People in South Sudan face an impossible choice: stay and try to survive hunger or go in search of food and risk their lives. Gabrial is there to help.
In April 2017 Oxfam Executive Director Winnie Byanyima visited several regions of South Sudan and northeast Nigeria. She met with civil society representatives, traditional leaders, displaced women, as well as Oxfam staff.
In South Sudan, she visited Malakal, which has seen some of the worst of South Sudan’s brutal conflict. Malakal used to be South Sudan’s second largest city, but now resembles a ghost town as thousands now reside in one of South Sudan’s POC (Protection of Civilian) sites, which are guarded by UN Peacekeepers .
She saw widespread destruction, homes, schools in ruin. But she also met "with amazing women, who are holding their communities together, who are fighting to keep their families alive."
For more than five years now, UNFPA has been working with South Sudan's Ministry of Health to address the problem of maternal deaths in the country, which has one of the highest, if not the highest, in the world. The Strengthening Midwifery Services Project, funded by the governments of Sweden and Canada, is changing this narrative.
By supporting the development of human resources for health, such as providing scholarship grants to midwifery and nursing students, supporting health sciences institutes and health facilities, and deploying national and international midwives to various parts of the country, access to life-saving midwifery services is now more possible for South Sudan's women and their families.