September 15th

Good Hope

Christian Upliftment

The day started with visiting Christian Upliftment School. The schools serves children who are refugees from the civil war that has been raging in northern Uganda for the last 20 years. The North is an isolated area, where children hide at night to avoid being kidnapped and forced to become child soldiers. It was great to see the school in its new location on land that was purchased by an AYA donor. Other donors have begun to put up permanent structures and even a small merry-go-round (which was quite a monumental event where the whole community gathered to see the unbelievable fact that there was actually a piece of playground equipment in their area).

Hellen Owani runs the school and showed us around. They still have temporary classrooms made of tin sheets and dirt floors. None the less, Hellen no longer has the burden of coming up with money for rent and the children are excited to have a place to learn. One of the main functions on this trip is to organize for an upcoming grant from USAID to provide water wells and health and hygiene education to 29 communities in Uganda. Therefore, Hellen led us to the community water source where we will be providing the proper equipment to protect the spring. Although the water is clouded with mud (and who knows what else) and recently was responsible for a cholera outbreak, it is constantly full with community members filling dirty jerry cans full of water. They have no other option for water. When they have the money for charcoal or firewood they can boil the water to decontaminate it, but much of the time it is used untreated, leaving the people at risk for illness and waterborne disease.

Next, we headed across town to visit Good Hope, a primary school for over 400 children. David Rwamanero is the director. I always enjoy meeting with David because he is extremely appreciative and enthusiastic about everything. He always refers to me as “The President”(of AYA) which I find quite comical, but he means as a great source of respect. With a lack of donations in the past couple of years, our support to them has been limited. However, like all of our partners, they don’t just sit and wait for money from mzungus; they do what they can on their own. With help from parents, they were able to construct toilets and a new section of classrooms.

After a brief tour, we had an assembly with the students. As usual, David made a formal presentation out of everything. Even photos we brought that were taken at his school last year, had to be officially presented. As we were in the assembly, David reminded the children of the desks, textbooks, and money for the feeding we had given and asked them to thank us again. As they expressed great appreciation, I couldn’t help, but look around and notice the remaining dilapidated classrooms and the children with tattered uniforms and mismatched shoes. I know we have helped them the most we can, but like all of our partners, I wish we had so much more to give to them.