CRESS agriculture programme must restart

Before the events in South Sudan put a halt to the agriculture programme we had seen ‘glorious success’ in the agriculture pilot projects. Farming techniques were learnt that enabled the women to grow vegetables for their families but also to sell providing a small income.

Sadly when war broke out, the groups fled to Uganda as refugees. Kajo Keji town became deserted and we are not able to reorganise the groups for lack of land. The programme is now on hold until next year. The letter below from Canon Henry tells exactly why CRESS must find a way of reinstating the programme.

Dear Beloved Sister in Christ Caroline,

I am so delighted by your message that you put my email into CRESS Website, indeed that is my personal  experience and observation about CRESS, I am convinced beyond doubt that CRESS is doing the right thing for the people of South Sudan and Kajo Keji in particular, with your programmes of Training women in vegetable farming and education of our children.

Your programme for training women in vegetables farming was so wonderful for the women in the Diocese of Kajo Keji, it was so important for the women who organized themselves into groups farming.

I did  attending meetings, training, seminars’, workshops and  annual reports of the various groups of the women under  CRESS programme it was either in the opening or closing or neither in reports, that the women were able to support their families, their families were improved in so many ways,  such as feeding, health because they are eating fresh food from their gardens, education of the children “ I was hearing one of them in her reports saying her son was sent home due to school fees and instead of the boy to wait for his father who has gone for work,  she was able to send the boy back to school with the money from her vegetable garden”  and the was great.

Another one said, she was able to help her husband in construction of their house with her own money from vegetable farm, another one bought solar panel to the family with her own money from vegetable farm.

It is true that I heard of  so many good testimonies from them during their reports of their annual year, which were done in my presence last year; I am just saying that your money has done a right thing to our women , they were very practical in putting what they learned in various trainings into practice and the results were excellent.

It was very unfortunate that the groups were disorganized by the ongoing war in KajoKeji and in South Sudan in general, if the vegetable farming programme would to continue this year, the results may be much more better than last year.

I would therefore like to encourage you to continue with CRESS programs of training women in giving them skills so that they may initiate their own self-help initiatives, not also excluding the programme of the education of the children, we are now more vulnerable than before due to the destructions in the country where all of our properties got lost and we are left helpless.

Extend many thanks and greetings to the CRESS Team in UK. God bless you all.

Yours in Service to Christ
Canon Henry Leju