The Southern Sudan Health Care Organization (SSHCO) is a non-profit organization founded by Jacob Atem and Lual Deng, who both are “Lost Boys of Sudan.” Together they drive the organization’s vision and message of a safer Southern Sudan through health care and education. Part of that vision includes a medical clinic to serve the people in South Sudan.

The Southern Sudan Healthcare Organization has been set up to support the people of Southern Sudan by providing healthcare facilities, education in healthcare and sanitation, and assist in the provision and delivery of healthcare supplies.

Maar is located between Bor South and Bor North. This isolation makes it difficult to help those who usually need immediate medical attention such as pregnant women, children, and the elderly. The closest clinics in the area are in Panyagor and Bor. It takes two days to get from Maar to Panyagor and three days to reach Bor. These two clinics are run by non-government organizations. Sadly, patients are carried in folded blankets between poles to form a kind of stretcher. Concerned relatives carry the sick on their shoulders and make this journey by foot between two to four days.

The Southern Sudan Health Care Organization has been set up because of the need for a acceptable healthcare facility in Maar. Currently, there is a rusty, bullet riddled dispensary that managed to survive the war. In this building, the people of Maar and surrounding areas receive little or no healthcare assistance.

For people in Maar and neighboring villages to receive the necessary more extensive healthcare, they need a lot of money and the means to travel to Kenya or Uganda to receive treatment. Many people cannot afford to travel so far, and several people who risk the journey do not make it there alive. Even if these people can make it to either Kenya or Uganda, treatment is often ineffective because the disease has ravaged its victim beyond medical help. Maar is in a strategic position, and a Clinic there would be accessible to all communities in the area.