Amoko Anthony Alibe is the headmaster from the Stars of Hope Primary School in Malakia near Nimule in the Equatoria District of South Sudan.
Anthony was born in 1978 in a village,not far from the school where he now teaches, called Matara. Unfortunately, In 1989 the LRA attacked Anthony’s village and he had to leave Sudan for a refugee camp in Uganda.
Although life in the refugee camp was tough for Anthony. The educational he was able to receive in Uganda was considerably better than the one he would have received in Sudan, so Anthony was able to stay in Uganda and get his secondary education in Ajumani. After graduating he went for his teacher training at the Arua Primary Teachers College in Arua, Uganda. Two years later he returned to Ajumani and taught for another two years. Anthony loved teaching and the students loved his enthusiasm for the work. At the Uganda Martyrs University he received his Masters degree and after three years later he returned to Sudan.
In 2008 Anthony became the headmaster and English teacher at the Stars of Hope Primary School in Magwi county. There he was in charge of over 704 primary students and 241 nursery students.
“I had the skills to be a teacher, but never realized that you become a role model to the students, in every way imaginable,” Anthony reflected.
Before the well was drilled the school had to walk 1 km every day for water, which doesn’t seem as far as many schools in South Sudan, but when you take into account just how much water a school of nearly 1,000 students needs on a daily basis you start to look at it with different eyes. Every day the school’s cooks and other workers would walk with 15 jerry cans 3 times a day! Sometimes the had to pull students away from their studies to help with fetching water.
Stars of Hope is unusual for South Sudan in that it provides the children with food every day. For some of these kids this may be the only food they will eat all day, but the school needed water to be able to prepare the children’s lunch.
The nearest well was in the middle of town and being used by a lot of people , so there were always long lines for the water. “Sometimes,” Anthony explains, “the borehole in town will be so congested that the children will simply go without food for a day.”
Everyone at Stars of Hope is very happy about the new well. “We thank Drop in the Bucket and their donors for what they’ve done here for this school,” Anthony proclaims. “We shall never forget this moment in the history of Stars of Hope.”
This project was a collaboration between Drop in the Bucket and our friends at Water Harvest. Thanks to Steven and everyone at WHI for their hard work and dedication to the project. Also thanks to Godfrey Lilia for the photo and story.