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HCI Team

HCI Expands Badly-Needed Health Services for Displaced Sudanese

For the past five years, HCI has been working for the well being of the estimated 11,000 internally displaced people of Salama settlement, who have fled the violence in the south and west of their country and now live south of the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. Here they face chronic poverty, both high unemployment and illiteracy, and many health problems. Their health is jeopardized by both poverty and the environment in which they live. Eyesight related diseases rank very high among children due to environmental and dietary habits, as HCI research found out, particularly due to the pollution of drinking water and dietary habits.



HCI new intervention in the area addresses this problem by implementing an eyesight health campaign targeting school-aged children in the area. The project conducted a needs assessment/research of health issues of greater concerns to the local community.


The first intervention addresses eyesight related disease and eyesight problems by implementing mobile clinics to provide eyesight medical checkups and provide them with medicines and eye glasses. Eye related first-aid boxes and medical supplies were also provided to families. Water tanks for safe drinking water were also installed at two schools. Hundreds of families and their children participated and benefited from this campaign.


In partnership with three local grassroots organizations and Peace and Development Volunteers (PDV), a local voluntary organization, hundreds of school-aged children benefited from this intervention to-date at two sites in the same area. A third campaign will be implemented later this month at a remaining third site. Such intervention allowed for the implementation of quick impact interventions that built confidence between the partners and provided solid ground to expand much-needed health interventions in the area.

HCI operation in this area stretches back to 2003. HCI has been helping people in the area through community-based organizations established by local residents. Since 2003, HCI has been working in this area on microcredit projects for women, school rehabilitation, education support, income generating activities and food and non-food distributions.



In partnership with local and international partners, HCI has been working on health programs in Khartoum since 2002, particularly in Dar-El-Salaam settlement north of the capital Khartoum and home to about 16,000 displaced people. This include establishing a fully operational health clinic providing health and reproductive services for over 33,000 patients; seven women trained in community health outreach, emphasizing nutrition and hygiene; three women trained as midwives; and nine as home visitors, benefiting nearly 4,000 families; health awareness training for 45 women, establishment of a health awareness committee, and surveys conducted on reproductive health.

Honoring Ramadan Traditions in Sudan, Extending Help to the Poor

The Holy Month of Ramadan is a time for inner reflection by Muslims, devotion to God, self control, and fasting from sunrise to sunset. It is also a particularly joyous time when relatives and friends invite each other over to gather around a table and break the fast together--Iftar--and above all a time of giving and feeling for the poor.

For several years HCI and its local partners have joined together to honor these traditions, extending help to the poor and needy in the communities they serve in Sudan.

This Ramadan, hundreds of Sudanese families received nutritional packages. In some of the poorest areas of Khartoum, widows and orphans, the elderly and the disabled, as well as low income families were able to fully participate in their traditions.

The most difficult to reach, HCI stretched out its hand through seven local non-governmental organizations and committees, working in four different areas.

In the poverty-stricken Salama settlement, south of the capital Khartoum, distribution and Iftars took place with the help of three local organizations: El Nahda (Society for Well-being of the Physically Disabled), Al-Hannan Association and Disability People Organization. In Dar El-Salam Tawidat settlement, north of the capital Khartoum, distribution and Iftars took place at two schools and a mosque. Other distribution points and assisting community organizations were: African Charitable Society for Mother and Child Care, Al Khogali Khalwa and Um-Mou'mineen organization.

"HCI Ramadan program increased closeness among the families in their communities," commented HCI coordinator in Sudan who coordinated and supervised the distribution in each area. "This year's distribution was well organized and more focused and transparent," he concluded.

Bringing hope of New Kalabsha and Garf Hussien: An HCI specialty

Around the West of Lake Nasser in Aswan, the settlements of New Kalabsha and Garf Hussien felt a breeze of fresh air, arriving when HCI-funded medical care mobile units paid them a visit, and offered medical and health care services covering skin diseases, dental medicine, intestinal diseases, gynecology and much more.


The residents of these settlements live in poor health conditions, and they rarely have access to proper medical care, and the only permanent service they benefit from is one health unit with one paramedic, offering basic medications that one can not help but noticing its modesty, in comparison to the needs of the these villages.


With the help of Egypt-based Center for Development Services (CDS), the Directorate of Health Population in Aswan and the High Dam Authority, the medical care mobile units offered help for almost 883 individual including 543 women and 151 child living in extreme poverty and at the risk of severe health problems.


The staff working in these mobile clinics, helped as much people as they can for two days. Doctors, nurses and social workers taking part in this operation, understood the importance of having this immediate intervention, and highly recommended the importance of doing more rounds in the very near future.


The medical care mobile units left the villages with a sense of content, but also realizing the medical and social risk factors that exist in New Kalabsha and Garf Hussien villages. The mission of Human Concern International is to provide care and help individuals in need. The medical care mobile units' experience led HCI to strengthen its responsibility and commitment towards the people of the west of Lake of Nasser, in working together with them to improve the quality of their lives.

Khojali Khalwa: History, commitment, opportunities and hope

Founded in 1734 in the West of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the Khojali Khalwa/Mosque is home now to over 300 students.


