VILLAGE SCHOOL RIDE 2024 Benefitting Angor Chuei Primary School
South Sudan’s Angor Chuei Primary School students in grades 1-3 lack classrooms. Instead of learning at desks, they meet under trees, sitting on the ground. Join us in supporting a charity bike ride led by humanitarian cyclist Larry Chatterley to raise funds for 4 new classrooms and essential school supplies.
South Sudan: The Youngest and Most Vulnerable Country on Earth.
That’s right -- the country on our planet with both the shortest history and the youngest average age, only 18, is South Sudan. South Sudan gained independence in 2011 after the longest-running civil war in Africa, which devastated the economy, infrastructure, and many opportunities for survival. Hundreds of thousands of people died, leaving gaps in generational knowledge of farming techniques, a lack of resources, and a desperate need for doctors and educators.
Climbing out of the wreckage of a violent civil war is challenging enough; and in South Sudan, that is made even more difficult by a lack of infrastructure (in a country measuring 240,000 square miles, fewer than 200 miles of roads are paved), a climate marked by extreme cycles of flooding and draught which have made sustainable food cultivation challenging, and far too few sources of clean water, making handwashing and other basic activities difficult.
Our Areas of Focus
GEMS Development Foundation focuses on meeting the most critical needs of people, wherever they are. In South Sudan, the resources which have the most transformational power are traditional staple foods, support and training for farmers, wells for clean water, goats to provide nourishing, life-saving milk, and access to healthcare.
Access to clean, safe water
Right now, sources of water are so scarce that children, often young girls, are tasked with spending hours each day going to fetch water — taking them out of school. The sources of water are often contaminated, leading to a continued problem with disease. You can help by donating even $5 towards the cost of building a well, which can provide clean water for hundreds of families.
Growing crops year-round to end “The Hunger Gap”
Because of the extreme cycle of flooding and draught in South Sudan, local villages have only managed to grow one round of food crops per year, leaving what is called “The Hunger Gap”: the time in-between harvests when supplies have run out and there is quite literally nothing left to eat. Small children are the most vulnerable during this time.
By building dikes (to keep farm fields from flooding and washing away) and simple irrigation systems (to sustain crops during the months of draught), a second harvest each year is possible — meaning an end to the hunger gap and empty bellies. For $10, you can contribute to the cost of building a dike to protect the fields.
Goat milk to provide missing nutrients
The main source of nutrition in South Sudan is sorghum, an ancient cereal grain that plays a key role in many traditional local dishes. Sorghum alone can’t meet 100% of the nutritional needs of the human body, and so South Sudanese people (and most often, children) often develop a tell-tale sign of nutritional deficiency: orange-colored hair.
When goats are provided to families as sources of nourishing, vitamin-rich milk, the children's hair starts growing in as the deep, heathy, rich black color it should be — a visible sign of the deficiencies being overcome.
For $75, you can donate a female goat to a family, providing life-giving milk as well as income. She-goats bear 2 kids per year, and the baby goats can be sold for profit at market, providing money to buy other essential food and hygiene items.
How to Help the GEMS Community
Help While You Shop
We have partnered with the Roundup App to make it as easy as possible to donate your spare change while you shop.
Contribute to Active Projects
Learn more about the active projects we are assisting with today. You are the power behind these projects that change the lives of the communities we are working with.
Life-Changing Experiences
“My name is Luka Garang Kenyang. I am Dinka, living in Korok Center. GEMS has made a lot differences in my life in different ways. The salary I make from GEMS improves my living status, and the humanitarian work that I have been involved in to help the needy has also helped me learn a lot in different fields!”
Luka
GEMS South Sudan Field Director“We donate every year in memory of our son Ian. We just received a picture of the recipients and their goat. Warmed our hearts.”
Tom and Shirley Umphries
GEMS Donors"My name is Adut Ruay Dut. I am Dinka and live in Majak Goi village. There has been a great impact from receiving my goat from GEMS. It has changed my lifestyle because the goat gives birth twice a year, and often to twins and this is wonderful progress.”
Adut Ruay Dur
Goat Recipient
How YOU Can Help
1. Choose which project you’d like to support. Does one tug at your heartstrings? Do you have girls in your family who would be skipping school to walk miles and miles to fetch a bucket of water each day? Maybe you’ve known hunger. Maybe you have farmers in your family. You can also choose to let GEMS decide where your dollars are most needed.
2. We facilitate the delivery of your funds directly. Because of our extremely low operational costs, 85 cents of every dollar you donate goes directly to the project you've funded -- GEMS runs more than twice as lean as the national average for charity organizations, meaning more of your donation goes to those in need.
3. You’ll receive a receipt right away by email from your donation on our GEMS website. Within a few days, you’ll receive a certificate suitable for presenting as a gift. If you have donated a goat, you will receive a photo of the villager or family who was the recipient of your donation. Because of limitations of the staff on the ground in South Sudan, please expect that it can take up to six months for your photo to arrive to you, even though the goat will have been delivered and be nourishing people much sooner.
$2.50
Feed a Family for One Day with Sorghum
All it takes is $2.50 to make a difference.
The GEMS Team
Focused on Empowering Hope and Delivering Opportunities
We know that good intentions are not enough. Too many times, well-meaning Westerners drop into a region, hoping to do good, and miss essential factors that would make lasting, meaningful change. The GEMS Development Foundation works to avoid those pitfalls by utilizing our experience working South Sudan since 2010, even before the non-profit was formed as GEMS.
Contact
Feel free to contact us with any questions.
Email
help@gemsdevelopment.org
Phone
(888) 818-4684 (Toll Free)
