Timpir Christmas Gift Program

Christmas Gift Program

Since 2007 Timpir has been running a Christmas Gift Program in a number of different guises. In 2007 and 2008 gifts including goats, blankets, bicycles, school bags and mosquito nets were purchased and given to individual families. This style of donation was re-evaluated in 2009, as giving to individual families was found to be creating a dependency model in the communities Timpir was supporting. Since 2009, the gifts have been changed to those that benefit the schools and broader communities. These include blackboards, saucepans (for school food programs), stationery sets and jerry cans (for drinking water at the schools).

Christmas Gift Program 2011

In February 2012 the team of Timpir volunteers purchased and delivered the various gifts donated through the 2011 Christmas gift program. This included 8 jerry cans, 15 stationery sets, 2 saucepans, 6 blackboards and 3 sets of teaching resources. These Christmas gifts were delivered to Wäramoth and Mabok Primary Schools.

Blackboards

Blackboards

School supplies

School supplies

Christmas Gift Program 2009

Timpir’s 2009 Christmas gift program was run in a different form than the 2007 and 2008 programs. This year, Mel and Kuol were not travelling to South Sudan, so the program was amended to aid implementation in Sudan. Christmas gifts for this year were in the form of materials and resources for Wäramoth Primary School. These included; stationery supplies for classes, jerry cans for water to drink at the school, blackboards, saucepans for cooking school lunches and teaching resources. 17 sets of stationery were donated which will provided enough pens, pencils and exercise books for all of the classes at Wäramoth Primary School for about three months.

Two Jerry cans were donated and these will allow students to drink water while at school instead of having to walk to the local bore hole each time they want to drink. 4 saucepans were donated, these will be used by the four cooks at Wäramoth Primary School to cook lunch for all of the students each day. Sorghum is provided by the World Food Program and this is ground and cooked into a nutritious porridge on an open fire. 1 blackboard was donated which will be used in the new classrooms currently being built. 7 sets of teaching resources were donated which will provide teaching resources such as text books for each of the teachers to successfully teach their classes for the year.

Christmas Gifts 2009

Christmas Gifts 2009

Christmas Gift Program 2008

Thanks to the incredible support of over 50 families, individuals and work-places, Timpir was able to implement an even bigger and better Christmas gift program during February 2008. The Christmas gift program saw the distribution of 49 mosquito nets, 45 school bags, 48 goats, 19 blankets and 14 bicycles.

The program was difficult to implement for several reasons, primarily transporting the gifts (particularly bicycles) out to the village recipients and identifying those families most in need to receive the gifts. The Christmas gift program would not be possible without the dedicated voluntary assistance of Abuk Atak Ngeny. Abuk is an elder of the Athokthou community and has lived there for most of her life, she
also happens to be the mother of Timpir’s Program Director, William Kuol Baak.

Abuk knows the situation of most of the families who benefited from the Christmas gift donations and was able to inform us of which families should receive gifts. This is no easy task in a region where every family is living in poverty. Some gift recipients walked for up to 5 hours from surrounding regions to collect their gifts. Purchasing the gifts was not easy, we frequented several markets in the region to purchase the 48 goats.

School bags, pens and pencils were transported from Australia and mosquito nets, blankets and bicycles had to be bought from a market 2 days walk away from the Athokthou region, where the gifts were distributed. All in all, the program was once again a huge success and we look forward to running it again during Christmas 2009.

Christmas gift program 2007

In February 2007, two of Timpir’s Board members, William and Mel, travelled to South Sudan. During this time we implemented the highly successful Christmas Gift Program. A total of 21 goats, 19 school bags and 24 mosquito nets were donated to those families most in need living in the Aweil region of Bahr el Ghazal state in South Sudan.

One of the most challenging aspects of the program was identifying those families most in need, as the need of every family is so great. One goat was given to each family who was known by the Chief of the area not to have any livestock with the aim that the goats would breed, thereby providing the family with milk and an investment that builds with time. All of the 21 goats that were donated were female. Collecting all the donations was another challenge that took almost a week. We had to travel to several towns in the region to purchase the school bags, books, mosquito nets and goats.

Funnily enough, the most difficult things to purchase were pens and pencils which were a struggle to find at almost all of the markets. The program was a huge success and will be monitored with great interest over the coming year. Due to the fantastic response of donors in Australia as well as the immense need seen in the people of South Sudan, the Christmas Gift program will run again in 2007/2008 with the addition of blankets and bicycles to the list of gifts.