I didn’t know what to expect when we arrived at the Palabek
resettlement community for South Sudanese Refugees. Would it be rows on rows of
UNHCR tents, like I saw when I went to an IDP camp in Kenya after the political
unrest? Would it be lots of makeshift buildings, all squished up tight to each
other and as a result everyone living on top of each other?
When we arrived, it was neither of these – instead it was a
reception centre that had a number of semi-permanent ‘welcome tents’, a health
centre and tents that served as headquarters for the different agencies who are
working there. And beyond that was a large area of ‘scrubland’, (50km square)
with small trees and bushes everywhere and scattered throughout little groups
of mud thatch single room homes. The homes are all built in the traditional
style – round, with a single door, no windows, and a pointy thatch roof. Each
home is about 4-5m in diameter and houses a single family – which could be
anything from 3 to 13 people, depending on how many escaped the horrors of the
war.
The settlement is broken down into zones, and each zone is
in split into blocks, so everyone has an ‘address’ of zone (number), block
(letter). The settlement has been there since refugees started arriving in 2017
and the number living there now is in the many thousands, but thanks to the
amount of space that was gifted for the settlement by local Ugandans, there
isn’t any sort of feeling of overcrowding.
I was visiting the settlement as part of the team of staff
from I Live Again Uganda, a local NGO who are delivering trauma counselling to
the refugees, and who are a partner of CRED Foundation. I’ve been involved in
their work before, in the villages around Gulu where people still live in the
long shadow of the civil war that ravaged the area in the 1980’s – 2006, but
this was my first time to Lamwo with them.
It was a real honour to be able to serve this community, and
ILA, through delivery of some training materials that I’ve recently been
developing. Aspects of the training include learning more about the brain,
aspects of its functionality with regards to behaviour, identity,
memory-making, and individual responses. It also looks at trauma, and how that
can impact functionality of the brain, and then moves to healing and wellbeing.
So it’s a wide-ranging overview, but it was so well received.
The participants were from different leadership groups on
each day: first off we had about 25 church leaders from various denominational
backgrounds. Then on the second day I spoke with 15 tribe and clan leaders, who
between represent most of the tribes who can be found in the settlement. And
then on the third day I led training for about 40 ‘resettlement welfare
leaders’ who essentially are locally elected leaders of the blocks and or
zones.
So, leadership was one recurrent theme, and fleeing from war
was another. Some of them shared bits of their stories at times during the
different days – stories of loss, pain, fear and terror, stories that no-one
should have to endure, but sadly stories that time and again humans inflict on
fellow humans.
The leaders have endured their own personal experiences of
this, but despite the pain and loss, they all spoke of their determination to
help take their people forward. None know if or when they will be able to
return to South Sudan. None know fully what they are taking their little
communities forward into. But they all have a dogged determination to do their
best for those they lead, and to do what they can to help them move onwards and
upwards, one day at a time.
Some have been here weeks; some have been here months. For
some this isn’t their first time as a refugee, and each time the willingness to
return gets a little less, as the pain of previous returns gets a little more.
Leading the training for these wonderful men and women and enabling
and equipping them, and the ILA staff, with new knowledge and tools to assist
with their journey was a real privilege. They were so effusive in their thanks
and in their praise of the training programme, which compared to all that they
have been through felt so small. But I’m glad I was able to give it to them, as
a gift, and I pray that it will reap blessings on them and on others beyond our
wildest expectations.
And as they go forwards into their tomorrows, I pray that
those tomorrows will be better days than the yesterdays that they have left
behind; and that their passion and determination for making their world a
better place will reach far into the lands around them. And I pray also for
ILA, who are doing such amazing ongoing counselling support for these folks,
week in and week out. Selfless servants of Christ if ever I saw them.
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