Empowering education with Climate Resilient Classrooms

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In Wau, South Sudan, the start of a new school term signals more than just the return to classrooms, it marks a powerful step toward recovery and long-term resilience. With the support of the European Union, UNICEF’s Education in Emergencies initiative is restoring access to quality education for children affected by conflict and crisis.

This initiative, ‘Strengthening Access to Education in Wau County, Western Bahr El Ghazal State,’ is not only rebuilding schools, it’s rebuilding hope. Four newly designed Climate Resilient Classrooms, developed in partnership with the Ministry of General Education and Instruction (MOGEI) and UNICEF, provide safe, sustainable learning environments that can withstand climate challenges.
This investment creates a long-term impact: empowering communities, fostering stability, and offering children a chance to build a better future for themselves and South Sudan.

These new classrooms are more than just buildings; they are powerful symbols of hope, resilience, and progress, reflecting the community’s strength and commitment to a brighter educational future in Wau County.

Once burdened by deteriorating facilities, Bilpham Primary School is now on the verge of transformation, as a newly constructed classroom block, with inclusive features like a spacious veranda and accessibility ramp for students with disabilities, offers a fresh start and a promise of a better tomorrow.

 

 

Help a Child South Sudan staffs, SMOGEI officials, UNICEF and the PTAs stand in front of Block B of the Climate Resilient Classroom under construction at Bilpham primary school during their routine monitoring visit.

 

          

Educational supplies for 28,000 pupils of 58 schools

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Wau – On 13th February 2025, Help a Child South Sudan, together with UNICEF, IOM and WFP, officially launched the flagging off of education supplies for the EU-funded project entitled ‘Access to Education, Livelihood and Peace’.

The project is a 2-year multi-thematic or multi-sectoral as it cuts across education, livelihood and peace. The partners supplied educational supplies for 58 schools in Western Bahr-el-Ghazal and Warrap States, targeting a total of 42,000 learners. The launch demonstrated their commitment to ensuring all schools and children receive the materials, with education stakeholders present as witnesses.

Pupils of Hai Kosti Girls Primary School standing in a line as they wait to receive the education supplies in front of the education officials and the PTAs/SMCs.

Education materials for free
Educational materials are essential for emergency education initiatives. In South Sudan, many parents cannot afford basic school supplies like notebooks, pens, and school bags. Providing these materials for free reduces the financial burden on parents and prevents student dropouts, supporting the government’s goal of achieving Universal Primary Education.

The Joint UN Partners Coordinator, Mr. Emmanuel Sayyiori, added: “More Engineers, Teachers, Professors, and Accountants will be coming out of these schools and children tomorrow. We are planting the seeds today by giving these materials and harvest will be realized in terms of their performances”.


Mr. Emmanuel Sayyiori handing over the education supplies to a learner.

Other components of the projects were ongoing and included the construction of Climate Resilient Classrooms (CRCs), training of teachers, PTAs/SMCs, school gardening and the provision of healthy school meals that made education lifesaving given its nutritious supplements that support the child’s health.

“We are attacking the problem from many directions” Mr. Emmanuel ambitiously added. He finally thanked the government for its continuous support in ensuring that the education of the children in the country was prioritized.

The truck loaded with education supplies leaves the venue with pupils and other education stakeholders lining from both sides to witness the flagging off of the supplies which will confirm the official launch.

          

Acute Crisis Joint Response

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Over the past few months, South Sudan has been heavily affected by extreme floods. Many people have been displaced and are left without access to food and shelter. The humanitarian situation in South Sudan was already very worrying before the floods, and even more so now. The rainy season has become increasingly severe due to climate change, stretching communities’ ability to cope with the devastation, and in some cases causing permanent displacement of communities.

 

In order to respond to this humanitarian crisis, the @Dutch Relief Alliance (DRA) was able to allocate € 800.000 for an acute response to provide life-saving support to communities in South Sudan affected by the floods. This project started in November 2024, and we want to reach 22.200 people with immediate help, by distributing packages of shelter/NFI supplies and by providing cash to families that have lost their food sources to flooding amid an already critical food insecurity situation. The distribution is currently ongoing, and the team has shared some pictures of the distribution of shelter/NFI supplies in Paguir and Mareang.

