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NCSS Volunteerism Program

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The National Conversation South Sudan – Volunteerism and Internship Program

(Concept)

 Introduction

The name of this program shall be the Volunteerism and Internship Program. This program is part of the NCSS – Political Education Program. The program shall be a forum for young South Sudanese men and women to participate in the national conversation and freely exchange ideas. 

Vision

The vision of the Volunteerism and Internship Program is to create an enduring institution in the Republic of South Sudan, owned by the people at the grassroots level. The Volunteerism and Internship Program shall henceforth be referred to as the Volunteerism Program. There is a form available on our website for individuals who wish to support the vision of the NCSS. The Moderators shall use this database to select members for deployment in different missions and objectives of the NCSS.

 

The vision of this Volunteerism Program is rooted in the spirit of volunteerism of our historic liberation struggle spearheaded by the SPLA/SPLM. We are also inspired by the vision of the new Sudan, and we intend to implement this vision within the context of the new realities in our nascent Republic –“taking towns to people!”

 

The Volunteerism Program shall also include a think tank, which shall help build the capacity of our national human resources. This shall include, but will not be limited to adult literacy and other forms of capacity building at all levels of professions, including farming. This vision stems from our firm conviction that University Students have a responsibility to give back to the communities which developed and nurtured them, and must share their knowledge and experience with the less fortunate members of the society who have not had the opportunity to attend formal education. This will facilitate the acceleration of the Renaissance of the Republic of South Sudan, while allowing the students themselves to reach their full potential in order to make a meaningful contribution as individual members of society.

This document outlines plans for a Volunteerism Program, which shall also be a think tank for policy and legislatorial research:

 

THE PROBLEM/SITUATIONAL ANALYSIS

The NCSS   understands very well the challenges faced by the local governments, community based organizations, cooperative societies and local investors that operate in our communities. Our communities have now been in a state of crisis and emergency for hundreds, if not thousands of years. What is today, the Republic of South Sudan, has borne this destruction going back to the history of the old Sudan.

This conflict situation has destroyed most indigenous knowledge systems, and in the case of the Republic of South Sudan, modern systems of administration and organization are foreign to the rural population, which constitutes approximately 98% of the population in most cases. The organizations   operating in the Republic of South Sudan, for example, are faced with the daunting challenge of making the transition from emergency relief to seconding producers overnight. In a crisis situation, the objective is very clear – to provide emergency relief. However, after becoming a Republic, the situation is different. When donor fatigue sets in, our peoples will starve.

This scenario is compounded by the tension and conflict between local and expatriate citizens of South Sudan. On another level, the conflict is between those who contributed to the struggle and those who studied abroad during this time and between the indigenous civil population and the elites. The solution to this is to involve the community and empower the indigenous peoples – our civil population – in their cattle camps and villages, by providing them with a mechanism to identify the challenges facing their communities and identify solutions for themselves.

The Moderators of the NCSS have identified this as a major challenge facing development in rural communities. It is the firm belief of the NCSS that both the traditional and modern approaches equally have value. This is why the NCSS has placed great effort into the building of this Volunteerism Program with college and university students in particular and the Youth in general. 

It is important that an institution is created that can bring these two approaches (the indigenous knowledge systems and the modern technical knowledge) together in order to learn and benefit from the strongest aspects of either approach. The Volunteers of the NCSS, operating at the community level, can become the dynamo for the social transformation that was envisioned by the founding fathers of our nation. 

 

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The NCSS is an organization that was envisioned in 1997 as a student organization at the United States International University (USIU) – Nairobi, Kenya under the name Africa Peace Initiative.  The institution was founded under the guidance of the late Dr. John Garang de Mabior, who was then the Patron of the Club.

The untimely death of the patron of this organization left us in disarray for a decade. The political environment that followed – during the interim period of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) – and subsequent independence of Southern Sudan from the old Sudan, was not conducive for our ideas. This situation forced the group to go underground when the country descended into power struggles at the center and as we witnessed free thought and free speech muted in fear of regime change agendas. The tension has ultimately resulted in a vicious civil war.

 

The parties to the current civil war in the Republic of South Sudan have signed the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS). This new political dispensation provides the best opportunity for the NCSS to put into practice the vision of the people’s struggle within the context of the new historical realities.

