During a recent trip to Southern Sudan, Santhosh Ramdoss, Program Manager at BRAC USA met with Kur Angelina a BRAC Community Health Volunteer in Southern Sudan. He narrates her story below:
I met Angelina inside her one room hut in the Jebel Kuzur area of Juba. The first thing you would notice about her is her incredible smile. She was so delighted that we visited her home and was overflowing with joy. Her home was surrounded by a few other huts and was completely inaccessible by road. The hut was fully stacked with materials for her business – she rents out audio equipment for marriages and funerals and sometimes conducts musical shows herself. She had learnt to sing from an American-born nun who had provided her asylum during the war. After cease-fire was declared, she returns back to Juba the rest of her family. She has seven children, including a newborn baby.
Angelina has been providing basic health services to people living around her for the last one year. She first got involved with BRAC as a microfinance borrower and when a BRAC staff person approached her to ask if she would be willing to become to become a Community Health Volunteer (CHV), she jumped at the opportunity. She mentioned to me how she always wanted to be a nurse, but never had resources to help her realize this dream. However, she sees her role as a BRAC CHV to be even nobler, providing critical health services to people within her own community.
Angelia was also among the first batch of CHVs who received basic health products to be sold to other community members. Her entire inventory worth $75 was sold within the first two months, mainly because people living around her have to commute at least 4 kilometers to reach a nearest medical shop in Juba town. When they realized that they could buy medicines in their own village for affordable prices, people started coming to her more often.
Angelina was thankful to BRAC. She felt such a strong sense of gratitude that she wanted to name her newborn child ‘BRAC’. “People are dying everyday – there are no doctors, no hospitals” she says, “if children fall sick, even from simple diseases like diarrhea, people don’t know what to do and its not easy for a mother to watch a child die”. She said confidently, “I think I can help them, I think we can stop this”.
I met Angelina inside her one room hut in the Jebel Kuzur area of Juba. The first thing you would notice about her is her incredible smile. She was so delighted that we visited her home and was overflowing with joy. Her home was surrounded by a few other huts and was completely inaccessible by road. The hut was fully stacked with materials for her business – she rents out audio equipment for marriages and funerals and sometimes conducts musical shows herself. She had learnt to sing from an American-born nun who had provided her asylum during the war. After cease-fire was declared, she returns back to Juba the rest of her family. She has seven children, including a newborn baby.
Angelina has been providing basic health services to people living around her for the last one year. She first got involved with BRAC as a microfinance borrower and when a BRAC staff person approached her to ask if she would be willing to become to become a Community Health Volunteer (CHV), she jumped at the opportunity. She mentioned to me how she always wanted to be a nurse, but never had resources to help her realize this dream. However, she sees her role as a BRAC CHV to be even nobler, providing critical health services to people within her own community.
Angelia was also among the first batch of CHVs who received basic health products to be sold to other community members. Her entire inventory worth $75 was sold within the first two months, mainly because people living around her have to commute at least 4 kilometers to reach a nearest medical shop in Juba town. When they realized that they could buy medicines in their own village for affordable prices, people started coming to her more often.
Angelina was thankful to BRAC. She felt such a strong sense of gratitude that she wanted to name her newborn child ‘BRAC’. “People are dying everyday – there are no doctors, no hospitals” she says, “if children fall sick, even from simple diseases like diarrhea, people don’t know what to do and its not easy for a mother to watch a child die”. She said confidently, “I think I can help them, I think we can stop this”.
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