Reflecting on the Uganda CRED trip so far.

I’m in Uganda leading a remarkable team of young people, and associated adults, on the first CRED Team Trip to work solely with the Acholi people.

I’ve been here many times before, with various teams, visiting various projects, and usually we incorporate a visit to the Acholi quarters – to have a bit of a walk round the community, see where the quarrying is done, have a go at making the paper beads, and doing some games with the children. But this is the first time we have come with the Acholi community as our primary focus. And so far it has been very good indeed!

Having come here so many times, I have a strong affinity for these people, and their story of internal displacement, poverty, lack of land rights etc. Their welcome has always been generous with smiles, songs, hugs, and time, especially from the ladies cooperative with whom we link. The children swarm around us, and lap up the attention, enthusiasm and energy that teams bring when they run 2 or 3 hours of games and activities.

But coming here this time has felt different in many positive ways. For me one of the first things I noticed was in the ladies, and how they had risen to the occasion of organizing the children, sorting out translators, ensuring there is a mid-morning drink of porridge and fulfilling some of the other requests I had made in order for the programme to run smoothly. Yes, John Njendahayo, my Uganda link extraordinaire played no small part in making this happen, but the Acholi ladies just seem to have grown within themselves as well. Their confidence, and self-belief seem greater, and whilst I don’t want to big us up in any way, I am sure that part of this will be due to the knowledge that a team from the UK value and love them enough to come and invest a week of time, energy and resources in them and their children.

The other key difference was in the children and their behavior. All previous teams, as I said, have focused on games and activities, and so excitement levels were always high with lots of boisterous and very physical play leading to regular chaos.

But today we saw a different side. Today we saw their hunger for education, and their sheer delight in being able to sit and read letters and words, to recite the alphabet, to recognize numbers and be able to demonstrate the little bits of reading and writing that they have acquired over their various young lives. Worksheets just aren’t welcomed in the same way by children who have unlimited access to education – but give them to children who usually have to spend their days watching others go to school, and who usually have to stay home to due to lack of funds and mind the younger siblings, fetch the water, fill endless hours with little to do – then worksheets, and all other teaching tools are devoured with smiles and attention.

What a privilege to see and be part of the transformation that can come to individuals and communities through empowering, equipping and valuing others. What a privilege to put into practice the second most importnant commandment as given by Jesus ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ and to put it into practice over here with these lovely, inspiring, beautiful people. 

Every cloud has a silver lining

6.5 weeks ago I thought I would be boarding a plane tomorrow with a CRED team bound for Spurgeons Academy in Nairobi.

6 weeks ago increased Al-Shabab activity in Kenya resulted in the FCO changing its advice to British nationals travelling to Kenya and as a result our planned trip to Spurgeons had to be cancelled.

Thankfully we were able to relocate it to Uganda, and so tomorrow I am boarding a plane, albeit with a slightly smaller team, destination Entebbe. We don't actually get there until Sunday morning, but once there we will be delivering an activity and education week for some of the Acholi children who currently don't get the opportunity to go to school due to the level of poverty that they and their families endure.

For me this is a really wonderful outcome to a very sad decision of having to cancel the trip to Spurgeons. The Spurgeons kids will always have a very special place in my heart, but to be able to now go and deliver some education to those who otherwise have none is a beautiful opportunity. Add to that the fact that the only previous bit of access to education was through Natalie, my Gap-year daughter who spent 2 months 'teaching' up to 60 of the children at a time, then this becomes even more special.

Since Natalie finished there, the children haven't had any follow up so its lovely to be able to go in and just spend a week of high-intensity revision and embedding of basic concepts. And then in October we have two more CRED teams going over who will be able to revise, embed and take it all a bit further.

It certainly is no substitute for full-time education, and whilst we are out there this time I'd like to start a conversation with the Acholi folk about what options there are for getting these children into school - is it funding to help them pay the costs of going to nearby schools, or indeed would they like a school set up in their community? It's a decision the Acholi need to make, not us - we might be able to help realise the dream through access to funding, resources etc, but the project must be their dream, owned by them.

