The pencil - a powerful tool

Today I taught 6 older ladies to write their names for the first time. It was a very special time, whilst also profoundly sad in some ways.

I didn’t ask the ages of the 6 Acholi ladies that I was working with, but most of them had fled from their tribal land in the 1980’s when the Lords Resistance Army was just starting its reign of terror and had been in the south ever since, trying to carve out a meager existence breaking stones at the quarry. They all have children, some have grandchildren, and I suspect they all look older than their real age due to the incredibly hard life they have each had.

One of the ladies, Beatrice, was younger, and had a small child with her, just 1yr 5 months. The baby’s father was arrested in Sudan before the baby was born, and Beatrice has no idea of his whereabouts. 

Nighty only moved to Acholi Quarters less than a year ago, having lived in Jinja since she fled the north. 6 years ago her husband was murdered, and no-one has ever been brought to justice about it.

None of the ladies had ever been to school, none of them have the ability to read or write, to sign a form, to read signposts so that they know if they have arrived where they need to go, to be able to tell if they are being charged the right amount at a shop. Instead they have spent their days raising children, earning a maximum of 25p / day at the stone quarry, and moving through life in their own way, a way that is so very limited by their inability to read.

The disempowerment of not being able to read is so great. It’s not just about the fact that you can’t interact fully with society around you, or the status implications that are linked with illiteracy in so many countries. It’s not just the massive bearing it has on what employment can be secured. It is also an issue of safety, especially for children and vulnerable adults. How much easier it would be to lure someone into a trap if they can’t read the signs about them; how much more exposed and vulnerable that person is.

And the converse of that is how empowered people are when they can read and write. The pencil is a powerful tool; oh that everyone should be able to use one.

My little literacy lesson had come about on Monday when one of the ladies saw the CRED team I’ve been with teaching the children, and she jokingly asked me, through a translator, whether she was too old. Despite the laughter, I sensed the desire within her to just be able to write her name, and so I promised to return the next day with some resources to teach her, and a few other ladies.

Unfortunately the rains thwarted my attempts yesterday – a torrential downpour that caused everyone to seek shelter indoors, and resulted in me not being able to find the ladies.  But today dawned bright and sunny and the ladies were ready and waiting when I arrived at the Acholi Quarters.

Part one of the lesson was teaching them to hold a pencil, and just getting used to using it – vertical lines, horizontal lines, circles, x’s. Not surprisingly it came more naturally to some than others, but they all mastered the art.

Then came copying out the alphabet – I was aware that they didn’t all know the names or sounds of the letters, but as I only had one hour, I figured that at least by writing the alphabet it gave them a start on forming all the different shapes.

Whilst they were doing that, I wrote down their names (with the help of a translator).  They each have a descriptive name and a Christian name, and so I learnt that one of them has a name that means ‘born on the way to the hospital’, another has a name that means ‘drunk father’, and another means ‘perseverance’.

They certainly all showed perseverance today as they copied their name out several times, and then had a go at writing it blind. The delight on their faces when they achieved that was very special.

By that time I was having to leave to catch my flight home to UK, but before I went we discussed their hopes and dreams, and what else they would like to learn  - to know the alphabet, to be able to read signs, and to be able to write a bit more than just names. And we also discussed their home-work between now and when I am back: to keep practicing their name every day until they can write it wherever they are, without having to have a crib sheet in their pocket.

I will be back in the Acholi Quarters for a week in February, and at that point I will come prepared to work on some simple reading with the ladies. It’s not much, and I wish I could do so much more for them, but as long as my time is split between different countries and projects, all I can do is keep my eyes open to all opportunities to serve, be open to doing the bits I can do, and maybe equip others to get involved to have a longer impact.

And that’s all any of us can do – keep hearts, minds and eyes open for opportunities to serve, and then have the courage to seize them.

May we see and grasp those opportunities, to bring hope and help to those most in need. And thank you Lord for Josephine, Christine, Margaret, Beatrice, Mary and Nighty – practicing writing their names, and for giving me such a very special, inspiring and humbling morning.

Uganda, faith and young people

I’m back in Uganda  now, with a new CRED team from the Littlehampton and Worthing area who have come to spend a week working with the Acholi children.

Today, the team all went along to a church run by a Korean missionary lady, Joy Kim. Joy, and a Uganda Pastor Amos run the church and it is a wonderful place of celebration, worship, good Biblical teaching and unconditional love.

This evening, in debrief time, one of the questions the team considered was ‘what did you feel about church today?’ There was a lot of conversation, and discussion, and some of the feedback was very interesting and insightful with regard to a UK teenager’s perspective on church.

For several of the team, today was the first time they had ever been into a church, apart from weddings and funerals. Asked if any of them would go again if they could go back to Joy’s church, they all gave a strong ‘yes’ vote.

One of the team commented on how they loved the fact that they didn’t feel as though they were being judged, but instead they could just be themselves. They reflected that if they were to go to a church at home, the opposite would be true – they’d have to conform to other peoples views on how to behave, and would feel very judged.

