Birthday wishes for South Sudan

Birthday wishes for South Sudan

To mark the fifth birthday of South Sudan, TransConflict is pleased to present a list of birthday wishes that help chart a more optimistic course for the world’s youngest country.

Suggested Reading Collaboration Analysis

By Jelena Savic

As a five-year-old you are already a creative and enthusiastic problem solver. You offer progressively more imaginative ideas for undertaking tasks, making something or solving more abstract challenges. You ask more analytical questions and weigh your choices more carefully. As you learn new things, you become more social and prefer activities involving others. Not just with one’s peers but with those younger and older! Oyee South Sudan!

Your language skills are well developed! You pronounce words clearly, speak in complex and compound sentences, use the correct grammar for the most part and have good-sized vocabularies that continue to grow rapidly. You enjoy initiating conversations, can wait your turn to speak and are typically able to include appropriate details when sharing personal experiences. Oyee South Sudan!

You just begin to extend your oral language skills to reading and writing. You know your uppercase and most lowercase letters, and understand that letters represent specific sounds in spoken words. This knowledge helps you to sound out words in print and write out words based on their sounds. You can also discuss stories and are able to tell your own tales. Oyee South Sudan!

Your mathematical thinking is more abstract and expands to include a greater understanding of the characteristics of shapes and numbers. You can count out a collection of up to “20” items, conduct simple addition and subtraction and identify which number in a set is larger. You understand and use words related to position, such as “under” or “behind.” You sequence events chronologically and are learning to tell time. You can also sort objects based on more than one characteristic. Oyee South Sudan!

You abound with energy and seek active games and environments. Your increased abilities to balance and coordinate movements allow you to ride a bike with training wheels, swim, jump and perform most ball-related skills. You show mature form in walking and running, and are able to vary the direction, speed and quality of your movements. You can also use your fingers flexibly to write and paint, dress and undress dolls and manage zippers and buttons. Oyee South Sudan!

You really want to know more about how the world works. Hands-on experiences help you to form theories to explain “how” and “why” things happen. You can use tools like thermometers and scales to gather information, and are able to more independently carry out simple investigations. You also use increasingly descriptive language to relay information, ask questions and provide explanations. Oyee South Sudan!

You can manage feelings and social situations with greater independence. You might decide on your own to go to another room to calm down, or try strategies like negotiation and compromise to resolve a conflict before seeking others help. You also have improved skills for forming and maintaining friendships with those older and younger than you. Being accepted by “the group” is becoming more and more important to you. Oyee South Sudan!

In the creative arts, as five-year-old you have a varied repertoire of music and are able to compose and arrange music within specified guidelines. You create realistic art with recognizable subjects and more detailed settings. You also recognize that art can tell a story. Your dramatic play is pre-planned, elaborate and sustained. You are able to perform simple plays, do pantomime and perform puppet shows. Oyee South Sudan!

You turned five on July 9th and I wish you:

  1. A birthday cake big enough for all the invited and unexpected guests who crashed your festive nationwide celebration…
  2. Happy people…
  3. Peace…
  4. Unity…
  5. A transitional government of national unity, transitioned into a government which is as solid as a diamond…
  6. The August 2015 Peace Accord completed and fulfilled ahead of time and never opened-up, even for hypothetical discussions entitle South Sudan August Peace Accord 2015 2.0…
  7. A constitution…
  8. Democratic and good-governance…
  9. Liberté, égalité, fraternité…
  10. Free and fair elections with a calendar set ahead of time and no need for recruiting any observers, either national or international…
  11. Control and governing of your internal affairs…
  12. An efficient and effective police force…
  13. Cooperation and respect among your three main regions…
  14. Cooperation and respect among your villages, towns, cities…
  15. Functioning and respected institutions on all levels…
  16. Exceptionally efficient and effective judiciary…
  17. A National Truth and Reconciliation Museum…
  18. A National Trauma and Healing World Center of Excellence and Innovation…
  19. Control and governing of your external affairs…
  20. Brilliant neighbors, regional, global relationships…
  21. Amazing bilateral relations with all countries of the world…
  22. Mentoring newly-established countries by giving hands-on experience and advice…
  23. Ceasefire being beyond permanent…
  24. No areas with conflicts; conflicts contained or prevented for good…
  25. A professional army and strategic defense never put to use…
  26. No child soldiers…
  27. No victims of war…
  28. Only civil aviation and airports in all areas of the vast lands of South Sudan and with no need for metal/explosive detectors…
  29. A National Museum of all guns and ammo collected in a day from all your beloved citizens…
  30. No minefields, just beautiful picnic, walking and hiking areas…
  31. Land for all and land moist only with raindrops and sweat of hardworking farmers…
  32. An apple a day that really will keeps doctors away from all people of South Sudan…
  33. Hospitals free of patients and full of medicines and medical supplies, high-tech medical devices…
  34. No more blood spilt; only old blood kept and stored in transfusion centers that are open non-stop but are non-visited ever…
  35. Bridges all over the White Nile…
  36. The banks of your rivers and canals transformed in a way that they have improved the relationship between city residents and nature, inviting people to look at rivers not as obstacles, but as vital and connective urban components…
  37. Clean water, electricity etc. for all…
  38. No more floods…
  39. No more cooking meals on charcoal…
  40. Houses, schools etc. for all…
  41. No more brain drain, refugees, internally displaced people (IDPs), and never again Protection of Civilians Camps (PoCs)…
  42. No more humanitarian aid, just investment…
  43. The Special Reconstruction Fund transformed into an Open and Global Special Cultural Trust with the highest contributions coming from you…
  44. Development as a proved and embedded model to be offered to countries as those representing Troika to pilot in their courtyards…
  45. A South Sudanese Pound stronger than the Kuwaiti Dinar…
  46. Contributing more than $8m to the East African Community…
  47. Presiding the African Development Summit in 2063…
  48. Heading reform of the United Nations and pioneering its new and contemporary agenda…
  49. Maintaining global peace…
  50. Enjoying and being proud of colorfulness of your 70 plus tribes and its clans…
  51. Only shed tears of joy and happiness, and never again over any loss…
  52. To be you; as beautiful as you truely are…

Happy, happy, happy Birthday South Sudan! Oyeeoyeeoyee South Sudan!

Yours as Always,

 

Jelena Savic

Jelena Savic is TransConflict’s Development Advisor for northern and eastern Africa. 

The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect those of TransConflict.


Interested in writing for TransConflict? Contact us now by clicking here!

What are the principles of conflict transformation?

FacebooktwitterlinkedinmailFacebooktwitterlinkedinmail

FacebooktwitterlinkedinrssFacebooktwitterlinkedinrss

19 Responses

Leave a Reply to nishiyan786 Cancel Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Show Buttons
Hide Buttons