Bor Women Association's Reports

Daniel Deng 1 post Aug 10, 2008 3:38 PM

Bor Women Association’s Reports 2nd Conference. Saturday, July 12, 2008: Reporting From Des Moines, Iowa United States of America Introduction: A year ago, an anonymous idea grew out from the hearts of a few women, notably, Amer Ajak Nhial, Akuch Kiir Aguer, Awalith Nhial, Yom Aciek Nhial, late Achol Marks Atem and other women in Phoenix, Arizona. This vague idea rapidly spread around the United States, and as a result, the 1st Conference was called which was conferred in Phoenix, Arizona, in June 24, 2007. It was during this conference Bor Women Association (changed from Southern Sudan Bor Women Association as I reported its name last year) was formed. Attended the last year conference were successful women that are not limited to Nyanchol Akuin, the wife of our leader, Ater Barnaba, Adut Anai Kur, Sarah Bullen Alier and Nyankiir Majok, all from the big legacy families and daughters of revered political figures in Bor community. With no surprise, these women snatched leadership of the Bor Women Association with Nyanchol Akuin taken the seat of President of Boards of Directors; Adut Anai Kur became Executive President of BWA while Sarah Bullen Alier and Nyankiir Majok both became Secretaries. Another huge asset that was later added to the leadership of the Bor Women Association is Yar Jook Alith. Yar is a daughter of Jook Alith, a renowned Bor community father. In addition, she’s a wife of our iconic commander, Michael Makuei Lueth, who is also an icon to the whole South Sudan where he is currently working (in the Southern Sudan government) as Minister of Legal Affairs, or what is known in the West as Attorney General. As a writer I am still searching to know what fueled the growth and excitement among the women of Bor community. I would guess like fathers the daughters inherited lucks and blessings that make them smell good and attractive to their subjects. Below are the six steps for the 2nd conference. Step I Welcoming: The 2nd conference began with warm receptions of women from other states on Friday. On Saturday, July 12, you heard nothing else but noisy ululations accompanied by patriotic songs sugarcoating those political figures like Abel Alier Kuai Kut, Dr. John Garang de Mabior Atem Aruei, Kuol Manyang Juuk Cau, Thon Leek Deng Malual, Michael Makuei Lueth, Makuei Deeng Majuch, Deng Tiel Ayuen Kur, Maker Thiong Mal, etc. those Bor sons who had already put things in practice not unknown sons like Daniel British who is still in an eggshell. You could not go a mile without hearing successful women like Nyandeeng as one of a big sign to measure how competitive women will be in that man dominated world. Even though all these excitements were ongoing the conference was not started yet. The conference began with a moment of ten-minute of silence. Why silence is so obvious and deserved no surprise from anyone. Wherever, we Sudanese go, death moves along with us. At the middle of this year, the Bor Women Association lost a powerful woman, its deputy chairwoman, Achol Marks Atem. Achol was gunned down in Phoenix, Arizona. Her departure was a tragic to the phoenix community, to the Bor Women Association, to the whole Bor community, and even to our greater South Sudanese or Sudanese if you will. Sorrowful and grieved they prayed for the soul of Achol, one voice yelled, “Nhialic, we hoped you received and put her on your right hand.” Followed the moment of silence and praying for Achol soul, were other prayers. We had many priests running from Nyankoor Jok Akuak to Nyibol Acuil Alual to Rabecca Nyanchuei and don’t say I mention all their names, as this might make me a liar. Everybody seemed to know God. All you hear is “Nhialic” in Dinka. “Rabuna” in Arabic. In England, it’s God. Every lip shouts to Nhialic. I felt I was in the house of God. A conference consisted of Eves is not like conference composed of Adams where everything is to be politicized even something need no politics. Sincerity, honesty and frank talks are norms governed our conference. We had no guidelines. All that need you to have guidelines is when there is predicted, possible confusion but in this conference only trust and capability was available, politics was far from human sight, all you could see is compassion to do something. “I thought it would be like meetings I attended and not a blessing like this,” one member said behind me whom I forget her names but all I heard was she is from Angatkuei as she later boasted she was born as an Angatkuei and married to Angatkuei guy as well. Step II Speeches: You never believe how significant this conference was unless I would work you through speeches of the variety of speakers. The first who earned charming introduction were attorneys (lawyers) from Iowa State. Fred Gay and Stephanie both are attorneys who volunteered to be helping the Bor Women Association “by all means,” Fred declared later. Before he staged to the front, three women prepared to welcome Fred Gay. They took something looked like a gift, put it on handkerchief, wrapped it up, and each of them held one another hand, kneeled down at a distance, perhaps, tens of feet away from Fred, then they slowly crawling toward a standing Fred in a unique, tortoise move. As they came closer and closer Fred reached his hands to them, grabbed their hands and lifted them up. You could later tell from Fred’s eyes this was his first experience to receive such enormous respect from women. However, only