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Success Story

Photo: USAID

Community members of USAID-funded Pagak Primary School pro-ject in Upper Nile, Sudan attend an organizational meeting. With the active participation of local commu-nities, USAID-Sudan has rehabili-tated over 50primary and community girls' schools to date. Close to 25,000 students are en-rolled in USAID-supported schools. "If we do not participate, who will participate and what will be the future of our children?" -Chairwoman, Pagak Women's Association, Sudan

The Sudan Basic Education Program contributes to local capacity and community development.

On many occasions, the Pagak Women's Association had ap-proached education NGOs in Sudan to support either the con-struction of or provision of scholastic materials for the local school-without much success. Eventually the women gave up expecting support from local or international NGOs. According to the organization's Chairwoman, "Many NGOs visited our lo-cation, collected information, and disappeared without sharing the information with us."

Then one day, the women of the association and the rest of the Pagak community were invited to a meeting organized by the USAID Sudan Basic Education Program's local partner organi-zation. Despite initial skepticism, they decided to attend saying, "If we do not participate, who will participate and what will be the future of our children?"

As USAID's Sudan Basic Education Program began to estab-lish local partnerships in 2003, literally every community ex-pressed fear that they would be unable to accomplish their objectives because of a lack of transport and a limited ability to pay the costs of local labor. Within the past year, however, a significant and commendable change has been seen in many local communities. Groups such as Parent-Teacher Associa-tions and Sudanese NGOs have mobilized community mem-bers to contribute their time and resources.

In Pagak, the identification of the community's primary school as part of USAID's Sudan Basic Education Program was a dream come true. So the Pagak Women's Association took the lead in ensuring active participation by contributing materials, labor and time towards the project. Today close to 300 people, including more than 250 women, attend the local meetings. Ac-cording to the organization's chairwoman, "It took a lot of time for USAID community mobilizers to convince us that it was go-ing to be different this time around, and it is."

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