Another said she liked the way that Joy and Amos’s church felt like it was full of hope, and looking forward; whereas the churches back home feel as though they are always looking back at how things were, and what has happened in the past, and not investing in the next generation and trying to make them feel welcome and engaged with faith.

Something else that came up was about the energy felt in the place, which we interpreted as the presence of the Spirit. Several of them said that they felt like they had had some sort of spiritual experience in the church, and that it had all felt a lot more than just words and songs.

The conversations have continued as the evening has gone on, and a lot of journaling has taken place, as individuals reflect on all they have seen and done today.

For me all this leads to a couple of thoughts:

1.     What can I / we learn from the reflections of the young people about UK church, and how we engage, or not, with the young people in our neighbourhoods

2.     How important it is for CRED, as a Christian-based organization, to keep exposing our young people to the work of our Christian partners, and to ensure that there is space for dialoguing about, and exploring the faith aspect of the trips that we take them on. How many other ‘overseas expedition providers’ (as we are known in the secular world) give this faith-based angle to their participants: it is something we need to nurture and be proud of.

If this is day 1, then who knows how these faith-based thoughts will progress as the week goes by, but my prayer is that they will progress, and that as leaders we will be able to discuss and engage with the young people to help them on their journey of faith at whatever stage they are at.

Pius, his story, and a lesson for the team

Last night Pius shared his story – a story of surviving the genocide, a story of facing death, a story of being beaten so hard that he thought he would die and yet he didn’t, a story of total belief that he was saved by God for a reason.

It was a story that gave a powerful message about forgiveness, about the process of forgiveness, the pain of forgiveness and the ultimate release of forgiveness.

He spoke about the spiritual journey that he went on as he moved from a place of total belief before the genocide, of clinging to God during the genocide, of questioning everything about God in the period of shock after the genocide, and of the gentle ongoing healing power of God’s love and grace that means that Pius can now face his perpetrators and know only love for them, with no hatred or resentment for all that they previously did to him.

As you can imagine, the room was silent as he spoke; the team listening intently to his every word. This is a team like many other CRED teams – predominantly non-church goers, whose main contact with Christianity until now will have been through RE lessons and maybe the occasional Christian teacher that they might have been taught by.

And as I looked around at the team, I thought about some of the situations some of them have been in that have involved the choice of whether to forgive or not – the one who has spent 15 years in and out of foster care as mum serves various custodial sentences, the one who has a radical extremist father and brother and who deny her basic rights because she won’t comply to their religion, the one who got beaten up so much he had jaw, nose and 4 ribs broken, and so many others with hurts and pain of various degrees hidden inside. They are a wonderful team, don’t get me wrong, but there’s a lot going on inside.

So to hear Pius’ story, and to hear the powerful Christian message threaded through it was a great challenge. And combine that with the faith-filled, sacrificial lifestyles that they see lived out each day at the Catch Up school by the teachers who work on minimal salaries so that kids from the streets can have access to education – lots to think about, journal about and process.

As their trip to Rwanda comes to an end, may the lessons they have learnt about life, faith, forgiveness and themselves continue to grow inside. May they go home with a stronger desire for peace and unity, at whatever scale; and may they go home with a stronger sense of God’s Kingdom work in this world, wherever in the world they happen to be.

Lighting a fire within

I’m writing this from Rwanda where I am spending a week with a CRED Team of young people from a Bournemouth school who are here to serve our CRED partner GNPDR at their Catch Up Centre.

Pius Nyakiryo founded Good News Peace and Development for Rwanda (GNPDR) after his miraculous survival of the genocide, and his subsequent conviction that God saved him for a reason – to help people help themselves through development and through personal and inter-personal peace. And so GNPDR has a number of programmes that seek to do that, working with different sections of the community.

The Catch Up Education Centre is for children who have been living on the streets of Kigali and have subsequently fallen out of education. It provides free education for the children, and where possible aims to get them to a point where they can re-enter mainstream schooling, or if not can at least get to the end of their primary education with a satisfactory level of numeracy, literacy and general knowledge.

Our team are spending each day there delivering a high-quality educational activity week to the children, and having a great time. The team designed all the lessons and activities themselves and have spent weeks fine-tuning their plans, collecting, making and sorting all the resources, and at last they are here putting it into practice.

They are having a wonderful time, working with children who turn up hungry to learn, some of whom have walked a couple of hours to get there. Children with shabby, torn, worn-out clothes; who know the reality of not having a roof over their heads, nor food in their stomachs, but who now live with foster families thanks to the work of GNPDR.

Our team members have experienced the smiles and laughs of the children, have been with the children as they choose to sit and work hard at their letters and numbers rather than going out at break time. And that in itself has been thought-provoking, and for some has been a catalyst for inner-reflection and reviewing of their attitudes

But this evening, we went one step further and for many of the team it was a pivotal moment. At the invitation of the project staff we went with them to visit a group of boys who still live on the streets. Some were just 10 years old, and one had been living on the street for 6 years. The boys chatted with us about their life – where they sleep, how they find food, how they can get chased and beaten by the police; and one lad spoke of his time in prison when the police did a rounding up of street kids.