God knows how Stephanie felt about this since she had no chance to express her feeling. If she failed to understand the diversity of cultures then she might misperceive it that eve is still worshipping Adam in other part of the world. But for these Bor women it is a dignified, respected way they believe is to show how superior the Dinka culture is. After Fred received his gift, the energetic Iowan lawyer, began to highlight a widely range of procedures that Bor Women Association need to use to get herself a bunch of money. Fred spoke from his heart telling the Association what to do without him and those the organization need his help. Examples of the issues he talked are: a. Legalization: Fred said the most productive way is to contact the Internal Revenues Services (IRS), a part he promised he would do. Fred says there are two ways to legalize organization: one is to register it with state, which the BWA already did (the organization is registered) and the other is to make it known to IRS. He says he will work with IRS to legalize the Bor Women Association. Fred said only lawyers have to do this part, which Stephanie and he will be a huge asset to BWA. b. Benefits: The reasons why you want to legalize your organization is what he called “tax Refunds” and “protection.” Fred said many people who are willing to help always constrain by number of things. One is: many give their money to legal organizations so when times of tax returns come they can file them as money they used to help others. You give but you want to gain that is the rule to sustain resources in our planet. If you give, give and give but gain none, gain none and gain none then you will run out of something to give at the end of the day. To bring money out of the donors hands, he said, you are to legalize your organization with IRS. Another thing Fred said why being legal is important is protection. Many he said, hesitated nowadays to give because our world is poisoned with terrorists. Among them are woman-man refugees, and even the needy like us. You can’t tell who is terrorist and who is not since we all look humans from the outside but our insides look unlike. Because of this Fred said, donors are a lot cautious more than before and they need proper identifications before they give help to someone else. If one gives her/his money to unidentified person who may the other day blow up bunch of people, you, the one who gave money feel guilty and look like you kill that people. To ease donors from this fear IRS recognition is needed, he said. c. Annual Events: Fred urged women to be creative and imaginable. Make an annual plan that can bring in money. Fundraising plans, tactics. When having a conference you can organize dancing, and any cultural activities that worth attention, make your conference open, and create something worth tickets that are to be sold for money, he said. d. Daily, weekly, and monthly plans, programs, activities, etc. are vital for the life of the organization, he said. If only you are to wait for the annual events, then your organization may be dead before a year end-waited event. Do something daily, weekly and monthly, he said. The compassionate and a loving attorney addressed what he called “Food Corporation” as one of the examples of the daily, weekly and monthly thing women have to take a look. Since the conference was dominated by women who were born not England but in Sudan, most of the women barely catch up with Fred’s superior English, and his explanations about “FOOD CORPORATION’ took him minutes to explain. On the other hand, although, Sarah Bullen Alier volunteered herself as a Dinka-speaking translator, Sarah of course, was also born outside of Dinka, perhaps in Khartoum, where Muhammad Ali (1800s) began teaching the locals in Arabic, thus, Sarah lost portion of Dinka linguists, and this made it difficult for her to portray in Dinka the real nature (picture) of what Fred is talking about, however, all was managed. In Fred’s explanations, the idea of Food Corporation sounded productive, something they need to exploit for the growth of their organization. However, I will find time to sit down with Fred and fully have deep details about it. Fred concluded that he will be part of team traveling to Bor to see the situation under the ground by his own eyes. Followed Fred was Nyantony, the wife of Geu Herjok, who overwhelmingly was boastful of the achievements Bor community has been done. They took away my husband but I am glad my son Dr. John Garang succeeded driving them out, she said, pointing her fingers to those who killed her husband, Geu Herjok. With her adorable Agar-Atuot-Ciec accent, she said she is proud to be married to Bor and urged Bor women to continue being examples of others. This community is everything, she proudly declared. Mama Nyantony urged young women to go to school, an urge later supported and repeats by Nyankoor Jok Akuak, Martha Ajok Ayuol, Kot Garang Aguer, and Yar wel who later became a replacement of the late Achol Marks Atem as new deputy Chairwoman of BWA. You may remain uninformed unless you learn from the speech of Yar Jook Alith focusing on what she termed as “phone gossiping.” I am really shocked by phone gossips, she shouted. She said that young people lost sense of judgment. “In our days,” she storied, “you couldn’t say yes, yes, yes to everything, you have to judge from what you know about me as Yar before saying yes.” Yar believes young people create a lot of problems to themselves on the phones. When