 

The NCSS shall develop programs which shall be implemented and owned by the youth of South Sudan. The Volunteerism Program will provide a unique opportunity for the urban youth to interact positively with the rural youth, so that together they may rediscover and reinvigorate South Sudanese civilization and realize our unity based on a South Sudanese Renaissance. This way, we can contribute positively to the socioeconomic development of our civil population and the rest of the human family. While starting from a small basis, the vision of this program has a global perspective.

 

How can this be done?

The lack of skilled professionals to implement any durable projects or programs in rural South Sudan is one of the greatest obstacles to the modernization of our rural economies.  This and many other shocking realities have led to complications in the implementation of developmental programs at all levels of development in rural communities. The NCSS is inspired by the strategy used by the leadership of the people’s Movement during the war of liberation. This strategy involved going to the grassroots level and engaging the Chiefs and other local leaders as part of the process.

 

The NCSS intends to adopt this strategy within the context of peace –“Seeds, Not Bullets”– to promote socio-economic development. Through the combination of knowledge of the past and modern technologies, NCSS Volunteers will be able to face a wide range of challenges in this new struggle for socio-economic liberation, dubbed “guerillanomics”. The NCSS is likewise inspired by the CPA slogan of, taking towns to people, to avert the negative effects of rural-urban migration, and promote local provision of goods and services.

 

The Volunteerism Program shall support the implementation of a number of projects relating to rural development approaches. These include support of rural social and economic regeneration in rural communities i.e. revitalization of collapsed farm enterprises, sustainable livelihood approaches for wealth and job creation, environmental awareness and more (see Youth Agricultural Farm – Concept Note).

These projects shall extend beyond the narrowly defined boundaries of the agricultural sector and employ a broader-based approach.  The NCSS recognizes the plethora of problems faced by rural communities in the Republic of South Sudan and seek to tackle them through a multi-disciplinary and coherent, holistic manner. The projects will also explore other traditional sectors such as Health, Skills Training, Women’s Empowerment programs and Business Development. These are the sectors that, according to the Volunteerism Program, require immediate attention. 

 

PROPOSED GOALS

  1. Contribute to the socio-economic advancement of rural communities by deploying Volunteers in NCSS projects,
  2.  Identify Scholars and other Thinkers to participate in research forums which shall produce policy documents for sustainable peace and development.
  3. Create a community participatory approach where committees in the countryside can be involved in the project planning for their communities and together with our volunteers, come up with a direct assessment of basic needs and services.
  4. Create an open conversation with local government institutions to discuss and assess the needs and services from the local level to the national level of administration.
  5. Conduct surveys and questionnaires with open consent from farmers, cooperative societies, youth and women’s groups, community heads and administrators, and others, so that this data can be used by local and national governments as well as the international community as a guideline assessment for any enduring and genuine development projects.
  6. Establish a center (YAF) for the Volunteerism Program where students, scholars, free thinkers, civil society and the friends of South Sudan will contribute their expertise, skills and capabilities to better improve livelihoods in rural communities.
  7. Embrace the vision of and mission of the SPLA/SPLM by implementing the     vision of new Sudan, which is concurrent with the Tanzanian Experience –the “New Society”.
  8. The modernization of our communities and the restoration of the greatness of our peoples.

 

PROPOSED STRATEGY

As already stated, the NCSS recognizes the great challenge of implementing this program. Therefore, in the spirit of cooperation and Comradeship, the NCSS is currently working with various Community Based Organizations (including those in the Diaspora), Farmers Groups and the Business Community in order to implement our programs. The NCSS Volunteerism Program shall identify suitable interns and volunteers who are qualified and knowledgeable in specific fields to be deployed within the Republic of South Sudan.

In a broader context, the five key areas of the Volunteerism Program are identified as:

  1. Knowledge creation and dissemination
  2. Private Sector Development
  3. Socio-Cultural and Economic Development
  4. The African Conversation
  5. Political Education

 

These five areas are categorized by the level of development and practical situation on the ground. These categorized areas have a significant potential for research forums and discussions. 

 

CLOSING STATEMENT

Following the endorsement of this project concept, the NCSS will hold a series of follow up discussions with local administrators and community members regarding the possibility of project development in their respective communities.  Discussions will take place to build the capacity of these communities on a voluntary basis, so they will learn the importance of modern organizational management when it comes to project planning and implementation.  This is required since many communities have never practically experienced contemporary project management and development.

This will be invaluable information that can then be used to develop any practical proposal our volunteers shall participate in.

You will hear from us!

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