2020 Round-up
By Harriet Hardwick, Amana UK secretary trustee
Hello!
There has been so much happened since June and our last newsletter I am not sure where to start. Uganda has been affected by the global pandemic along with the rest of the world. Without a strong social system this has led to a lot of hardship and increased poverty. The nation has been in various degrees of lockdown, with little or no assistance with salaries, or medical and food provision.
There has been so much happened since June and our last newsletter I am not sure where to start. Uganda has been affected by the global pandemic along with the rest of the world. Without a strong social system this has led to a lot of hardship and increased poverty. The nation has been in various degrees of lockdown, with little or no assistance with salaries, or medical and food provision.
Virtual annual visit
|
In October we were able to facilitate a virtual visit to see all the sponsor children. It took place over 4 different Saturdays via What’s App video call. Ikoku Yen Africa had small groups of the sponsor children meet at a guest house so trustees Dr Joan, Harriet and Diane could conduct health reviews with each of the children. Ikoku yen Africa had to obtain written authorisation from their local governing body to have a group of 20 meeting in a secure space. During the day the children were fed a special, filing meal like they would receive on sponsor day during the annual visit. We were able to assess each child’s health and get an update on where they are living, how they were learning during the pandemic and how they were managing. We also asked each child what they would like to be when they grow up. There were a lot of engineers, with one of our boys graduating from the program to study engineering at university. We also had a lot of doctors, teachers and lawyers; and a couple of the young boys wanting to be pilots. Soroti has its own small airfield where they can see planes take off and land; inspiring the dreams of the young boys. It was lovely to see all the children and know that they were safe. As with most visits there were some safeguarding problems for some of the children and some saddening stories. There were some children in need of medical care, which was arranged by Dr Joan and local medical care. We tried hard to get a good photo of each of the children which is surprisingly difficult on a video call, but we know these are such important points of connection for the sponsors. Though many of their stories were sad, we were still able to hear some laughs and see some smiles.
We still have many children on our waiting list and we do have 2 girls who have been waiting for sponsorship and urgently need help. If you know anyone who is interested in sponsoring a child please send them to our Facebook page or website, www.amana-uk.org, where they can contact us. They can also email us at amanauk2014@gmail.com 
Picture 1: Virtual visit group 1.
|
Picture 2: Virtual visit group 2
Picture 3: Virtual visit group 3
Picture 4: A screen shot of the what's app call. The bottom right screen is Dr Joan and team. It's surprisingly tricky to take a screen shot without covering the lens.
|
Stories of the children
Picture 5: Francis from 2019.
|
The story of Francis's Father
Francis is one of our older sponsored children. When we saw him in 2019 he was very distressed because his father had been falsely accused of murder and was in prison. The story of his father's arrest was a little hard to understand but after a long conversation we managed to understand what had happened. Francis’s family had some land and grazed cattle. One night a man came and stole a cow and Francis’s father chased after the robber. When the neighbours became aware of the chase, they joined in. They split up to find the man and the group not containing Francis’s father found the robber, and beat the man to death (a common penalty for theft especially in rural Uganda). When the police became aware of the death they arrested Frances’s father because they believed he was responsible. They arrested him and held him in prison waiting for trial. Francis was very upset and was worried because they did not have money for a lawyer, and they knew that if they didn’t get representation he would remain in prison without trial for years. Fast forward to this year when we met Francis; he was very distressed and worn. His father was still in prison and they had sold some land to pay the police to release him. However, the police denied there had been any payment, unfortunately an all too common mark of police corruption. The family were now destitute with no way of raising any more funds. One of our supporters heard this story and was so distressed by the story that offered to pay for a lawyer to help Francis and his family. Amazingly, with the lawyer they got a court case and all charges were dropped. Francis’ father was released after 2½ years in prison for a crime he did not commit, and the anguish of corrupt officials taking money off his desperate family with false promises. We are lucky to have such great people who are part of our charity who have a heart for the helpless. As you can probably guess there has been great celebration with Francis’s father’s release. We hope and pray that his family can heal from the trauma they have experienced. |
|
The story of Joel Tom during lockdown
With the lockdown a lot of the families in Soroti left the town and went back to the villages of their family; due to the scarcity of food and the lack of jobs. They returned to the village to grow their own food and to have support from their family. In many cases, this has been very difficult for many of the children. The challenge for the charity was trying to keep in contact with children that were scattered for miles in remote locations with very few ways of communication. Winnie and Jairus have worked hard trying to visit and contact families during lockdown. Some children had moved so far that they had difficulty finding them. One such child was Joel Tom. Winnie had heard that his mother had abandoned her children and left them with different people but they were finding it near impossible to locate him. They eventually found Joel in a village in the care of an old man who was apparently no relation. Joel had become a cattle herder and was malnourished and neglected. He was able to attend the virtual visit and it was agreed that he should leave the care of the elderly man due to safeguarding, and be put into boarding at the school where there would be food and safety. There had been a few children who had no homes to go to had been living in the school during the end of lockdown. Joel was happy to be back somewhere safe with food and a chance to continue his schoolwork. Since the visit Winnie has been looking for Joel’s brothers. Joel’s brothers were not sponsored but once they are found and have a safe place to stay, they will be put on the waiting list for sponsorship. |
Picture 6: Joel Tom from 2019.
