Vocational Training for Transformation

South Sudan is one of the developing countries that is faced with various challenges. One of them is poverty, which has not spared the women of South Sudan. With the biting poverty, women find themselves vulnerable and not able to meet the basic needs of their households. Women Empowerment Program (WEP), which aims at transforming lives through tailoring skills trainings, opened its doors in Juba, South Sudan in 2009 with support from United States (US) based Mennonite Central Committee (MCC). WEP is a Charitable, Community Based Organization that contributes to building the capacity of women in South Sudan through tailoring and handcraft skills. This center supports women, most of whom are widows, family heads and school-dropout girls. Admissions and recruitments to the center are done through the church and community chiefs. “We provide vocational skills which can make a woman earn a living immediately after completing the training and be able to rebuild their livelihoods once again. Besides dress making, they also learn business financial management skills” said Florence Ayikoru, WEP Executive Director. Since the program started in 2009, about 1300 women have graduated from WEP center, and are practicing the acquired skills across the various states in the country. This has enabled them regain their Self-esteem and confidence that they had lost. “Transformation has started. Women are now moving away from back breaking labour. Many of them were brewing local alcohol and there was a case where a woman was burned while brewing alcohol when the drum exploded. This program has helped them move from such dangerous work that does not bring respect to them to much more decent work. Those who have been trained in this center are now important decision makers and bread winners in their families” Ayikoru explained. The center also trains women on hand crafts by creating beautiful traditional handmade baskets and handbags for sell. Some of the women trained here are now training other women in tailoring, catering and handcrafts. To strong entrepreneurs who can compete in the market, the women are trained on basic accumulated saving and credit strategies. Trainees learn how to save regular and how to use their saving to boost their business. Covid 19 Intervention: Mass Production of Face Masks The outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic has turned the WEP center into a busier facility, making and producing face masks for public use. As a result, a number of national and international organisations have contracted the center to make masks that are then distributed to the public free of charge. “Once women are empowered, they don’t think about themselves. Today, with the covid-19 pandemic, women are now supplying face masks to the public either directly or through other organisations to help the communities in protecting themselves from the disease” said Ayikoru. WEP also did direct intervention by supplying hand washing facilities and soap to households in high risk around Juba, the epicenter of the disease in South Sudan.