June 2010

 

 

Dear friends,

 

It’s amazing how much has happened since we wrote our last newsletter in March.  Then, we shared the news that Martha Clinic had been awarded a grant of €30,000 to open an eye clinic on the site next door. An existing building was on the site (pictured below right) and we began making plans to renovate that building and to create not just an eye clinic and operating theatre but also a 10 bed children’s ward.  

 

Work has gone very well with an excellent contractor and on 22nd May Poppy was handed the keys by Fiona, on behalf of Expert Construction.

 

 

 

 

There is a member of staff in training in Juba who will qualify as an ophthalmic clinical officer in October and that is when the clinic will open for the first time to the public.  The children’s ward will open next month, once it is furnished and equipped.  Poppy spent much of her time in the UK in April sourcing and procuring eye equipment and finding ways to get it safely to Sudan.  Having started with no knowledge of eye equipment and instruments at all, she now feels quite an expert.  It is being crated in the UK and then flown to Uganda whence it should travel by road to Yei. 

 

If only every project would go so well!  Generally school construction has gone smoothly but we have had one difficulty after another as work progressed on the construction and opening of a new primary health care centre (PHCC) in the town of Lainya, about 35 miles to the east of Yei.  This clinic is being funded by Irish Aid over a three year period with year 1 covering construction and years 2 and 3 being for equipment, salaries and running costs.  The year 2 money arrived in April, some six months late, which delayed the purchase of all the equipment that we needed to buy.  As we had already recruited staff for the clinic, we agreed with the Diocese to open on a limited basis in February with some donated medicines and borrowed furniture, and it has been running successfully since then.  The equipment should soon be on its way from Kampala and as we have both staff and medicines, we hope that by the end of June, we will be operating at full strength. 

 

Meanwhile, we were also building some staff accommodation adjacent to the clinic.  We used a builder whom we had worked with before but unfortunately, half way through the construction, he had financial difficulties and we ended up terminating the contract, rescuing one of his workers from prison and paying money he owed to some of his workers and local suppliers. We appointed another contractor to take over and the construction is nearly finished but it seems to have been one problem after another.  The technicians due to complete the solar power system at the clinic were robbed of all their tools and belongings on their journey from Kampala.

  

We spent the month of April in the UK enjoying time with family and friends but also working with CMS Ireland on a new proposal for further funding for health and education for the next 18 months. 

 

We recently heard that the application for health funding was approved, securing the funding for the mobile clinic for another 18 months.  We hope to hear in the next week whether the other part of the application will also be successful. 

 

 

 

 

                                             

 

We mentioned in the last newsletter that CMS Ireland had been awarded some extra funding to build some school classrooms and since then, it has received two more blocks of funding enabling a further five classrooms to be built and some pit latrines.  This means that Bishop Hilary’s dream of six new primary schools in the Diocese of Yei will have been achieved, with five schools being completed in the last 12 months, one other having been built previously.  At the beginning of March, we officially opened one of the new schools at Panyana and it was a day of great celebration (above).

 

During our time in the UK, we enjoyed the 10th birthday party of Testway Housing and we went to Ireland for nine days for a holiday in the Mourne Mountains.  While in Ireland we took the opportunity to meet up with our increasing circle of Irish friends and we spent a very enjoyable Sunday at Dromore Cathedral.  We know a consultant ophthalmologist in Belfast and he has been a great source of advice for Poppy and we hope he will fly to Yei later in the year to help her start up the eye clinic.

 

We were back in Yei on 8th May and shortly after that, we flew to Maridi Diocese which is about 100 miles north of Yei. The Diocese asked Poppy to give some advice on its clinic and John took the opportunity to visit two sites in Maridi and Ibba where CMS Ireland would like to build new primary schools, if its latest funding proposal is successful.

 

The YVTC started its seventh year with a group of 90 students, many of whom are local but about 20 are from other Dioceses, such as Lainya, Rokon and KajoKeji. The term is going well and one morning at devotions, we gave each student a Good News Bible.  For most, this was the first bible they had ever possessed. On 6th June, John will be preaching in the cathedral and for the last week of June he has been invited to be one of the speakers at the Samaritans Purse Annual Conference to be held in the Nuba Mountains.  Both of us will attend and Poppy has been given some subjects to speak on such as staying healthy in Sudan.

 

The April elections passed peacefully in most places although unlike UK it was a while before the results were announced.  Everyone is now looking ahead to the referendum in January 2011 which will have such a significant impact on the future of Sudan and, in particular, on the south of the country.  We pray that the conduct of the referendum will go as smoothly as for the recent elections.

 

With our love, John and Poppy Spens