About the VOC Project |
The Vulnerable and Orphaned Children Community Base Project is one of the Evangelical Covenant Church of South Sudan and Ethiopia projects which is being sponsored in the USA by Covenant World Relief along with Community Covenant Church in Scotts Valley, California. This humanitarian project began in 2010 and has gone through eight successful phases since then, saving and transforming the lives of hundreds of orphans, unaccompanied minors, and widows.
Hundreds of children arrive in refugee camps unaccompanied or have been left orphaned or with only one parent during the conflict. This leaves them and their families especially vulnerable to social, psychological, and economic hardships. The VOC project places orphans and unaccompanied minors with volunteer guardians and provides them and their guardians with the support needed for them to start building a better future. The project also provides vocational training to widows so that they can better support themselves, their children, and their community.
The overall goal of the VOC project is to contribute to the alleviation of the social, psychological, and economic hardships which these vulnerable and marginalized groups face in order to help them develop a better future and equip them with the resources they need to be self-reliant. In this way, the program not only benefits the children directly targeted to receive support, but also supports their siblings, their single parents and guardians, and the community at large.
Hundreds of children arrive in refugee camps unaccompanied or have been left orphaned or with only one parent during the conflict. This leaves them and their families especially vulnerable to social, psychological, and economic hardships. The VOC project places orphans and unaccompanied minors with volunteer guardians and provides them and their guardians with the support needed for them to start building a better future. The project also provides vocational training to widows so that they can better support themselves, their children, and their community.
The overall goal of the VOC project is to contribute to the alleviation of the social, psychological, and economic hardships which these vulnerable and marginalized groups face in order to help them develop a better future and equip them with the resources they need to be self-reliant. In this way, the program not only benefits the children directly targeted to receive support, but also supports their siblings, their single parents and guardians, and the community at large.
Phase nine
The VOC project is now in its ninth phase. The primary beneficiaries are currently 223 (102 boys and 121 girls) vulnerable and orphaned children from many different geographical areas within refugee camps and in other hazardous locations which have been heavily affected by war and disease in South Sudan and the Gambella region in western Ethiopia. The beneficiaries currently live in Gambella region of Ethiopia (43 children), Akobo county in South Sudan (41 children), Kule 1, 2, and 3 refugee camps in Ethiopia (47 children), Jewi refugee camp in Ethiopia (23 children), Kakuma Refugee camps in Kenya (37 children), and Bentiu Center in South Sudan (32 Children). Communities where children are receiving VOC support benefit as a whole as a result of VOC involvement. Read below for a more complete breakdown of the services provided by phase nine.
Educational Services
There are eighteen orphans and vulnerable children who are benefitting through a ten-month long full scholarship to attend school. There are 111 children in phase 9 who are receiving other educational materials and support like payment for school fees, school learning materials, and school uniforms. The aim of making sure these children can get an education is to equip them with knowledge that will help them support themselves and their parents.
Medical support
There are nineteen children in the VOC project who have severe illnesses and medical conditions and are benefitting from medical support. In phase nine the VOC project has allocated funds to four different specialized clinics which are treating these children and providing them with life-saving medical care.
Vocational training
There are ten widows who are currently attending vocational training school in the Kakuma and Kule refugee camps as well as in Gambela, Ethiopia. They are attending trainings for skills that will help them be able to get jobs that allow them to better support their families. The aim of providing vocational training for these women is to give them skills which are going to help them contribute to their respective communities and generate incomes for their children and themselves.
microloans
The VOC phase nine project staff have allocated funds for micro-loans to five impoverished widows and volunteer guardians to start small businesses. The businesses are things like mini restaurants, tea-shops, bread bakeries, and cloth design. These loans not only help the beneficiaries to build self-reliance and continue their support of their children, they also help them to contribute to their entire community.