Roots & Goals
MOTHERS FOR HOPE was first imagined in 2011 as an opportunity to give to the impoverished rural communities of South Sudan. One of our initial team members was able to acquire several bags of donated clothing with the help of Colonel Light Gardens Uniting Church to be taken to South Sudan villages. These bags were taken to a village community North-west of South Sudan. What seemed like a simple journey to distribute donated clothing manifested an organic vision that still burns within, of helping the communities heavily affected by war and poverty.
Our team now has expanded to include a variety of different individuals South Sudanese and Australian all having the same desired vision and goal of one day lifting whole communities from poverty by giving them the knowledge and resources, thus empowering them to rise from their current difficult conditions transformed into a self-sufficient and self-providing community. We hope to one day be able to teach communities to be able to use the land they have effectively and efficiently farm, respectively creating employment and also, in turn, being able to feed themselves creating the hope they need to know that they are capable of escaping their dire situation they find themselves in.
Women and Community Empowerment
One method that will be used to tackle food security in communities, in the long run, is empowering women. Research has shown when women of a community are given the power to control the macroeconomics, such as if they are given the skills to farm or given any kind of entrepreneurial opportunity a whole community can be bought out of poverty at a much faster rate. This method will prove to be a difficult one to introduce due to the fact that most communities in South Sudan are mainly patriarchal in structure, that is men are usually the bread givers for their family. So education of the communities will play a vital role in the success of this method. Schools and Hospitals will be provided with the necessary resources to ensure the health care system can be improved from its current state as an unhygienic, under-resourced facility to moderately modern. This will all be achieved by the power of donation that will be capable of assisting communities in helping treat and cure simple illnesses that to this day don't exist in the Western World but still causing large suffering and misery in these rural communities.
Health and sustainable initiatives
South Sudan is a country that has no shortage of water. With various rivers, water holes (caused by rain in the wet season) and various water attaining locations such as wells. Water attainment has never been a problem, the problem arises when these water sources that individuals go to collect water are sprawling with water-borne diseases mainly cholera, which accounts for the majority of illnesses and deaths caused by water in South Sudan. Dirty water poses so many dangers in a country with virtually no health care system in place, zero to no understanding of the germ theory and the dogma rooted in seeking 'witch doctors' for help when health problems arise. Our goals as an organization are to educate communities on the importance of the germ theory, teach hygienic behaviour, provide sanitation resources and means to filter the dirty water collected in a sustainable way. We hope to achieve all of this through the power of donations and the human spirit to make this World a better place than we found it.