Nyapuka defeated hunger and now grows her own food in a remote village in Unity
It is 2 p.m. and 34 degrees Celsius in Mayendit County, Unity and Nyapuka Manguany Kuic, an energic woman of 33, is getting ready to go fetch water for her family. She can’t wait until it cools down, but she needs to be home before sunset as the area is unsafe for women walking alone in the dark.
She woke up early to go to the farm and procure food and non-food items for her nine children. She is very happy now. “I would do anything for my five boys and four girls, I want them to be safe, eat well and be healthy”, she says as she picks a few maize cobs from the garden to prepare lunch.
Nyapuka lives in Tutnyang a remote payam, a small rural village in Unity State, at the northern border with Sudan. Depending on family needs, after she prepares lunch, she either walks for about three kilometers to fetch water or heads to the market to sell her produce.
Communities like Nyapuka’s living in this region have undergone years of conflict and violence that have caused mass displacement and constant loss of livelihoods. Since famine was declared in some part of Unity in 2017, the region has increasingly relied on humanitarian assistance to survive.
Nyapuka recalls when in 2018 her village was attacked by an armed group killing villagers and looting houses.
“They stole all our animals, looted our house and then burned it down. All I had in my life turned into ashes within a few hours,” she says in tears. “They also killed my sister and her kids became mine.” Nyapuka and her family managed to escape from the atrocity and survive finding shelter in the bush.
The violence has forced thousands of people living in Mayendit County to flee their homes and to hide for long periods in the bush and swamplands.
“We remained without food for days, but we survived eating the seeds we hadn’t sowed.” Hiding in constant fear and unable to harvest their crops, people had to eat seeds, lily roots, or leaves to survive.
Nyapuka and her numerous family members lived as internally displaced people for a few weeks before joining an FAO project funded by the United Kingdom that provided them lifesaving assistance. With the support of Coalition for Humanity, FAO reached her remote community and distributed vegetable kits, crop seeds, fishing kits and agricultural tools to over 3 000 people.
“I was about to lose all my hopes, but as soon as I received the seeds and some basic tools, I started farming. This was so encouraging,” she smiles. “My life has changed. I can now produce my own food and have enough food to eat.”
A more stable environment will open the doors to more interventions aimed at boosting self-resiliency of the communities in South Sudan all the while upscaling emergency support for the most vulnerable. Peace is impossible without food security, and there will be no food security without peace. A #ZeroHunger world starts with a peaceful one.
The United Kingdom through its Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) is one of the biggest and long-lasting contributors to FAO’s Emergency Livelihood Response Programme in South Sudan, through supporting a wide range of activities including the distribution of emergency livelihood kits, basic training on modern farming activities and the provision of cash for seed. In 2020, alone, with FCDO generous funds, FAO has reached over 50 000 households through direct distributions, while cash for seed activities have reached an additional 7 050 households.