one relative call other relative and tell him/her problems the other relative never bother to give advice but only yes, yes which give conspired relative a license to be irresponsible or take bad decisions Most elders were critical on education and families’ matters. Fiercely and mostly, attacking young women, particularly, single, who make themselves bad advisors to the still-at-wife-husband family. One was Ajok Ayuol with her famous Dinka word “tai.” Young women stop “tai,” she warned. It’s very hard to interpret the language of women but I guess “tai” is a stage when a woman has no specific man but to see anyone who comes into her remembrance. Sarah Bullen Alier hit back against words used by elders. “You are not to blame us alone,” she angrily protested. “Our men still see us as their property. They think they bought us by the pay of dowries and because of this they expect us to be like their clothes they wear.” Sarah continued bitter about the death of Achol Marks. Sarah Bullen warned women that they are to be careful about angry men since they may turn their rages into killing them. Sarah was famous of what she called “domestic violence” teaching. Step III Reporting: You can’t believe this organization did a lot in just a year. The organization successfully set up Fourteen (14) local offices in Fourteen (14) states i.e. the state of Arizona, the state of Illinois, the state of Iowa, the state of Tennessee, the state of South Dakota, the state of Missouri, the state of New Hampshire, the state of Nebraska, the state of Colorado, the state of New York, the state of Minnesota, the state of Utah, the state of Texas, and finally one in Washington D.C. These fourteen states sent their representatives to the Bor Women Association’s conference with each holding her state monetary reports. Candidly and respectfully, they were called to the front and seated facing the assembly and each rose by line to report. All each reported were formation of their local office, money they collected since the day the organization was set up and their local view of a newly founded BWA. The reporting started with: v Tennessee: represented by Martha Yar Akoi v South Dakota: represented by Nyinyuak (1st name might be wrong) Kamith v Minnesota: represented by Lousina Daniel Chol Riak v Missouri: represented by Nyamir Gai Arou v New Hampshire: represented by Rabeccah Nyancuei v Arizona: represented by Akuch Kiir Aguer v Nebraska: represented by Abany Kucha Tier v Colorado: represented by Achol Mam Yol v Washington D.C: represented by Yar Wel Alier (New V. Chairman of BWA) v Illinois: represented by Nyankiir Majok (Board General Secretary) v New York: represented by Amer Jongkuch Nhial v Iowa: represented by Nyanchol Akuein (President of Board of Directors) v Utah: represented by Aluel Kuol Mading v Texas: represented Achol Kuir Atem. Step IV Replacement: Since I said early the organization lost its number two (2) Achol Marks Atem, they are to replace the dead with the living person for sake of continuing. The assembly nominated three persons of Yar Wel Alier, Aluel Kuol Mading, and Yar Garang. The election was done by hand-raise and hand-counts, in other words, it was an open election where by one could raise hand up and be counted by the organizers. Eventually, the winner was Yar Wel Alier. All Yar heard after her victory was handclapping and ululations, a sign that showed to Yar that she’s accepted as a new leader. Step V. Programming: Here is the part you will see how these daughters of Bor community rapidly uplifted their organization with aloft swift action. Their goals of the organization are clear. Like the church, they said, women are to deal with the life of the weak. Anyone needs help and comfort always look to his/her mother. When asked what are aims the BWA, many said, the aims of their organization are to numerous and unaccountable since they are from Bor, the most ruined war zone region, in which the have done nothing but to start doing anything they can. However, although their goals are variant, they are condensed into two types i.e. being responsible in the diasporas and being taking care at home, Bor. 1. Diasporas Role: The organization wants to play role by deciding to deal with foreign challenges facing young people, especially, young women. Challenges such as: Families’ Matters: educating young people (women) how to handle their families’ problems. Culture Preservation: keep advising those young living in exile who are terribly torn between the foreign cultures and Sudanese ones to have not forgetting their own culture. Better Understanding of Foreign Cultures and Foreign Laws: The organization also promised to make commitment to make the young better understand other foreign cultures and laws since they believe the young people misunderstood the foreign cultures. Schools: BWA is striving hard to make women go to school. They urge women to go to school and those already in schools to go farther in their studies. Elders are serious about this. You heard nothing from Mama Nyantony to Nyankoor Jok Akuak to Yar Wel to Yar Jook Alith to Ajok Ayuol to Kot Garang Aguer, etc. “go to school” they said. “Money are nothing” Kot Garang urged. Please go to school. School, school, school 2. Home Role: The Bor Women Association at the conference unanimously voted to put up a $ 100, 000 Woman Foundation where they will launch efforts to help the needy and the powerless. There were many projects proposed. Among them were hospitals, schools, and multipurpose