Fr Luis Manuel Moral, Head of "Misiones Salesianas", the Salesian Mission Office based in Madrid, collects today, 23 November 2023, one of the Ordesa 2023 Grants during a ceremony that takes place at the Royal Academy of Pharmacy of Catalonia, in Barcelona. This year the Ordesa Foundation wanted to support the work that the Salesians are doing in Gumbo so that people displaced by war have access to quality health care.
The first Don Bosco health clinic in Gumbo offers its care every day to about 100-200 people, especially women and children. It cares not only for IDPs located in the Salesian mission in Gumbo, but also provides services with mobile clinic in the areas of Shirikat, Mesitu, Mori, Rajf, Kadoro, Gudele, Yuba2, Muni and Konyokonyo.
With the collaboration of the Ordesa Foundation, the Salesians will be able to improve the quality of medical care with particular attention to people with difficulties in accessing medical services, and to have the equipment and material necessary for the diagnosis, treatment and healing of the sick. "This collaboration will last two years and will improve the quality of life of thousands of people in a country that has been suffering the consequences of violence since 2013. For this we thank the Ordesa Foundation” said Fr Moral.
In South Sudan, more than half of the 2,300 health centres are not functioning and 44% of the population lives more than five kilometres away from a health care centre.
The Don Bosco health clinic in Gumbo was founded in 2012 to treat internally displaced people, especially children suffering from malnutrition. With the support they receive today from the Ordesa Foundation, the Salesians will be able to provide assistance to over 87,500 women, more than 12,000 children under the age of 14 and almost 6,000 people of other age groups.
The Salesians have been operating in the capital of South Sudan since 2006 and, in addition to the Gumbo health dispensary, they run a primary and secondary school, a vocational training centre, a centre for the empowerment of women and a camp for internally displaced people in which more than 10,000 people live.
Since 2002, the Ordesa Foundation has been committed to promoting the improvement of the living conditions, nutrition and health of children, especially newborns, infants and children in the first years of life.
