Aid

One month ago today, Dr. Louise Ivers was in a meeting at the World Food Programme (WFP) office in Port-au-Prince when the ground began to shake. As first it was just a slight rumble, so that she thought that what she was feeling was perhaps the vibration of heavy construction equipment. But then the ground began to shake so violently that it was hard to stand up. "I fell over," says Ivers. "People started screaming, and we could hear the cracking sounds as the buildings shook and fell."

The center of Port-au-Prince—its palace, ministries, schools and office buildings—lies in ruins. On January 12, the earth shook for less than a minute, but in those 35 seconds, buildings cracked and toppled, floors of concrete collapsing one atop the other, crushing hundreds of thousands of people as they fell.

Women in South Sudan have faced double oppression—as Southerners, they have faced violence from the North, and they are struggling for equality within their own community as Southerners.

The deeper I became engaged in issues related to Darfur, the more I realized that there is no way to understand the crisis in Darfur without understanding its historical, political and geographic contexts.

Jen Marlowe, for the Pulitzer Center

Jen is currently documenting and writing about education, infrastructure and health care, which remain among the most vital needs in rebuilding South Sudan.

The following is an excerpt from a piece that appeared on World Focus on January 25, 2010.

Tension was under the surface as we negotiated with the contractor, trying to chip away another $10,000 from his bid. The price to build a school in South Sudan, I have learned, is exorbitantly high.

Jen Marlowe is an independent journalist with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. She is currently documenting and writing about education, infrastructure and health care, which remain among the most vital needs in rebuilding South Sudan.

Haiti's infrastructural devastation in the wake of last week's earthquake highlights media's critical role in facilitating relief efforts. Mark Frohardt knows this all too well. Frohardt is Vice President for Health and Humanitarian Media at Internews, an international media and development organization mandated to empower local media. He and his team arrive in disaster areas at the height of crises to fill gaps in information sharing and provide local media outlets with the necessary tools to rebuild.

Sudan, the largest country in Africa, is a time-bomb set to go off next year.

2011 was the date specified under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (widely referred to as the CPA) signed five years ago by the warring North and South. On that date, the South can vote to secede from a confederation that everyone acknowledges is a marriage of convenience, at best.

Water has been identified as a top priority for aid to Haiti as it struggles to recover. The consequences of not having access to water extend beyond dehydration. Thirst drives people to water sources they would not have considered before - sources contaminated with human waste, garbage, and industrial byproducts. Using this water leads to diseases like cholera and dysentery, which spread rapidly through communities.

As our white Toyota land cruiser drove on the freshly laid road from the market town of Akon towards Ariang village, we noticed something far on the horizon. Maybe…cows? Trees in the distance?

As we got closer, we saw it was a huge crowd of people. It was difficult to ascertain just how many with the dust cloud they were kicking up, their feet (either bare or shod in plastic sandals) pounding the red-dirt road as they ran, singing and dancing, toward our vehicle.

Jen Marlowe, for the Pulitzer Center

As Gabriel Bol says in Rebuilding Hope, "Peace means development, peace means people go to school, peace means when you are sick you get treatment. Health and education go hand in hand, they are not really separate things."

Health care and education were among the two most vital needs in South Sudan, according to almost everyone that we spoke to, from villagers to Southern Sudanese government officials.