The majority of the students come from low-income families from the Western part of Sudan, particularly from the Darfur area. They come at 6 years of age to learn Arabic, Tafsir, Shari'ah, Hadith, Mantiq, and history, and eventually to become Hafiz. At Khojali Khalwa, they also learn vocational skills as carpenters, electricians, and technicians. More recently, the Khojali Khalwa opened a computer lab composed of 6 computers connected to the internet.


"The only way out of the misery is education, and education helps you to believe in God, and eventually helps you believe in people and their abilities to improve themselves", Al-Khalifa Moustafa Ahmad, the Khalwa supervisor and descendant of the founder, commented while welcoming us to his humble office at the Khalwa.


"We don't have income, but we survive on occasional assistance and in-kind support from fellow citizens as well as from organizations such as yours", Al-Khalifa Moustafa added while he toured us around the Khalwa, showed us the newly opened mosque and the expanded health center associated with the Khalwa.



My colleagues and I visited the crowded dormitories and met and chatted with the students, which many of them were busy washing their clothes and their new uniforms provided by HCI.


Earlier this summer, with a generous donation from a long-term donor, HCI provided the Khalwa and the students with one-year supply of dates, "Durra Dabar" food, washing soap, bath soap, and uniforms for all the students. Monthly prizes for one year for becoming a Hafiz were also provided by HCI.





We concluded our visit to the Khalwa by passing by the untenable kitchen which lack basic amenities where the slaughtered sheep was prepared for the dinner. HCI has provided the Khalwa with sheep, averaging two sheep per month for one year.

Heroic people on a special mission

Desolated land, unpaved roads, dry landscape, hazy horizon, donkey carts, small motorbikes, roaming barefooted children, makeshift houses, no schools, health facilities, water, electricity or sanitation. This is how I describe the Salama settlement south of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, which I visited last week with my colleagues. HCI has been operating in this area since 2003 empowering three community organizations in the area.


The poverty-stricken Salama settlement, home of more than 11,000 internal refugees, was founded 20 years ago by individuals and families fleeing conflicts in the West and the South of the country. Many live in stick frames temporary houses with waste plastic sheeting as a cover.

HCI operation in this area stretch back to 2003. HCI has been helping people in the area through three community-based organizations established by local residents. The history of each of the three organizations is a story by itself reflecting how few heroic residents had the courage to lead the change toward self-directness and self-support in the face of enormous challenges.

A case in point, community-based organization Disability People International (DPI) which was founded in 1995 by residents to provide the physically disabled with opportunities to share their talent and skills for the betterment of their entire community. They were determinant to lead the way towards a better life for their peers and their entire community.

DPI sponsors the community school with an enrollment of 600+. DPI students are required to pay a basic fee of US$ 25 per year. In fact, only about a quarter have the money and most of those that do pay can average only $6-7. More than half of this money is used to maintain school facilities and the rest to compensate basically volunteer teachers, who themselves are generally disabled.

These people founded the school to serve the community. All staff and teachers are disabled...disabled people serving the community, rather than being served.

DPI focuses attention on "dropouts," early leavers from either the DPI or other schools, often in the communities they left behind. Over 200 such children are now in the DPI program and receive basic education and follow-up. They attend afternoon classes from 2 to 4 p.m.

Teachers and staff in the DPI school and other programs are volunteers, including the principal.

Over the years, HCI has provided for DPI training, a library, school books, food supplements, credit capital, blankets, and holiday distributions. More recently, HCI is providing school bags, stationary and training suite for many of DPI's students, particularly primary and elementary students.

In 2005 a group of teachers from DPI, themselves disabled, founded El Nahda (Society for Well-being of the Physically Disabled) as a "sister organization" focused on the special needs of the disabled and their families.

Al Nahda surveys and registers the disabled, provides informal counseling and referral, and advocates for their rights within their community and with larger organizations and the government.

Al Nahda has 300 members, each pays $1 per month for membership. This money is used to maintain a small one-room office where the disabled can meet and which HCI has helped cover an area in back for outdoor meetings. Also with the help of HCI, plastic chairs have been added to complete this facility that is used for adult literacy and health/disability education in the afternoon. More recently, Al Nahda established a pre-school and an adult literacy class - also with the help of HCI, independent of DPI, for residents who need to remain close to home since DPI lacks sufficient space for either of these services.

Further, HCI helped both societies to offer credit for income-generating activities for low-income residents, and for the disabled and their families. Al Nahda's new program, funded by HCI, focus on those with disabilities or parents of disabled children.

Both societies, along with another local society Al-Hannan Association, are now working with HCI to implement a health campaign targeting resident children, particularly students served by the three NGOs. The project is conducting a needs assessment/research of health issues of greater concerns to the local community. The first intervention is eyesight tests and the provision of eye glasses for resident students. This will allow for the implementation of quick impact interventions that will build confidence between the partners and provide solid ground to expand much-needed health interventions in the area.

I want to conclude this by remembering Alfonse Muni's words, who founded DPI and was the director until he passed away last year in sad accident: "We wanted to help others. We as disabled people had suffered much and we couldn't simply stand by and let others suffer. Our struggle was one with our community...we were from the same background and lived under the same conditions and constraints. In fact, we were lucky, most of us are educated and have managed to make something of our lives. We thought we could help others do the same. That was our dream."