April 3, 2019 – Early last month, our Founder/CEO officially opened a new playground for children at our Community Learning Center (CLC) in Juba, South Sudan, in a ceremony attended by our partner Mr. Naguib Sawiris and the Minister of General Education and Instruction for South Sudan, the Honorable Deng Deng Hoc.
“The playground will help us children interact with each other. I am so happy because I have never seen anything like it anywhere.” Those words by Elisha, one of the children who attended the ceremony, are probably the most moving homage to this project, which originated with Mr. Sawiris, the Chairman of Orascom Investment Holdings, and an important WPDI partner. Upon visiting our joint programs in Juba in December 2017, he realized he had not seen any playgrounds as he toured the city and offered to support the creation of one at our CLC. The scarcity or absence of safe places where children can play and develop is a hidden cost of the conflict that has marked South Sudan over the past years and decades Yet, the availability of playgrounds is an important factor in the psychosocial development of children who learn essential skills there. At a deeper level, it is undeniable that, to most people, seeing children engaged in carefree, safe, and joyous play is probably one of the most powerful evocations of a peaceful environment. This is the spirit in which we undertook the building of a playground at the CLC, as a place expressing the possibility of peace.
Mr. Whitaker expressed the importance of the new playground in his remarks during the ceremony, telling the audience that “the playground will allow children to be able to play freely. The children who are here will be able to play here, to be able to feel free, to be able to be happy, to experience joy, to be able to laugh, and be able to escape all of the problems that are going on in this country.” Mr. Sawiris concurred when noting why he funded the building of a new playground in the first place: “all I wish for the children is to have fun, play, and to laugh.”
Minister Deng said: “With this initiative, we can inspire many young people who have lost hope and this is very important for them and for us the people of South Sudan,”
Pointing to WPDI’s overall objectives, he added: “youths are the change makers in any society and with youths taking initiative, they can accomplish hard work. Their creativity will result in South Sudan changing and becoming a better place for all people in the country.”
Indeed, the playground, like all our other programs, aims to promote peace and sustainable development in the long-term. This is, in particular, the case with our entrepreneurship programs, through which we train young women and men in business skills and incubate small businesses designed and developed by former trainees whom we select through business plan competitions. This is an area where we have developed a strong partnership with Mr. Sawiris through Gemini Enterprises Africa, a subsidiary of Orascom, led by Adly Thoma. Together, Mr. Whitaker, Mr. Sawiris, and Mr. Thoma held a very fruitful exchange with the winners of the first business plan competition that we had organized in Juba in mid-2018. The delegation had the pleasure to learn that the tents and chairs used for the ceremony had been rented from one of the enterprises incubated by WPDI and its partner, Areco, which is already very successful. As with the playground, this is a seed of hope that we plant for the people of South Sudan to prepare a future of their own.
In addition to our Community Learning Center, Mr. Sawiris has also built 2 additional playgrounds at the Protection of Civilians Site in Juba.