Help a Child is in the lead in this project, which will be implemented by @Tearfund and the South Sudanese organizations Africa Development Aid (ADA) and Coalition for Humanity.

More on this response funded by the DRA, you can read on their website.

Peace and empowerment through Boruboru

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Help a Child South Sudan organized a 30-day ‘Peace and Back to School Campaign’ from 29th October to 28th November 2024 as part of the EU-funded UNICEF Education in Emergency (EiE) Project. The campaign, titled ‘Strengthening Access to Education in Wau County, Western Bahr El Ghazal State,’ aimed to promote peace, stability, and livelihoods within communities while encouraging youth, especially girls, to return to school in 2025.

A key component of this campaign was the use of Boruboru, a traditional South Sudanese dodgeball game that was professionalized for modern sports. This adaptation allowed the sport to become a powerful tool for community mobilization, blending physical activity with social advocacy. It was tailored to promote peace and the rights of women and girls through the integration of community engagement, speeches by key government officials, local authorities, and representatives from civil society organizations (CSOs).

     

The competition provided a platform for girls to showcase their talents, a significant step in challenging traditional gender roles and empowering girls. It also addressed the need for gender equality and inclusiveness in education, in line with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4, which emphasizes the right to education for all children, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or physical ability.

The success of Boruboru has attracted attention and admiration from Help a Child’s sister organizations in other countries, including Rwanda, Burundi, Kenya, Malawi, DRC, and Uganda. Through an exchange and learning program, these offices shared different approaches to social engagement and education, with Boruboru becoming a standout model for empowering girls and bridging social gaps. It has also gained recognition from the Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Sport in South Sudan, with discussions about making it one of the country’s unique sports.

Boruboru is becoming a standout model for empowering girls and bridging social gaps

Empowering girls
In conclusion, the Boruboru-based campaign not only achieved its goal of promoting peace and education but also contributed to the larger effort of empowering girls, challenging harmful cultural practices, and fostering a culture of inclusivity and equality.
Through sports, Help a Child South Sudan has made significant strides in both social engagement and education, helping to ensure that all children, particularly girls, have access to education and opportunities for growth.

For Help a Child South Sudan, this campaign has reinforced the importance of creating a holistic approach to education – one that goes beyond the classroom and encompasses the values of peace, safety, and equality. By implementing such initiatives, Help a Child aims to not only help children return to school but also ensure that they can thrive in an environment that nurtures their potential.

Moving forward, Help a Child South Sudan remains committed to strengthening these efforts and building on the momentum generated by the campaign, ensuring that every child in South Sudan has the opportunity to grow, learn, and contribute to the future of their communities.

   

Help a Child CHS certified

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Since January 2024, Help a Child is certified against the Core Humanitarian Standard! We passed the rigorous scrutiny by the independent certification body HQAI – Humanitarian Quality Assurance Initiative. Our certification objectively demonstrates that we comply with the requirements of the CHS. It means that we put affected children and populations at the center of our programmes, include their feedback and opinion in our work and create programmes based on the needs of people. Geert de Jonge, Manager Expertise and Development, tells more about our certification journey during an interview conducted by HQAI.

Why did you decide to go from independently verified to certified?
“The most important pillar of our strategic plan is achieving more quality and impact. Our reason of existence is providing a future for children in need. We do our utmost to accomplish this and quality is our driving force. To aim for certification shows the world that we take our commitment seriously. Being part of a select group of professional organizations that meet this highest standard, motivates us to continue to live up to this ambition. The yearly maintenance audit of certification gives us an extra external drive to make it a continuous priority.”

Can you tell us more about your HQAI certification journey?
“We started our CHS journey in 2019 with our first self-assessment and we repeated this in 2022. Both of these self-assessments have resulted in improvement plans for the organization, pushing us to develop more effective and quality aid. In 2023 we have done the external audit and the reflections of the auditors have helped us to further grow. Looking back at this journey, we really improved in quality in for example Community Based Feedback, Knowledge Management, Disaster Risk Reduction, Partnership Management and communication with communities.”

What were the challenges you encountered?
“The investment of time and resources of the external audit were challenging, but outweighs the benefits of identifying sharp and critical ways of improvement. As a relatively small NGO the CHS pushed us far, but also opened up new avenues for further funding by larger donors enabling us to provide more impact for more children in need.”

