|© UNICEF Sudan/2006/Walfridsson| |Children help unload a
delivery of school supplies in Southern Sudan.| By Rachel Beck
KWAJOK, Southern Sudan, 20 December 2006 – Angelina Nyanyok, 18,
a student at the local primary school, identifies her classroom
by the single element that provides any shelter. “I’m in Primary
Seven,” she says. “It’s the one under the big tree.” Like nearly
one-third of learning spaces in Southern Sudan, Kwajok Primary
School teaches children in the open air. Students sit on benches
made of roughly hewn logs, reciting lessons inscribed on a
chalkboard propped against the tree trunk. Rain means that
school is automatically cancelled. Worst of all, says Angelina,
is the lack of learning materials. “We don’t have exercise
books, and we don’t have textbooks,” she says. “It is too much
money to buy these things. When there are not even pencils or
pens, what is the reason for going to school?” |© UNICEF
Sudan/2006/Beck| |At Kwajok Primary School, children play in
front of an emergency classroom