There are two main sources of income for
the people of the Acholi community; the main option is working at one of the
two stone quarries that run along each side of Acholi Quarters – back-breaking,
heartless work, where the people spend hour after hour, day after day, carrying
rocks up from the base of the quarry to the top and then sit breaking the rocks
into stones and the stones into smaller stones until the right size to sell for
road-mending etc.
On average a single person will earn about
1,000 Ugandan Shillings a day doing this work – 25p, for 12 hours work. Survival
on this meager amount is unrealistic and as a result many of the ladies who
work there take their children with them, to increase the workforce, and as a
result they might get to 2,000 UgSh a day – 50p.
The side-issues that come with working at
the quarry (which none of the Acholi do out of choice, but many do out of
necessity) are several. Few children from these families are able to go to
school due to the crippling poverty that they live in, and childcare options
for the parents are either utilizing older siblings to look after the little
ones, or turning to grandparents or neighbours. Consequently the number of
children roaming the streets are many, and the natural tendency is that of
fighting for survival.
The living conditions are appalling – tiny
mud and lathe type structures, approximately 4m x 6m, no windows, housing up to
9 people, one bed at most, a charcoal burner, no electricity, no water, no
sanitation. Illness is common when living in these conditions, and the
illnesses are often preventable: malaria, sickness and diarrhea; but the
illnesses can take a long time to shake off when the body is weak from living
in such tough conditions and the nutrition is not good.
Other health issues come from the work at
the quarry: back problems from carrying the heavy loads, respiratory problems
from breathing in the dust that comes with breaking up the rocks, and various
injuries that can occur from all the shards of stone flying off as the rocks
are hit with hammers to make them smaller and smaller.
The reality of life for those working at
the quarry is not good, and it has been a privilege to be able to serve some of
their children this week, and give a glimmer of hope that they are not entirely
forgotten by the world outside.
The other way that groups of women (and
some men) are starting to earn money is through making paper beads that they
then turn into beautiful jewellery which gets sold at various places including
the craft markets in Kampala, street side vendors, and visiting teams of
‘mzungus’.
Necklaces, bracelets, purses, bags,
ear-rings – they make them all, out of long thin triangles of paper that get
tightly wound round a needle, glued in place, and varnished to finish. The
colours of the beads depend on the colours of the paper used, and the ladies
have also started making bowls out of strips of paper. Each item hand-crafted,
and each item coming from the community we have been serving.
The bead making is very much a cottage
industry, with ladies sitting together outside homes, rolling the paper,
threading the beads, and having times of fellowship. The children can be
watched at the same time, the meal can be cooking in the background.
The ladies usually work in cooperatives,
pooling together to buy the guillotine to cut the paper, having one person
going to the market to sell on behalf of several, allowing individuals to
specialize but still have a range of goods to sell.
So many positives compared to working in
the quarry, but the reason that not everyone is doing bead making rather than
working the quarries is that the quarry work gives instant pay at the end of
the day whilst the bead work requires advance investment, and finding markets,
or people to sell to, and so at first glance it is risky – a risk some are not
able / willing to take.
When CRED Teams visit Uganda, we work with
our Uganda partner John Njendahayo and he has links with a specific group of
ladies who have formed a cooperative for their bead selling. Each time we come,
Harriet, the head of the cooperative, will bring a massive sack of bead
jewellery to John’s place where the team are staying, and the team then has the
opportunity to buy items.
This happened for our team the other
evening, and after about three hours of decision making on who each of them
needed to buy for, what colours would suit who, what design of bracelet would
they like, remembering extra relatives and coming back for more etc I finally
closed the ‘shop’, and totted up the amount sold.
Between them the team had spent
approximately 1.4 million shillings! A fabulous amount given the size of the
team, but what was even more special was putting it into the reality of
pointing out that this is the equivalent of 4 years worth of income for one
person at the quarry.
Our team alone had provided enough money,
through purchasing beads, to ensure that one of the bead makers doesn’t need to
go back to the quarries for 4 years! That is so amazing and so wonderful to be
part of.
Obviously that isn’t how it works in
reality – the ladies work out what has sold and get their share of the money,
and so all of them get some income – but the comparison to a day’s wages at the
quarry was a powerful thought, and adds an extra dimension to the various blessings
the team are bringing to the Acholi community this week.
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