What specific improvements have you seen?
“Community Based Feedback: in 2019 this was a completely new topic for us. We have always invited the communities to share their feedback, but now we have been able to setup a clear mechanism for channelling this feedback and responding to that feedback. This is a very visible improvement at Help a Child, from policy level to field level.

Knowledge Management: we realized in 2018 during a synthesis evaluation of all our projects that just creating high quality policy documents is not enough. It is really all about how to ensure we reach the hearts and minds of our field staff so that they understand and live by our philosophy. We introduced all kinds of trainings, information exchange, e-learnings and started with Knowledge Management as an important pillar in our organization.

Disaster Risk Reduction: up to 2019, we were organized in silos: one silo for development programmes and one silo for Disaster Response. Triple Nexus as an important discourse came up in our sector and also CHS pushed us to really connect development with Disaster Response. This resulted in more attention for Disaster Risk Reduction in our development programmes and more sustainability and empowerment approaches in Disaster Response.

Partnership Management: with the support of CHS we have been able to improve on equal partner relationship, and becoming more transparent in the relationship with our implementing partners. Our multi-annual contracts changed accordingly and we have further invested in the relationship with our  implementing partners.

Communication with communities: during the external audit in 2023, we realized we need to improve on the intensity and quality of our communication to our beneficiaries, explaining who Help a Child is as the donor behind our implementing partners and about what integrity means to us. In the following years we  want to further improve quality on this topic.”

What was your experience of collaborating with the HQAI auditors?
“The auditors were incisive and analytically proficient, directing our organization to the right points and ensuring that this did not feel like a paper audit but really contributed to clear areas of improvement at policy and field level. We appreciated their support and their push to further improve our quality.”

What are the expectations from donors now that you will be CHS certified? Do you think they will change?
“We expect more and more donors to adopt the CHS standard and by doing so increase the level of CHS compliance. For us, CHS is the highest quality standard and by adhering to it we see possibilities to further diversify our donor portfolio adhering to the highest compliance requests.”

In summary, what impact has the certification had on your work?
“The process to achieve certification has been very helpful. We now have a clearer understanding of where systems, policies and practices are strong and effective, and where further improvement is needed. The detailed incisive audit report has helped us to improve. The entire process was an excellent opportunity to put the CHS at the forefront in the entire organization and realign our activities and procedures accordingly. The CHS motivates us to walk the extra mile when it comes to meeting the highest quality standards.”

Read the shared interview with Tearfund and the Dutch Relief Alliance

 

Leading the South Sudan Joint Response

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In South Sudan, there is great unrest: millions of people are affected by violence, hunger, or the consequences of climate change. Amidst all this unrest, it is not possible to set up our multi-year village program, but working together with families can be done.

In the coming three years, Help a Child is leading the South Sudan Joint Response (SSJR). From 2024-2026, we are committed to helping people in South Sudan suffering from hunger, lack of clean drinking water, and living in unsafe situations with their families. We do this together with our partners from the Dutch Relief Alliance: Care, Dorcas, Plan International, Save the Children, Tearfund and War Child Holland, and with South Sudanese organizations Across, ADA, Aid Link, CEF, Coalition for Humanity, SAADO, UNIDOR, and WOCO. A great opportunity to work together for a better future for children in South Sudan!

517,932 people
Within the SSJR, Help a Child will mainly be active in the regions of Pibor and Tonj North, but humanitarian assistance will also be provided in Melut, Malakal, Akobo, Rubkona, Mayendit, and Abyei. The goal is to reach 517,932 people with this assistance over three years. Help a Child focuses on the protection and education of young children. Other organizations will focus on food security and livelihoods, water supply, hygiene, and food for children and pregnant women.

Strong people
In the areas where we work, people especially want to get to work themselves. Something that fits well with the approach of Help a Child. Sonja, humanitarian expert in South Sudan, says: “In 2011, the country became independent, but since then, there have also been countless internal conflicts resulting in millions of refugees and poverty. I see that people carry traumas with them. And I see strong people. A population that does not give up, is proud of the country, and does not want to remain dependent on external aid. (…) Restoring that dignity: that is the impact of our work, and that’s what I am committed to.”

SSJR Information Leaflet