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The New Sudan Education Initiative(NESEI) is a non-profit organization based in Colchester, Vermont, which works to provide secondary education for children in Southern Sudan. It was founded in January, 2006 by Atem Deng and Robert Lair. Its first school opened in May, 2008, near the town of Yei, and it currently plans to build twenty schools throughout Southern Sudan by 2015.

History

NESEI was first conceived in January, 2004, on a plane ride to Burlington, Vermont, when Robert Lair, a faculty member at Saint Michael's College, and Atem Deng, a student at the University of Vermont, decided that they could make an impact in Southern Sudan. Their early musings evolved into a plan to utilize the large Sudanese diaspora population in the Burlington area and throughout the United States. Together with Abraham Awollach, another Sudanese former refugee, they founded an organization, named the New Sudan Education Initiative, through which they planned to provide an education for the "lost boys" of Southern Sudan, former child soldiers who had been involved in the decades-long war there.

Over the next few years their organization evolved into a plan to provide secondary education to 20,000 Southern Sudanese children and build twenty schools in the region by 2015. Their first school, The New Sudan School of Health Sciences, opened on May 19th 2008, with an initial class of 74 young women.

Future Plans

NESEI plans to open twenty schools by 2015. Thirteen of these schools will be tradional secondary schools. The other seven will be specialized vocational schools, and will focus on training young Sudanese in specific occupations which are in high demand and low supply throughout Southern Sudan, including Health Sciences, Agriculture, Computer Tehnology, and Business.

Philosophic Guidelines

Although NESEI is currently a traditional non-profit organization, and recieves most of its funding from donors, it operates under the belief that a sustainable business model is one which will be most able to create a lasting and scalable impact. It believes that there is much to learn from the social entrepreneur movement, and plans to become a social business in the future, which will no longer have to rely on donations for its funding. It plans to become sustainable through charging a small tuition to its more affluent students, and by utilizing income-generating projects in its schools. The projects will include activities in each school, with examples being small agricultural plots and animal husbandry. This will provide food for the school, teach students valuable skills, and supply the local community with reasonably priced and fresh products.