The Challenge

Severe food insecurity and starvation plague South Sudan; some 4.7 million South-Sudanese - nearly half of the new nation’s population - battle hunger. Impoverished South-Sudanese girls and women, in particular, endure the devastating burden of this food crisis.

In the village of Omilling, residents cannot afford to waste a kernel of the maize they manage to harvest. Girls and women spend grueling hours squatting on their knees to grind the maize, by hand, into a powder used for a traditional porridge called “Ogali”. Hours and days of kneeling on the sun-scorched ground, grinding the maize, cause back and joint pain, which the girls and women must endure to sustain their communities. Tragically, many children and families perish from hunger during the months it takes to produce enough Ogali to feed everyone in the community.

The solutions we're proposing

W4’s field project, Hope Ofiriha, is working to put an end to hunger in Omilling and to decrease girls’ and women’s workload, freeing up their time for school, training and income-generating activities. The Omilling Community Grinding Mill Project aims to bring a diesel-run hammer mill to Omilling which will enable girls and women to increase the yield of maize powder that is generated per harvest, grinding around 1000 kg of maize per hour. The grinding mill is an effective solution to ensure a sustainable source of nutrition for the community, to spare women and girls the physical pain and exhaustion of hours of hard manual labor and it will save girls and women an incredible amount of time which can be used, rather, to pursue educational and income-generating activities.

The impact of giving

Donate today to this effective, grassroots initiative, to help ensure food security for hundreds of South-Sudanese women and their families. Your gift will enable Omilling’s girls and women to pave their way to a healthy future, also enabling them to benefit from crucial schooling, vocational training and the establishment of sustainable livelihoods, free from backbreaking manual labor!