Akuja de Garang | |
---|---|
Born | 1970s |
Nationality | British-South Sudanese |
Education | SOAS |
Occupation | charity worker |
Employer | Mott MacDonald |
Known for | improving the education of girls in South Sudan |
Parent | Anna |
Akuja Mading de Garang MBE (born 1970s) is a British South Sudanese educator. She left Sudan during the civil war and after moving to Egypt she was offered political asylum and citizenship in the UK. After studying in London she returned to South Sudan to lead a $70m programme to improve the education of girls in her home country.
Garang was born in Juba in 1975. [1] She was very young when the Second Sudanese Civil War began in 1983. [2] Her mother decided that her children needed to leave the country. Her father had died of cancer so they went temporarily to the capital of Sudan, Khartoum. There was predjudice against people from southern Sudan and her mother had a stroke, so they went to Egypt. They had relatives in the UK so they made an application to join them. Meanwhile, it was her education that allowed her to get office work to keep the family. [2] In time they went to live in the south west of England in Bristol. When she was eighteen she became a British citizen. [1]
Her studies took her to London and the School of Oriental and African Studies where she obtained a 2002 degree in African Studies and a 2003 master's degree, in Violence, Conflict and Development. [3] She intended to return to South Sudan with her new qualifications and she re-entered the country of her birth in 2004. [2]
In 2011, South Sudan became a country in its own right and she was there. She was employed by small companies as well as UNICEF and OCHA. After two years. she was employed by Girls’ Education South Sudan (GESS). Girls in South Sudan rarely had an education and poor families could not afford to keep their daughters but they could exchange them for a dowry. GESS planned to change that approach by offering grants to girls so that they could afford to study instead of marrying. Not just a few but 180,000 girls. In an interview Garang said that she hoped that her award would be seen as an ambition that other girls could aspire too. She has worked in Sudan, Kenya, Egypt, Israel/Palestine, the UK and South Sudan. [4]
In the 2017 New Year Honours, Garang became a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE). [5] Garang was identified as being pivotal in GESS's assistance to the girls in South Sudan. [4] Nobody from South Sudan had been awarded an MBE before. [2] She and Emma van der Meulen published Education development in a fragile environment: lessons from Girls’ Education South Sudan in the same month as her MBE was announced. [6] The paper notes that the vast majority of girls in South Sudan are illiterate. [6]
In 2019 she was nominated for the WISE prize for education. The award that year went to Larry Rosenstock. [7] She led the send phase of the GESS programme with cost $70m over fiver years scheduled to complete in March 2024. [7]
Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the southeast, and South Sudan to the south. Sudan has a population of 50 million people as of 2024 and occupies 1,886,068 square kilometres, making it Africa's third-largest country by area and the third-largest by area in the Arab League. It was the largest country by area in Africa and the Arab League until the secession of South Sudan in 2011; since then both titles have been held by Algeria. Sudan's capital and most populous city is Khartoum.
The Bahr el Ghazal is a region of northwestern South Sudan. Its name came from the river Bahr el Ghazal. The name translates as "sea of gazelles" from Arabic.
The Second Sudanese Civil War was a conflict from 1983 to 2005 between the central Sudanese government and the Sudan People's Liberation Army. It was largely a continuation of the First Sudanese Civil War of 1955 to 1972. Although it originated in southern Sudan, the civil war spread to the Nuba mountains and the Blue Nile. It lasted for almost 22 years and is one of the longest civil wars on record. The war resulted in the independence of South Sudan 6 years after the war ended.
Dr. John Garang De Mabior was a Sudanese politician and revolutionary leader. From 1983 to 2005, he led the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement as a commander in chief during the Second Sudanese Civil War. He served as First Vice President of Sudan for three weeks, from the comprehensive peace agreement of 2005 until his death in a helicopter crash on July 30, 2005. A developmental economist by profession, Garang was one of the major influences on the movement that led to the foundation of South Sudan’s independence from the rule of Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir.
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Salva Kiir Mayardit, commonly known as Salva Kiir, is a South Sudanese politician who has been the President of South Sudan since its independence on 9 July 2011. Prior to independence, he was the President of the Government of Southern Sudan, as well as First Vice President of Sudan, from 2005 to 2011. He was named Commander-in-Chief of the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) in 2005, following the death of John Garang.
