information about the current state of the class once a year, together with information about school activities and photos, which we forward to the donor. Given the current limited possibilities for delivering donors’ letters to the classes, we focus on maintaining communication from the classes to the donors.
We do not send material gifts to children in the classes, as it can cause jealousy and disagreements among the other classes.
We are not in a position to arrange donor trips to South Sudan or to the schools.