Despite the enormous benefits to children, societies and entire country, education is often the first service suspended and the last to be restored during crisis.
To reach a wider audience with key awareness messages on the importance of education and increase access to education for out of school children affected by crisis, Women and Children Health Organization (WCHO) with funding from DG ECHO conducted a Back to Learning campaign in Malakal County, Upper Nile State.
This campaign started with door to door visits by community mobilizers who identified over 697 Out Of School Children (OOSC) and those at risk of dropping out and identified the contributing factors to their dropout. The campaign was summed up with two sessions of information dissemination/sharing session on the available support and the processes of reintegration in school.
The information sharing sessions which were conducted in the PoC and Malakal town on Thursday 2nd October and 3rd October 2025 respectively attracted over 800 participants which included key education stakeholders such as parents, School Management Committees (SMC), Teachers, PCC leader, County Education Directorates of Panyikang and Malakal City Council, partners and the learners.
Pertinent issues raised by some of the participants included child labor as a result of economic hardships, limited educational support for the children, child neglect by some parents, teenage pregnancy and early marriages and limited livelihood opportunities to support children’s education