The Sudan People's Liberation Movement is a political party in South Sudan. It was initially founded as the political wing of the Sudan People's Liberation Army in 1983. On January 9, 2005 the SPLA, the SPLM and the Government of Sudan signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, ending the civil war. SPLM then obtained representation in the Government of Sudan, and was the main constituent of the Government of the then semi-autonomous Southern Sudan. When South Sudan became a sovereign state on 9 July 2011, SPLM became the ruling party of the new republic. SPLM branches in Sudan separated themselves from SPLM, forming the Sudan People's Liberation Movement–North. Further factionalism appeared as a result of the 2013–2014 South Sudanese Civil War, with President Salva Kiir leading the SPLM-Juba and former Vice President Riek Machar leading the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition.
Education in Sudan is free and/or compulsory for children aged 6 to 13 years. Primary education up to the 2019/2020 academic year consists of eight years, followed by three years of secondary education. The primary/secondary educational ladder of 6+3+3 years was switched in 1965 and during the Omar al-Bashir presidency to 8+3 and is scheduled, during the 2019 Sudanese transition to democracy, to return to 6+3+3 in the 2020/2021 academic year. The primary language at all levels is Arabic. Starting in the 2020/2021 academic year, English is to be taught starting at kindergarten. Schools are concentrated in urban areas; many in the South and West were damaged or destroyed by years of civil war. In 2001 the World Bank estimated that primary enrolment was 46 percent of eligible pupils and 21 percent of secondary students. Enrolment varies widely, falling below 20 percent in some provinces. Sudan has 36 government universities and 19 private universities, in which instruction is primarily in Arabic.
Zeinab Badawi is a Sudanese-British television and radio journalist. She was the first presenter of the ITV Morning News, and co-presented Channel 4 News with Jon Snow from 1989 to 1998 before joining BBC News. Badawi was the presenter of World News Today broadcast on both BBC Four and BBC World News, and Reporters, a weekly showcase of reports from the BBC. In 2021, Badawi was appointed as president of SOAS University of London.
The Lost Boys of Sudan refers to a group of over 20,000 boys of the Nuer and Dinka ethnic groups who were displaced or orphaned during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1987–2005). Two million were killed and others were severely affected by the conflict. The term was used by healthcare workers in the refugee camps and may have been derived from the children's story of Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie. The term was also extended to refer to children who fled the post-independence violence in South Sudan in 2011–2013.
Emma McCune was a British foreign aid worker in Sudan who married then-guerrilla leader Riek Machar. She was killed when hit by a matatu in Kenya whilst expecting her first child.
Rebecca Nyandeng De Mabior is a South Sudanese politician who currently serves as the 4th Vice President of South Sudan. She is also the head of the Gender and Youth Cluster.
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Southern Sudan was an autonomous region consisting of the ten southern states of Sudan between its formation in July 2005 and independence as the Republic of South Sudan in July 2011. The autonomous government was initially established in Rumbek and later moved to Juba. It was bordered by Ethiopia to the east; Kenya, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the south; and the Central African Republic to the west. To the north lies the predominantly Arab and Muslim region directly under the control of the central government. The region's autonomous status was a condition of a peace agreement between the Sudan People's Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) and the Government of Sudan represented by the National Congress Party ending the Second Sudanese Civil War. The conflict was Africa's longest running civil war.
The South Sudanese pound is the currency of the Republic of South Sudan. It is subdivided into 100 piasters. It was approved by the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly before secession on 9 July 2011 from Sudan.
Sudan is a developing nation that faces many challenges in regard to gender inequality. Freedom House gave Sudan the lowest possible ranking among repressive regimes during 2012. South Sudan received a slightly higher rating but it was also rated as "not free". In the 2013 report of 2012 data, Sudan ranks 171st out of 186 countries on the Human Development Index (HDI). Sudan also is one of very few countries that are not a signatory on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).
Child marriage is a marriage or union between a child under the age of 18 to another child or to an adult. Child marriage is common in a multitude of African countries. In South Sudan, child marriage is a growing epidemic. Child marriage in South Sudan is driven by socioeconomic factors such as poverty and gender inequality. Current figures state that South Sudan is one of the leading countries in the world when it comes to child marriage. Child marriage has negative consequences for children, including health problems and lower education rates for South Sudanese girls. Many initiatives have been taken to combat child marriage in South Sudan, but the presence of societal norms and instability continues to drive its presence in the nation.
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