2nd December, 2009
A total of 93 clinical officers and 42 community midwives graduate from the Maridi National Health Training Institute
Music and ululation rent the air. The dust rises from the hundreds of stomping feet, creating a hazy effect around the expansive green compound. The dancing crowds and the riot of colours combine to create an unmistakable atmosphere of celebration. Soon, the music crescendos and hits a frenetic pace as a 100m-long queue of blue and black gowns emerges, snakes its way through the square and slowly approaches the dais. This is the 8th Graduation ceremony of the National Health Training Institute (NHTI) in Maridi, Southern Sudan, run by the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF).
The students, their families and communities will always remember November 25 as a special day. For most of them, this is the culmination of a life-long journey to attain the right training and knowledge to serve their fledgling country.
“This is the happiest day of my life,” says 75-year-old Akec Aleer, who is here to witness her niece, Regina Achel, take the final step to becoming a clinical officer. “I am so proud of her. Now she will take care of all our sick.”
Each of the students at the AMREF-run Maridi NHTI is special in many ways. Most are former soldiers, who now offer themselves for selection by their communities and the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) to train as clinicians, offering scarce and vital medical services in this vast country.
According to Dr Stanley Ambajaro, Director for Human Resource Development in the GoSS’s Ministry of Health, “clinical officers are now providing 75 per cent of required health services in our country. This school is training competent and committed mid-level health professionals.”
The Maridi School opened its doors in 1998, in the midst of the civil war in Southern Sudan, and has grown to be the leading health training institution in the country. In 2001, when the first class of 13 graduated, no one could have known that only eight years later, the Maridi NHTI would be celebrating the graduation of 145 students, over 10 times the number in the first class. 
“Southern Sudan is uplifting,” says the school principal, Mr Eluzai Lou, himself a former student and a former soldier of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. “Today allows us to throw a light into the future of our country.” Lou’s words are spoken with a passion and commitment. Three-quarters of the school’s faculty are alumni of this same institution.
Initially, the training offered at Maridi was only for clinical officers, but the class of 2009 comprises 93 clinical officers and 42 community midwives. The community midwives’ training is supported by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in a bid to quickly help reverse the grim dangers that women and children face from common conditions and diseases. Southern Sudan has the world’s worst health indicators, with 2,057 per 100,000 women dying during pregnancy or childbirth compared to 400 for 100,000 in Kenya and 3 in every 100,000 in Northern Europe.
“I am really excited to be graduating today,” says Alex Mawa, a graduating clinical officer. “It has been tough. Sometimes we even have to use donkeys to get to the hospitals where we do our practicals, but now after the long journey, I can to go out and save many lives.”
A recent report produced by the WHO and AMREF indicates that Southern Sudan needs 1,500 clinical officers in the next five years (a production of 300 per year). After 20 years of civil war, many professionals, including health workers, fled to neighbouring countries, Europe and North America. Currently, there are only 39 doctors working in the entire country, 20 of these in private clinics.
“We still need to find a way to train more mid-level workers,” says Dr Peter Ngatia, AMREF’s Director for Capacity Building. “We have the capacity to train 150 clinical officers every year here at Maridi, but because of funding constraints we are currently training only 45.”
Earlier in the day, representatives from AMREF, GoSS Ministry of Health, the West Equatoria State and the family of the founder of the School, the late Prof Chris Wood, were conducted on a tour of the facilities. The Chief Guest, HE Grace Datiro, who is the Minister for Social Development in West Equatoria, and AMREF’s Deputy Director General Dr Florence Muli-Musiime, commissioned two new buildings funded by USAID through the American Schools & Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) fund. Prof Wood’s daughter, Lucy Wood, unveiled a plaque dedicating the Maridi Resource Centre to her late father.
In her remarks to the graduates, the Chief Guest HE Grace Datiro said: “You will be joining many clinical officers from Maridi who have qualified before you and have gone on to become the backbone of Southern Sudan’s health services. A few years ago, many of you, young men and women, were fighting with guns but now you are properly armed to go and face our nation’s most daunting enemy - disease.”