center. Briefed voting was held, and the idea of Aluel Kuol Mading about Multipurpose center had won over the other two. Some say Lost Boys are responsible for schools and hospitals. The Multipurpose center, or women foundation, or incorporation or what they termed, as “Jamaiyah” in Arabic, will be erected up in Bor town and launch its works throughout all clans in Bor community from Cuei Keer to Cuei Thon. Their deals are to take care of: a. Orphan Children: The BWA intends to be parents of these young people who lost their mothers and fathers to the Sudanese Civil War. b. Widows/Widowers: The BWA wants to present itself, in most case, a female-male organization, that is, to make itself a husband of a widow who lost her husband and a wife of a widower who lost his wife. c. Motherless/Fatherless: If the BWA is able to make herself into a female-male organization she can be able to make herself a child for the motherless and for the fatherless. I meant an organization, which shall intend to help parents who are without children. The BWA shall be their children. d. Elderly People: The organization is full of, and will be filled up with active women who may quickly fetch anything want by the elders, being medications, social care, home care, etc. e. Disables: whatever parts they lost crippled, or paralyzed, the BWA want to help be their comfort, they want to help them heal, and restore their hopes. The BWA wants to be ears for the deaf, eyes for the blind, and arms or legs for the leg-arm losses. To begin their work they proposed to build a center described above in Bor Town where they will launch their activities. Apart from their collections which is, I believe, rapidly going faster and faster, they proposed a $ 100, 000 fundraisings. The money is to be broken down state by state and is a must for the state to bring in their money as soon as possible. That’s the goal the organization was busing last year setting up local offices, 14 already set up. The goal now is fundraising the money given to you as well as continuing collecting memberships. Yar Wel put words of Fred into practice at once. She put a collection box on the front and when any speaker rose to speak, the song of your clans both clan of yours and of your husband’s had to be sung thus this result in some giving even over $ 600 each in collection. New television, new laptop and new calculator were set as a fundraising game. 500 tickets were made and each sold for $ 10. Sarah Bullen Alier won the TV, Akuot Arok won the Laptop, and one guy from Equatoria won the Calculator. Step VI Closing: The end had drawn with nightclub (Apalla) dancing. Everyone was welcomed to the night dancing. Men, women and children alike, and all South Sudanese, and even other Africans like Congolese were welcomed. The disco was conducted till 3:00 A.M. It would make me look biased if I concluded without mentions some names that tirelessly worked to make this conference became successful. One of these tireless men is Deng Matthew. Deng’s effort was tremendous. He ran all day. Trying to push into success an organization his wife leads. Another young man with much energy who stood all day with video camera is Panther. Panther never sat down since lots excitements were happening speaker after speaker, ululation after ululation, song after song, all these so badly engaged him. In conclusion team may travel to Bor very soon in the future. This team may include Fred Gay. The Bor Women Association says they will contact women from Africa, from Australia, from Canada, and from Europe to collectively get together under the umbrella of the Bor Women Association (BWA). Our last year conference was in Phoenix, Arizona; this year was in Des Moines, Iowa, and the next year conference will be held in July 11, 2009 in Dallas, Texas. I will be available to flow to Canada if women there need my help. Our goal is to be organized and ready to fight against poverty and work for the promotion of good health. Again I am so thrilled to be part of this organization. Like Fred I will do my part and make it my commitment to see Bor Women Association grows and fulfills its goals of helping the orphans, the elderly, the disables, the deaf and the blinds. Working for the sake of these people is a blessing to our souls. Reporting from Des Moines, Iowa, United States of America

Thanks for your time to explore Bor-web-site and we're glad you are here with us to start and think freshly about what sort of innovations that needed to improve moving forward. Therefore, we appreciated your willingly effort to vibrate as a members of this program in Diaspora and at Home as well. Instinctively we've been the victims of chronic disaster in Sudan and the whole country at large. So this web is designed to instigate the institute of dialogue across Sudanese Communities and especially Bor in Diasporas. Other places globally like Canada, UK, Africa, and Australia where there is a number of sophisticated our own are encouraged participating. Thereafter our objective for this web site is to instill originate for effective communications and supporting, peace, to all Sudanese Communities equally. In order to solve the problems before they become mature boundary of diachronic in the country {South-Sudan}. Your assistant is welcome at anytime......

 Questions about the web-site, please go directly to Bor-Communication-Room,  borcommunity@madingbor.com,  & borbrothers@madingbor.com 

Copyright © 2005-2010 Mading de Bor.Com. All Rights Reserved