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Greetings!
Mercy Beyond Borders, a nonprofit begun in 2008, is delighted to send you this inaugural e-newsletter. In its first year MBB made small but significant strides in our mission of alleviating extreme poverty among women and girls in southern Sudan. Thanks to the generosity of many individuals like you we raised $97,000. This enabled us to support the 800 students at St. Bakhita School for Girls in Narus and to provide bicycles to former refugee women in 10 other villages.
MBB springs from the experience of the Sisters of Mercy who have been working with women and children around the world since 1831. MBB uses two methods proven to ease poverty: 1) We educate women & girls, and 2) We provide seed capital to women for small businesses.
If you've ever wished you could DO SOMETHING CONCRETE about global poverty, without the hassles of a large bureaucracy, this is it! Join MBB now. Help your sisters, mothers, and daughters in Sudan. Change their lives-you'll be enriching your own.
Welcome to our MBB network. Please tell your friends about us. | |
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Educating the Girls of Sudan
 Educating girls is the single most effective way to raise families up from poverty, but in many developing countries, girls cannot access formal schooling. Even where it is available, parents may choose not to allow their daughters to attend. Yet it has been proven that the single most effective and reliable way to alleviate family poverty, reduce birth rates, and improve overall family health is simply to educate girls. Knowing this, Mercy Beyond Borders supports the first all-girls' school in South Sudan: St. Bakhita School in Narus, where 800 girls from 24 different tribes now learn together in English, preparing for a future more promising than the decades of civil war that have plagued the region.
This 4-yr old Nuer girl, a newcomer to the school, recites a poem about the dignity of all women as she teaches her fellow friends a traditional dance.
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Sister Kathleen Moves to Sudan
 Many of us have only the fuzziest notion of where Sudan might be on the map of Africa; most of us would never dream of actually going there. Kathleen Connolly, a Sister of Mercy from California's Bay Area, is different from most people. At an age when sensible folk are thinking of retirement, Kathleen has moved into war-ravaged Southern Sudan, where she is now working at St. Bakhita's, the first all-girls school in the country.
Photo: Kathleen, an experienced teacher, social worker and trauma tech, helps out in the school. She now teaches basic health and hygiene to grades 6-8, coaches sports, and loves learning new songs with the girls.
Kathleen was instantly smitten by the people and the place during a brief visit to the school in May 2008. Though the place (Narus village) is definitely a hardship post, she is not easily fazed.
What about the relentless equatorial heat (and lack of air conditioning, of course)? "No problem, my arthritis actually improves in hot weather."
What about the lack of indoor plumbing? "Not an issue; I worked in Appalachia for years, and besides, I have always enjoyed camping!"
What about the fact that the nearest store is three hours' drive away-in another country! "No problem, I like the locally-grown greens and ugali (maize meal)."
What about the general lack of security in a region that experienced violent civil war for decades? "Well, I hope in my own small way to contribute to the peace-building that is taking hold now; and in all honesty, I'm more afraid of the spiders in the outhouse than the AK-47s in the hands of the former rebels."
Photo: Vehicles travel into Sudan by convoy with armed escorts as protection against being ambushed.
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MERCY BEYOND BORDERS was founded in 2008 by three colleagues-- a Sister of Mercy, a university professor, and a medical doctor--determined to improve the lives of displaced women and children living in extreme poverty. We are a 501(c)(3) registered in California and committed to linking U.S. resources with displaced women & children overseas. We are currently targeting Southern Sudan, which has one-quarter of the world's displaced peoples.
Sincerely,
Sister Marilyn Lacey
Mercy Beyond Borders
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