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Con mis pupilos en la escuela de Pagak
No hay mas que 30 bancas o sillas para los 750 alumnos de esta escuela. 150 libros de UNICEF son repartidos entre todos. El primer grado el anio pasado tenia 300 alumnos, el segundo grado tiene hoy 19. Donde estan esos muchachos?Junko is showing me around the Way Station for returnees coming from Ethiopia…and we enter a large tent filled with food from WFP donated by the US and the EU.
We have a logistics problem here. WFP is very strict about the use that can be given to the food. But when ADRA told WFP that there were going to be less returnees to Pagak this season, and that less than the originally planned food was needed, WFP sent it anyway. They had it budgeted, so they had to deliver it. And once delivered, the food is ADRA’s responsibility.
The result: lots of food aid, that can only be used for their intended purpose, are still awaiting to be distributed. Some of this food has been here since last year.
Junko and ADRA are not just sitting around. They are looking for alternatives. They already submitted a proposal to WFP, so they can start a food-for-education and food-for-training program that can make use of the remaining food.
A few days later, I visited Pagak’s elementary school. The night before, as most nights this time in Pagak, it rained (a lot). The first sight I had of the
elementary school was that of children playing in the mud. Six professors were giving lessons in the three classrooms available.
Every year, the school population increases here. Four hundred pupils two years ago, seven hundred and fifty this year. The continuous inflow of former refugees that decide to stay in Pagak is the main reason.
Three years ago, UNICEF gave the school 150 books, and a few chairs. Books have not been replaced, nor more given, and they rest in bags at the principal’s office. Most of the kids sit outside, where classes are given ‘when does not rain’ (which means one or two days a week).
I enter one of the classrooms, and the kids start singing and clapping, in Nuer and English…
’welcome dear visitor, thanks for stopping by, the Lord be with you’
… in the middle of the classroom, an old man with cataracts in one eye stands, firm and quiet. The school principal whispers in my ear that he joined them this year. He wanted to learn to read and write. I could feel my eyes watering. I approached the gentleman and congratulated him.
The school is a reflection
of the challenges Pagak faces: overpopulation, undernourishment, lack of inputs, lack of infrastructure. It is also a reflection of the ineffectiveness of NGO action, and their lack of coordination. The three classrooms in the picture, that look thirty years old, were actually finished this year: CARE started to build the school in 2004, and had not completed it when their educational program failed. ADRA, UNICEF and ICCO also intervened, but only to provide a roof and plaster it.
Save the Children and ICCO are now competing to see who will complete the plastering. Nobody is discussing building more classrooms, desperately needed.
The children in Pagak need many things, including the most important one: food. As common as cash transfers and food-for-education schemes have become in Latin America and Asia, there is no such initiative in Pagak.
That night, I received an email from Junko. WFP had accepted the proposal of a food-for-education and food-for-training program, so children, young people and women will be able to receive food for attending school and training, which could be done at the Way Station while refugees are not brought in from Ethiopia. Junko was so excited, and has reason to
be. The food in the WFP storeroom will be given a good use.
What will happen, though, when the food in the storeroom is over?
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