South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Benjamin Takpiny
South Sudan based local charity Giving Back Foundation is calling for support from donors in order to support more vulnerable children in the country.
The Executive Director for Giving Back Foundation, Dr. Martin Makuek Chiman told The Dawn on Wednesday that they have been offering support services the most vulnerable communities, such as orphans, widows, people with disabilities and people deemed the most vulnerable in society.
“The organization is driven by compassion for the poor and those with vulnerable issues. When I first established it, my aim was to give back to the community. And I did, all of us had the obligation to support our communities, when we came up with this Giving Back Foundation, we actually wanted to show our community that they can also benefit from our ideas,” said Makuek during interview in Juba.
Giving Back Foundation has also been conducting outreach and treatment services to vulnerable groups especially children in orphanages, but due to limited finances they are calling on donors to support them to continue with their work.
The foundation conducted last week free medical outreach and treated 231 children at Stone Church Orphanage in Gudele suburb of Juba.
The outreach was carried out under the theme “we are a family”. Makuek hailed it as a success because it included various medical activities such as medical consultation, general check-ups, physical examinations, treatment, wound care and psychological support.
He disclosed that their medical volunteer team consisted of him, three medical doctors, two pharmacists, a nurse, logistic officer and IT officer. Giving Back Foundation also provided free treatment to staff working at Stone Church Orphanage.
Makuek said that the medical team also provided health education tips to the children on the importance of personal hygiene, hand washing, and adequate water intake.
Various sicknesses such as Malaria, scabies, respiratory infections, typhoid and wounds were treated.
Makuek said that vulnerable people can benefit from their activities because not all people can afford proper basic needs and proper healthcare.
“This organization mostly focused on medical activities such as health education and medical outreach. Like last week, we went to stone church orphanage where we treated 231 children with various medical conditions, such as skin diseases, respiratory infections, scabies, and other various medical issues that affect the children, which live in very crowded places And this is the aim of our organization,” he disclosed.
“We don’t have anywhere to get funds, our funds come from our own pockets as staff because we have just established this organization and it’s not easy to just secure funds from a donor. So we dip our hands into our pocket and we procure so many medicines and then we do this kind of outreach to the communities,” said Makuek.
“We are going to benefit because when our vulnerable people benefit from such activities, we also benefit because when a section of the community is healthy, it also affects you because you also become also healthy,” he added.
Makuek said that Giving Back Foundation is driven by compassion, adding that they are satisfied to carry out charity activities.
“Personally, as Executive Director, I’m also satisfied to see my fellow South Sudanese happy and healthy and are able to thrive in life, our benefit is actually because it’s what we love to do and what we want to do, we get satisfied when this section is satisfied or when this section thrives,” he said.
Makuek also admitted that this was the first time they have treated 230 children in Stone Church Orphanage.
In addition, he said they also provided sanitary kits for young girls at the orphanage.
Giving Back Foundation has nine staff of which four of them are qualified medical doctors and two pharmacists.
Makuek disclosed that this year they plan to support 500,000 vulnerable people.
“I have to say the organization is driven by compassion, we are very compassionate about helping the poor, helping those who actually need it, but the reason we use our own money is because of our love for these children and our love for our community,” he said.
Makuek said he is not employed anywhere as his does only voluntary work.
“I don’t have any job, I’m just like any other ordinary South Sudanese who just goes out on the street and hustle and get something and the same thing to my colleagues, many of them are not working. So it’s because of our love for our communities, our country is going through a lot of hardship, we had an opportunity to help those in need, so despite the fact that we don’t have enough funds, our compassion, our heartfelt, our solidarity just enabled us to help these poor people,” said Makuek.
He said that supporting vulnerable people doesn’t require a lot of money but something small can save the lives of these people.
“You don’t need to have a lot of money; you don’t need to have a lot of resources so that you help somebody who is in need. There are those that actually need a very tiny amount of support which to yourself, you may think that it’s something very small, but to them it’s something very huge For example 10,000 SSP can buy a package of paracitamol that can last for three months,” said Makuek.
He said that they need more funds to reach out to more people in need.
“I am questing for more funds because if we have more funds, we will even reach out, you know, not only here in Juba, but across the nation, Our plan is that we need to reach out to all the communities in South Sudan who are suffering, who are having the same problems,” said Maluek.
He said that children die of malaria because they cannot afford 5,000 SSP for anti-malaria.
“We decide to dip our hands into our pockets and have to contribute something so that we support these people,” he said.
Makuek said that he grew up in hardship and he does not want South Sudanese children to go through what he went through as a child.
“I grew during the liberation war and now the situation of the children is terrible. As a child who actually witnessed difficulties in life I always want my fellow young children, my fellow young brothers and sisters not to go through what I went through for example, in the year 2002, 2003, 2004, and even 2005 it was not easy as a child, even to get water, to get just clean water and clothing was not easy leave alone the medical issues,” he said.