They also spoke of why they were on the streets, and what life had been like before that had caused them to run away. And they spoke of their biggest dreams – to have shelter, food, clothes and an education.

They were hard words to hear, made harder by the young ages of the children who were speaking them, and the absolute poverty and destitution that they exemplified. Many of the team were very challenged, and there were many tears shed on the way home.

Later that evening, as we had debrief time, there was much discussion about it all – should we have even gone to see them, what was the point when we didn’t really do anything, what can we do as a result of meeting them, was it a good experience or a bad experience……

Lots of conflicting thoughts and feelings clearly swirling round within individuals, but out of it came many reflections that, although it was a really tough experience, it was also a really inspiring experience. For many of the team, this was an experience that seems to have inspired them to want to do more, to make more of a difference, and to find ways to make a difference long-term.

Not just coming out of a trip for 10 days, special though that is, but doing something when they get home – fundraising, awareness raising, career choices. All sorts of different responses, to reflect different personalities and ways of outworking the inner feelings, but for many today a fire was lit within when they met those street kids.

May that fire be fanned as the week progresses, so that from it can come many little and not so little actions that will make a positive difference in this wonderful, diverse and yet sometimes cruel world that we live.

Land grabbers, and the fight against them

Yesterday I had the privilege of meeting with the staff at the Kampala Field Office of International Justice Ministries (IJM). I’d first heard about IJM through my daughter Rozzie who has become increasingly involved in their work since she started at Durham University, and became a student rep for them (although that’s probably not the right terminology!).

IJM’s overall focus is against violence and exploitation of the poor and marginalized groups. Those who can’t access the usual justice systems due to lack of money, or education, or because they are living in such fear and oppression that they feel they have no escape route.

As well as having main offices in USA, UK, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands, IJM also has 20 Field Offices, and these are where the ‘action’ takes place. Different field offices will have different foci, depending on the location and what the issues are specific to that place.

So, in SE Asia, the focus is on trafficking and the sex trade; in India the focus is on slavery and bonded labour; in Nairobi there is a double focus of police corruption, and child defilement. In Kampala, the focus is on land grabbing and property rights, particularly for widows and orphans.

Apparently, a relatively common practice that leaves many rural widows and orphans living in fear of their lives, is that on the death of the man of the house, other family members will turn up and demand that the deceased’s land is now their rightful property rather than that of the widow or his children.

In a good situation, the widow / orphans will be allowed to stay and work the land and continue their life. But in many cases this isn’t so, and a whole raft of means are used by those claiming to now own the land to get their hands on it –

fraud and forgery of required documents to prove alleged ownership, intimidation, crop spraying to ruin the harvest, arson of buildings, spreading malicious rumours about the widow to incite hatred amongst the neighbours, physical attacks…..the list is horribly long, and starts even at the graveside as the deceased is being laid to rest.

Indeed whilst I was at the office yesterday, one perpetrator that IJM had been involved in catching was up in court pending trial. One of the IJM staff had gone to court to ensure that he doesn’t receive bail whilst awaiting the trial, due to the horrific machete attacks that he had already inflicted on the widow he was trying to evict – an attack that he had vowed to continue when he was released.

As I heard more it became clear just how deep-seated the problem is, and thus what an essential and much-needed approach it is that IJM are bringing to the picture.

Apparently, although there is a Ugandan law that states that widows and orphans shall not be turned off their land when the husband / father dies, this area of law is not even taught in police training, so if a widow was to go seeking help, as far as the police are concerned, no crime is being committed regarding land-grabbing, and all they might do is take interest if physical violence is involved.

Add to that the corruption that is evident within some of the people in power, and the chaos of the law courts that means that files can be lost for years as there is no proper filing system, and the underlying belief by some that land is passed down the male line, and the very complicated (and unwritten) land-rights system, and the illiteracy of many, and the lack of paperwork to prove land rights etc – in some ways its no wonder that things are as they are.

But that doesn’t mean they are right, and IJM is getting involved at many levels to make a difference. It is helping victims, it is bringing perpetrators to court, it is getting involved in police training schools, it is speaking at high-level police and legal forums, it is helping develop efficient filing systems for the courts.

And it is doing all this in the pursuit of justice – justice for the poor and broken, for the widows and orphans.

IJM’s model is to support the thousands so as to help the millions ie they focus on one particular community where the problem is rife, and do all required to make  a significant impact there, and then use that as a demonstration of a better and more effective practice that can then be rolled out across the region. It is a brilliant model as it means they aren’t spread too thinly, it means they can make a big impact, and it means they can be true to their word and actually help with setting up the systems rather than just telling others what to do and then moving on.

It also means they can do the individual cases, and give the follow-through that is required to ensure the justice achieved is long-term rather than short-term.

Amos 5:24 says ‘Let Justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-ending stream’. We can all do our bit to help that happen, and it has been a privilege and inspiration to see the lengths to which IJM staff are making that happen here in Kampala, and around the world.

May God bless their work again and again