Staff Interview: Ko IMANAKA (Sudan & Yemen Projects)

[Original by Moeka SANO, 2023 Public Relations Intern (May 25, 2023); Translated by A. Turner/K. Takemura] Have you ever been curious about the different career paths JVC staff followed before they landed their position as an employee at an NGO? It’s my hope that this interview will come as some benefit to those looking to have a career in international cooperation in the future! What kind of person is Imanaka? He has been one of the local staff at the JVC Sudan office since 2018. He majored in Arabic at university, at which point he went on exchange to Yemen for a year. After graduating, he worked at a heavy…

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Do you know what’s going on in South Sudan?

[Original by Yoshino AMI, Intern (July 30, 2022); Translated by E. Yocom] Hello everyone. My name is Ami, and I’m an intern here at JVC. Do you know what is happening in South Sudan? I think that only someone who’s very well read in international affairs would know about this. I’m embarrassed to say that I’m not sure if I would have known about this if I weren’t an intern here at JVC. After gaining independence in 2011 following a long civil war, South Sudan became the world’s newest country. Currently, there are many internally displaced people in South Sudan who fled from repeated flooding and armed conflict, and they…

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Major Incident Occurs at Mangaten Camp 1. Influx of Over 3,000 Refugees?!

[Original by Takayuki YAMAMOTO, Sudan Project (November 12, 2019); Translated by J. Sparks] Camp 1 Population Doubles In September of 2018, at the refugee shelters operated by the UN (hereinafter referred to as UN facilities) on the outskirts of Juba, a conflict broke out between the refugees, and the JVC supported Mangaten Camp 1 experienced an influx of over 3,000 refugees. This largely increased the number of children and families in the camp, which led to new tents being put up for the refugees. “The number of people living in the camp has grown to 7,500 (the actual number is unknown, though is estimated at roughly 5,000), and living space…

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Activity report from January to June 2018 (4)

– Support to cultivate vegetables in the Mangaten Camp 1 (Part 2) – [Original by Takaki IMAI, President (October 25, 2018); Translated by K. Adachi/S. Altman] This time we will introduce a discussion with the camps women about the distribution of agricultural tools and management. Distribution of agricultural tools Well, finally it’s the distribution day. We served as volunteers for the women in the camp and lined up the agricultural tools and watering cans in sets and gave them the sets one by one. For the distribution, staff from the Relief Reconstruction Committee (RRC) of the South Sudan government attended but to our surprise, the staff helped the distribution as…

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Activity report from January to June 2018 (3)

– Support to cultivate vegetables in the Mangaten Camp 1 (Part 1) – [Original by Takaki IMAI, President (October 5, 2018); Translated by K. Adachi/S. Altman] Making a list of family-owned home vegetable gardens When we visited the Mangaten Camp 1 in March, Peter, the camp leader spoke to us with a serious face, “We are in trouble because of the extreme shortage of water, food, and medicine”. The organization which had supported the water supply and medicine so far has finished its activity and withdrawn. Additionally, we heard that people had been displaced from home because of the battle that occurred in the northern part of the country from…

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Activity report from January to June 2018 (2)

– Support children to attend school in the Mangaten domestic refugee camp (Distribution of school goods in an elementary school) – [Original by Takaki IMAI, President (August 28, 2018); Translated by K. Adachi/S. Altman] There is an elementary school for the children of refugees in Camp 1. The roof of the classrooms is built of galvanized iron sheets and the walls are made of bamboo material. There are 6 classes, one for preschool children and five for children up to the 5th grade. We have visited families inside the camp with the help of teachers in January and made a list of 300 children including those who hadn’t attended school.…

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Activity report from January to June 2018 (1)

Introduction – What is the Mangaten domestic refugee camp? – [Original by Takaki IMAI, President (August 23, 2018); Translated by K. Adachi/S. Altman] JVC continues activities in the Mangaten domestic refugee camp in the suburb of the capital of South Sudan, Juba. Presently, no Japanese staff resides in the local office because of security issues, but we correspond with local South Sudanese staff and continue business trips from Japan in order to carry on the operation. This time I report the status of our activities from January to June in 2018. What is the Magaten domestic refugee camp? Mangaten is located in the north of the Munuki district, which is…

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Vote for children in South Sudan to help them go to school !

The voting campaign for helping everyone on earth has started as usual this year. It is organized by “the Global Village Fund” of Felissimo Corporation, which has been supporting JVC for a long time. JVC was awarded for the first prize last year. We are grateful for their support! The Global Village Fund by Felissimo Corporation is based on donations in a unit of 100 yen per month. It is aimed to support projects conducted around the world such as “self-reliance from poverty”, “relief from natural disasters,” and “support for restoration.” Six projects including JVC’s South Sudan Project are nominated for the vote of this year. The campaign receives votes…

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THE DIARY FROM SOUTH SUDAN (6)

– Education to children and aid of school supplies – [Original by Takaki IMAI, Manager for Humanitarian Assistance and Peace-Building Group (March 6, 2018); Translated by K. Adachi] I went to Juba in South Sudan on November 23, 2017, listened to the internally displaced people in refugee camps, and gave medical and educational aid. I will report the local situations and our activities in this series, “The Diary from South Sudan.” The 13th day: 5th of December (Tuesday) Distribution of school supplies and sanitary goods at Camp 2 Today we are going to distribute school supplies in Mangaten refugee Camp 2. We began at 8 o’clock in the morning when…

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THE DIARY FROM SOUTH SUDAN (5)

– Interview to women in the camps – [Original by Takaki IMAI, Manager for Humanitarian Assistance and Peace-Building Group (February 28, 2018); Translated by K. Adachi] The 10th day: 2nd of December (Saturday) Discussion with refugee women in Mangaten Camp 1 In this trip, we are planning to have a discussion aiming for the support of improvement of living conditions as well as the implementation of support for entering school. First of all, we visited Mangaten Camp 1 and conducted the following discussion with 5 women. <How to procure the food?> First of all, we asked them whether there is food for today and tomorrow in the tent, and how…

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