The team going out tomorrow have all done brilliantly at pulling together a new programme based on the different needs of the Acholi kids compared to the Spurgeons students. All credit to them for their unquenchable enthusiasm to get so much sorted amidst GCSE and AS exams - with that level of enthusiasm I am excited to see what they achieve.

And the lovely final note is that, although we can't go to Spurgeons, because we have 46kg of baggage allowance to get to Kenya and then only 30kg to get from Kenya to Uganda, many team members are taking out 16kg of resources each for Spurgeons which will get offloaded during the 10 hours we have overnight in Nairobi.

So Spurgeons will still benefit by quite a lot, and the Acholi will be blessed as well - proof that every cloud has a silver lining.

And of course the other silver lining is that I get to have a week in Uganda with Natalie as well!

I'll be blogging here sometimes during the coming week, but do also check out the CRED blog which will be updated every day. You can find it via www.credteamtrips.org.

Back in UK in time for Tour de France, and to see Andy Murray in the Wimbledon final ;-)

From one extreme to the other re Indian weather

One of CRED's long-standing partners is Janaki Menni, and the organisation that she founded, Faith In Action Ministries (FIAM). Based in the state of Andhra Pradesh, FIAM has a number of projects on its books, including St Joseph's School for children age 3 - 16, church planting, training church leaders, outreach programs to tribal communities, supporting a leprosy colony, supporting elderly and orphans.

The school has been the destination for several CRED Teams, and team members have been very blessed as they have served there - seeing the Christian ethos lived out amidst a strongly Hindu background, and seeing how much the children hunger for education. Some of the children are from families who can afford to pay fees, but others attend on a subsidised basis, paying when they can. Most of the families earn their money through agriculture, so the harvests are crucial to them.

Last autumn I mentioned in a blog about the impact of a massive cyclone on the area. Crops were wiped out, many houses flattened, and livelihoods taken away. The impact on the school was that no-one had money to pay their fees, and as there isn't provision for state support, the finances of the school were pretty dire to say the least.

The farmers, who lost everything, had to start again. New crops were planted, and everyone waited with fingers crossed and baited breath to see if they would get the new harvest, and thus some income. The earliest the crops would come through was late April / early May, and indeed some crops have come through, been harvested and sold so that the families have some income again - praise the Lord!

As a result St Joseph's School was able to open for the new academic year which started on June 10th,  with the knowledge that fees were being paid, and so the teachers could be paid etc.

Unfortunately however, the weather has struck a cruel blow again. On Thursday 12th June, just 2 days after they opened, all the schools in the district were ordered to close for at least 4 days. The reason: a crippling heat wave that is making it dangerous to be out, and impacting on all infrastructure in the area.

Janaki wrote to me yesterday to tell me of this and ask for our prayers. She said that the temperature is 47+C, that there are hot winds making it even more unbearable, and that the sick and elderly are dying from the heat. The power supplies are unable to cope and so the pumps to the wells aren't working and as a result there is very little water, and especially there is none for farmers to use for their crops so they are in danger of losing another harvest.

These lovely people have gone from one extreme to the other weather-wise and the impact both times has been massive. So much more than just feeling a bit cold and damp, or a bit over-hot; this is livelihood-threatening stuff on a major scale.

There is a phrase that Christian Aid have used for a while now to encapsulate the concept of people suffering from climate change even though their lifestyles are so light on this earth that they haven't caused any of the climate change in the first place: climate injustice.

Janaki and the communities that FIAM work with certainly live very lightly on this earth, and contribute next to nothing when it comes to climate change - and so the impacts that they are feeling through this abnormal weather must certainly be seen as very unjust.

What can we do: well there is certainly the long-term side of things regarding climate change, and each of us seeking ways to tread more lightly; but in the meantime, strange as it may feel to us Brits who have too much of the cooler weather, can we pray that cooler weather will come to Andhra Pradesh, and that normal, healthy life may be resumed.