Pure Joy Foundation was born from a family trip to South Sudan during the summer of 2012. Introduced to the village of Pure (pronounced “Poo Ray”), we were moved by the joy and dignity of the people while shocked at the poverty within which they lived.

Pure is located in the southernmost region of South Sudan, only miles from the border with Uganda. It is extremely remote and its people, as described by one senior government official, are “the poorest of the poor” of South Sudan. On the spectrum of human history, they lived closer to the Stone Age than to our modern day: 

• Closest source of clean water was 5 miles away

• No access to modern healthcare

• No electricity or running water

• Subsistence farmers who grow enough food to feed their families

• Manually grind their grain into flour using mortar and pestle or grinding stones

• Local school was only 1st to 4th grade and was held in mud huts and under a tree 

• Survivors of decades of war and genocide that killed 2 million South Sudanese and displaced an additional 4 million of its people

 

Human beings shouldn’t live this way, so we decided to do something about it. To whom much is given, much is required.