Approval for the Food Champions project was given by the Fulcrum Aid Directors less than 2 months ago to support food security in South Sudan during the current famine. Seeking $500 to purchase tractor fuel for planting crops, within three weeks $1100 had been raised. $500 was transferred immediately and within two days the project manager Luka Thel reported seeding had recommenced. Just last week the remaining $600 has been transferred and will be used to weed the established crops.

Luka reports that the rains have been good and the earlier crops are looking healthy. He is optimistic of a good harvest in a few months time.

Quoting Nelson Mandela, Luka says “Poverty, hunger and famine are not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the action of human beings.” 

Just days ago the Minister for Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop announced over $19 million would be given in emergency assistance to an estimated 10 million people starving in South Sudan and the surrounding region.

It was in response to a desperate plea from the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator Mr Stephen O’Brien who in March announced the “worst humanitarian disaster” since the formation of the United Nations in 1945. 

In the face of the worsening crisis the leaders of St Andrews Episcopal Church in Aweil developed their own response. Forming the New Wider Hope for Agriculture Development Agency (NWHADA) the community aims to achieve food security and income generation while also striving for improved education and gender equality.

Executive Director Luka Thel says “We are building a network of food champions. We put agriculture at the centre, because we know we can't overcome poverty or hunger until all our people have equal rights to food.”