SPEG (Stichting Projectkoppeling Eindhoven Gedaref)

SPEG is an organisation that supports the Twinning with the City Gedaref in Sudan with all types of projects specifically for the the citizens to improve their living circumstances. Building of class rooms for basic education is a very important one. In this project we are building toilets in the schools of basic education. The funding actvitity starts with children of the elementary education in Eindhoven Walk for Water. The amount they collect is doubled by three organisations Brabant Water, Waterschap de Dommel and the Gemeente Eindhoven. Sometimes there are also gifts from other people, like the Ambassador of Sudan in The Hague and a former ambassador for Holland in Khartoum. After that action the total amount is doubled by the Aqua for All organisation. In our case it is used to build toilets.

There is also a project to help families improve their income by cultivating vegatables and selling or changing them for other items. The next year they continue with this activity as they are taught by students of the Agricultural University to save the seeds to be able to continue this income generating activity. If the children of these families do not go to school they are sponored for one year by the project. After that first year we find that the children continue going to school due to the improved financial position. We also notice that the diet of the family changes as they have access now to fresh vegetables. This project has added some more activities for families to improve the family income: caring for 15 chickes, which provide eggs for selling but also for use of the family of course. Another activity is to care for a milky goat and to sell part of the milk.The nex step was to provide a number of improved males to have off spring for the goats after the milk can no longer be produced. So now the young animals are given to another family so they can also produce milk.
Two new items were introduced in 2009: Planting shade and fruit trees inside the area of the house to produce fruit and to improve the conditions by providing shade in the living ares.
The other innovation is to provide gas units for women working in the markets to make coffee and tea to sell and food for the people who are working on the market all day. The gas is about 40% cheaper than using charcoal for cooking and it also saves the need to cut trees.

With the support of SPEG another twinning between organisations was started by the Digitale Stad Eindhoven (DSE) and Gedaref Digital City Organisation (GDCO). DSE sent several shipments of second hand refurbished computers to Gedaref to be used for training purposes in Gedaref. Now 700 computers are in Gedaref and used for educational purposes in schools during the normal school day and for adult education in the evenings. Also a number of telecentres have been established were people can work on the computers if they want to use them for study or for internet use.