Monica McWilliams: Veronica can change the world — but she needs some help

Despite living in an impoverished area which is also susceptible to constant flooding, one young woman offers a lot of hope

Monica McWilliams and Concern’s Veronica Nyajani Youhanes Magnok visiting a displacement camp in Bentiu, South Sudan. Picture: Leek Gatdiet Riak/Concern Worldwide

I havemet many young women like Veronica in my lifetime who have become my constant source of hope and inspiration. 

Through all the years of turmoil in Northern Ireland, it was the courage, determination, and intelligence (both emotional and intellectual) of countless Veronicas that provided the bedrock upon which future peace and prosperity could be built.

Veronica Nyajani Youhanes Magnok works for Concern Worldwide. Her home and place of work is a crowded displacement camp in a very remote part of the world’s youngest nation, South Sudan. 

An overview of South Sudan

This place is not just geographically remote, it also very, very far from the consciousness of the wider world.

Over the past decade, Bentiu camp has become like a small city, home to over 100,000 people seeking shelter from the violence and persecution of civil war.

The majority of its residents are women and children — thousands of kids have never known any other home. Although a peace agreement has officially been in place since 2018, most are still afraid to leave.

Monica McWilliams meeting a group of women at a displacement camp in Bentiu. Picture: Leek Gatdiet Riak/Concern Worldwide

Ironically, even if it were safe to leave, Bentiu remains their home in exile for entirely different reasons. 

Relentless and unprecedented rainfall in the Great Lakes region of Africa has resulted in two thirds of South Sudan being submerged by catastrophic flooding for the past four years. It’s not something you’ll see on the nightly news, despite the devastating consequences. The camp, surrounded by earthen levees, is effectively an island.

Life here is very tough. People live in basic shelters and are almost entirely reliant on outside help for supplies. Child malnutrition is a big problem and risks to health include malaria, diarrhoeal disease, hepatitis E, cholera, typhoid fever, trachoma, and skin infections.

Logistical difficulties and chronic underfunding mean food has to be rationed by the UN agencies and fuel for cooking is hard to come by.

The positives

So where’s the hope in all this? Well, look no further than Veronica for evidence that all is not as grim as it seems. 

Young, full of good ideas, and really smart, she radiates energy and enthusiasm. She tells me of the good fortune that came her way as a young woman, being sent to university in Uganda at a time when the education system in her own country was barely functional. She trained as a social worker and then did the thing that so many others in her position would not. Veronica returned to South Sudan.

Today, she’s at the heart of a Concern team providing some of the essential services that keep communities in this part of South Sudan afloat, including those in Bentiu camp. 

Monica McWilliams with some of the children at the displacement camp. Picture: Leek Gatdiet Riak/Concern Worldwide

I sit with mothers as they line up outside Concern nutrition clinics, listening to their stories of challenge and survival. Inside, their children will be weighed and assessed, with their moms being shown how to deal with malnutrition and given the supplies they need to do so.

There’s midwifery and antenatal care. There are sanitation services and hygiene education sessions. There are gender and social protection activities. There are continuous evaluations to see where they can improve on what’s being provided, what’s changed, what progress is being made, and where’s the money is best spent. There’s even a complaints mechanism!

Much of this work is being carried out by young South Sudanese professionals like Veronica, backed up by outside expertise and local volunteers.

They are the ones who are keeping things going, as this fledgling nation struggles to find its feet. They are the ones who are showing real leadership in the struggle for a better future for their nation.

But they can’t do it alone. They need help, just as we needed support from others during the peace process in Northern Ireland. 

In Veronica’s words: 

With all the conflict going in the world, South Sudan could easily be forgotten.” 

Those with the power to drive democratic, social, and economic development in South Sudan, both domestically and internationally, need to use that power urgently and wisely. 

Squandering the opportunity to foster a peaceful and prosperous new member of the international community will only result in a future generation of restive and disaffected young people. That has happened too often elsewhere, when a peace dividend does not result in the very basics for vulnerable people and communities.

As we ourselves transition from being a conflicted society, with our own traumatising experience of violent conflict and ethnic and religious differences, I firmly believe that all of us have a historical imperative to support workers like Veronica, organisations like Concern, and countries like South Sudan.

Monica McWilliams is a human rights champion, peace campaigner, and signatory of the Good Friday Agreement. She travelled to South Sudan with Concern. For more details of Concern’s work visit concern.net