We Need Pencils

Sourced from HELPSudan

War broke out in Sudan in the early 1980s, largely based on racial, ethnic and religious divides just like the current conflict in Darfur. Unlike the present, the rest of the world looked the other way, while the government launched a persecution of the African tribal groups of the south and nurtured inter-tribal conflicts to their own ends.

More than 40,000 boys, aged 4-15, were orphaned, but survived this campaign of genocide by walking hundreds of miles through the wilderness to Ethiopia, back to Sudan and finally to Kakuma refugee camp, in northern Kenya. These boys, ripped from their parents, families and homes, are now known as The Lost Boys of Sudan.

Because of the war, there has been little maintenance of schools since the early 80s. Even since the signing of a peace agreement in December, 2005, restoration of the school system is slow in coming.

The initial mission of HELPSudan is to start new schools in Southern Sudan, providing pencils and notebooks for hands that might have taken up arms, and an education for minds that once only understood war.