The Juba University Students’ Union has awarded the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) a certificate of appreciation at a ceremony that took place on 28 January. The event was organized to welcome more than 4,000 new students to the University of Juba.

The certificate was addressed to the UNMISS Japanese Engineering Contingent, expressing the students’ union’s gratitude for repairing the university’s football field, which had been unusable for six years. Earlier this month, the Japanese contingent completed the first phase of a renovating the university’s football field, and to promote the Mission’s “Sports for Peace” initiative. Saturday’s ceremony took place at the same football pitch.

“Today, we are sitting here because of UNMISS. They managed to do this for us. This nice-looking background is because of them”, Abuda Evelyn Peter, President of the Juba University Students’ Union.

Listening to the speech were, amongst others, Honorable Yien Oral Lam Tut, Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, Professor John Akec, Vice Chancellor at the University of Juba, Ater Ayuen Wal, Deputy Mayor of Juba City Council, Antipas Nyok, Secretary for Political Affairs at the South Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, and more than a thousand other attendees.

Hiroyuki Saito, Head of the Mission’s Communications and Public Information Section’s Outreach Unit, told the participants that “UNMISS, along with the university, will be working hard to organize a sporting event at the football ground” and added:

“It is very important for us to work with the youth of South Sudan, and sporting events will bring people from different communities together. We are really looking forward to working with the university to make this happen”.