_A training center focused on solar technologies, water and sanitation in South Sudan may at first glance seem like a strange idea for a country in South Sudan's situation._South Sudan is a country emerging from many years of war and conflict. It was left without roads, infrastructure, and with a multitude of problems. The level of access to basic needs for the population is still not ideal, but for most of the year people do not suffer from hunger, they have some access to drinking water (often kilometers from their homes, and a single functioning pump may serve a large number of people) and access to basic healthcare (often several days' travel from home). The government of South Sudan is young and is forming slowly, but several positive steps can be seen along the long road of the country's transformation. _Former soldiers as ministers_In 2005, I worked at the Ministry of Health in the capital city of Juba. The highest positions were mostly occupied by former soldiers who received these posts as a reward for their service during the war. For example, the illiterate director of the foreign aid department always had two clerks with him – one wrote and read emails and the other handled paper documents, while he dictated responses from the leather chair of his air-conditioned office.
At that time, the ministry's activities were limited to assessing the situation and determining what each organization could do. It is now difficult to find soldiers in the ministries; they are gradually being replaced by people working in the field. The ministry supplies some medicines for most hospitals, several hospitals are run by the government, and it is gradually trying to take over more and more activities.
During this period of transition, a large group of non-governmental organizations helps provide for the population's basic needs. For organizations to operate in South Sudan, they inevitably encounter the country's infrastructure, which, where it exists at all, is in very poor condition. The only asphalt roads are the main streets in the largest cities such as Juba, Wau and Yei. The remaining roads between towns are dusty and rocky, without a single kilometer of asphalt. After rain, they are often impassable for several days or weeks. If they are not maintained each year, they become permanently impassable.
Just as I am writing this article, the main road from Rumbek to Juba has been impassable for two weeks because water washed away a two-kilometer stretch of the road that serves as the main artery between the capital Juba and central and northern South Sudan.
The electrical grid exists only in the largest cities. It is powered by large diesel generators. Outside the main towns, people and organizations are left to their own devices. Most use small gasoline or diesel generators or solar panels. These are the only two sources, and if there is no fuel (for example, if the road is flooded), solar panels remain the only option.
Water is supplied by water pumps from wells 30 to 70 meters deep – you will not find any central water distribution or sewage systems here. Organizations, whether governmental or non-governmental, alongside their core activities, must ensure deliveries of medicines, food, school supplies or other materials along non-existent roads and provide electricity and water as best they can. Cars, generators, solar systems, water pumps and other equipment necessarily require technicians for installation, maintenance or repairs.
Where do these technicians come from? From everywhere except South Sudan. The nearest are from neighboring countries – Uganda, Kenya or Ethiopia, but often from as far as Europe, America or Asia. This represents enormous financial and, not least, time costs for every organization (finding a technician for a broken device who would come to a remote hospital can take a very, very long time). The logical question arises: why are there no local technical workers?
New – technical horizons
Access to basic education during the war was very limited – a small number of schools, most often run by missions. The situation has been gradually improving in recent times; many new primary and secondary schools have opened, even the first universities. However, the quality of instruction is low. Classrooms are overcrowded (in primary school you can find 60 to 90 pupils in one class), school materials are lacking, teaching often takes place under trees, teachers have no pedagogical training, often they may be graduates from the previous year, etc.
Schools or courses in the technical field are very rare. In the entire territory of Lakes State, apart from our training center, there is no other institution that educates people in the technical field. Another factor why technical schools do not exist in South Sudan is the low demand for technical education. This has two reasons. If someone graduates from secondary school here, it is like someone in Europe earning a doctorate from a university. They are convinced that a job will find them and that they will not do just any work, certainly not manual labor.
The second factor is that people do not realize why technical education is necessary. They often do not know that technical equipment requires qualified installation, maintenance and repairs, otherwise it will not work. Secondary school graduates mostly see their future career in education or government. But the capacity of these two sectors has filled up very quickly, and more and more graduates have no employment prospects.
Recently, we conducted interviews with applicants for training at our center and quite a number of secondary school graduates came who had been at home for two, three, some even more years without work. They wanted to work in education or government, but no place was found for them. Now they have discovered that the technical field is another form of career through which they can secure a livelihood and contribute to building society.
A functioning society needs to develop in all areas at roughly the same level; otherwise, the absence of one area prevents others from progressing. The shortage of technicians in society is a very serious handicap and slows down the development of other areas. I hope that this area too will gradually develop and that our project will help this process.
Ján Rusnák _(29) has been working in Rumbek since November 2009, leading a two-year technical training center project, which with the support of SlovakAid is implemented by eRko in cooperation with project partners DKA, BBM, Horizont3000 and DOR. The future of South Sudan was to be decided in a referendum, planned for January 2011 under the peace agreement. In it, the people of South Sudan were to decide whether they wished to declare an independent state.______
The article was published in the bulletinDevelopment Cooperation - Autumn 2010. Published by the Platform of Non-Governmental Development Organizations (MVRO), an association of legal entities – the umbrella organization of 31 (23 full members and 8 observers) Slovak non-governmental organizations primarily involved in foreign development and humanitarian aid.