|
General Malnutrition
While we in the UK were hoarding toilet roll, pasta and flour - in Uganda the main places where people bought food were closed by the government. The open markets where locals sold or bartered the food that they grew were closed and all travel was banned. This causes an epidemic of hunger. Many families were struggling to grow food due to the weather conditions, with the extra problems of locusts and repeated flooding. With the problems of drought last year, the soil is of poor quality and very susceptible to wash out.
This has meant that they have been unable to harvest many crops. When we saw the children many of them were lucky if they had a meal a day and the food was not nourishing. Many of the children were suffering from headaches and stomach pain. All the children looked thin and malnourished. Winnie and Jairus have been trying to deliver food that they would have received at school to the children but have found this difficult with the children living in different villages. We were able to identify the children most in need so that Winnie and Jairus will concentrate on looking after them.
This has meant that they have been unable to harvest many crops. When we saw the children many of them were lucky if they had a meal a day and the food was not nourishing. Many of the children were suffering from headaches and stomach pain. All the children looked thin and malnourished. Winnie and Jairus have been trying to deliver food that they would have received at school to the children but have found this difficult with the children living in different villages. We were able to identify the children most in need so that Winnie and Jairus will concentrate on looking after them.
School during lockdown
|
Like us the schools have been closed during lockdown and children have had to learn from home. The government announced plans at the start of the lockdown to educate via radio and TV, however, not many families can afford their own radio or TV. Goshen primary school have been able to deliver schoolwork to the primary school children. The secondary school children have been learning from the radio if they have one or using their textbooks. Some secondary schools have been able to send work home to the students. It has been very hard for the children to learn but they are trying their best. In December a few school years were allowed to return to school. These years were Primary 7 and Senior 6. These school years have their national exams and have returned to school to prepare. We were hoping that the rest of primary and secondary will return by the 18th January but the President has delayed school opening for another 3 months.
|
Picture 7: Village children learning from teaching on TV.
|
Food donations
During the pandemic food has become difficult to buy. Locust swarms reduced crops at the beginning of 2020, and soon after this they had heavy rain and widespread flooding. The weather throughout the rest of the year has prevented any good harvests. At the beginning of the year when the world was in lockdown the Ugandan government closed the markets and made it very difficult for the Ugandan people to buy food. Many of the isolated elderly and poor began to starve and many died. We started to raise money to send money for Ikoku Yen Africa to buy food and seed so that the families most in need could have food and grow some new crops. We had huge hopes, but with continued bad weather and they did not get as good a harvest as expected. The widespread malnutrition of the children showed us better than anything the dangers they were facing. In December we raised more money to send out for food to help feed the children. Food has become very expensive due to the bad harvests and government restrictions. Ikoku Yen Africa bought the food in bulk and have distributed it to all the children to help feed them through January. We are very grateful for all those who have donated towards food relief.
|
Pictures 8 & 9: Food bought with the donations. The children came to pick up their food. They were very grateful.
|
Ugandan General election
As you may have seen, Uganda has been experiencing political turmoil over the last year. At the beginning of January, they held their General election, which had caused a lot of unrest in the months leading the ballot boxes. In the run-up to the election there were a lot of national electricity cuts at key campaigning moments and restrictions made to social media and internet use. Our friends in Uganda have found this a very demoralising time. It also appeared that the Ugandan government is using the recent lockdown to manage the people and their movements.
published: February 2021