One of the locations where ILA-Uganda carries out its trauma counselling and community development programs is in Palabek – a district in northern Uganda that has a refugee settlement situated in it as well as the local communities. The refugee population is from South Sudan, who clearly have a lot of trauma in their life experiences, but the local population will also have had its fair share of trauma as a result of the conflict with the Lords Resistance Army that ravaged the area between 1980 and 2006. Therefore, ILA is involved in delivering its ‘Empower’ trauma counselling programme in both the host community and the displaced community.
But whenever possible ILA goes further than the Empower programme and seeks other opportunities to carry out community development activities. Recently CRED was able to give ILA some funds to enable them to give vocational bursaries to four young people from the Palabek communities. And whilst I was in Gulu at the ILA offices I had the privilege of meeting those young people - here are their stories.
Emily is 24 and is a refugee from South Sudan. Her education was cut short at primary 5, although I didn’t catch the reason for that – it could have been the war, but there are also many girls from her country who aren’t allowed to complete their studies because early marriage and caring for younger siblings is considered the role of the girl. Emily came to Palabek camp with her grandmother and her two young children although her grandmother has since passed on. For many girls of her age, life in the camp has little hope – you get your food parcels, you have your small home, and beyond that there is little to do. So alcohol starts to feature, plus unplanned pregnancies with men who can’t provide any support. Some girls get into relationships with men in the hopes that the guy can provide an income, and when they find he can’t, the relationship ends and another one starts. Life feels futile and hopeless.
Emily wanted more than this, and the ILA team had noticed her positive engagement with their programmes and her willingness to get involved. So they offered her an opportunity to take up one of the vocational bursaries, and she jumped at it. The course that she chose was that of tailoring, and when I met she said how much she was looking forward to being able to put her new skills into practice, and earn some money to help provide her children with a better life than they have at the moment. She was so full of gratitude and thanks for the input from ILA – not just the vocational bursary, but also all the counselling and guidance that has resulted in her feeling more empowered, and in a much better state of mental well-being than she might otherwise have been.
Sam is also a refugee from South Sudan, and also age 24. He completed his secondary education to senior 4 level at the school in Palabek, but there was no facility for him to go further and study to senior 6 level which had been his dream. Like Emily, the opportunities for young people in the camp are few, and soon Sam found himself to be a father. He and the mother are now married, and they have a second child. Sam dreams of being able to put his children through school and to achieve levels of education that he couldn’t manage. But poverty is everywhere, and it is hard to make ends meet.
Again, ILA saw something special in Sam when they met him – an inner drive to make something of himself if he could just get that first helping hand. The bursary that was offered has enabled Sam to go to college and train to be a hairdresser. He chose this vocation because it is mobile, has lots of potential, and crosses all the boundaries of age, class, and ethnicity with regard to clientele. Sam is so excited to start his business. He has already formed his business plan in his head, identified the ideal spot to set up his salon, and is raring to go. When I asked which type of hair styling he prefers, he said ‘plaiting, but maybe also shaving – I don’t mind really, I love it all!’
Unlike Emily and Sam, Faith is from the host community in Palabek. Age 26 she dropped out of school after completing her primary education and now has two children age 6 and 9 years. She shared how the standard sort of life for teenage girls in her community was to finish school at primary level with no hope of progressing on to further education, and then lose themselves in alcohol abuse, discos, unplanned pregnancies with guys who couldn’t provide any support, before returning home to live with the parents in order to try and raise the children. She said that some of her peers would get jobs as home helps to try and earn some money, and others got involved in home brewing, to service the busy trade in alcohol consumption. Like Emily and Sam, the lack of hope for anything in the future was palpable.
But now things are looking up for Faith thanks to being recipient number three of the ILA bursaries. She also chose to do a tailoring course, and is excited to have a skill that means she can use her hands in a positive way to give her children a better future. She expressed her gratefulness to ILA for all the support that they have given her, and also to God for identifying her to ILA that they chose her in the first place.
Ben was the fourth of the bursary recipients, and like Faith he comes from the host community. He is 25, and has a child but sadly has no contact with the child after his wife left him. Ben made it to senior 2 before poverty got in the way of further education, and after that he started to go the same way as many of his peers: alcohol, drug abuse, suicidal thoughts. Some of his peers have ended up in prison after engaging in petty crime, others have died at the hands of mob-justice. He says none of them had any plans, none thought about the future – if they woke to a new day they got through it, and that was how life was.
But thanks to ILA, the Empower programme, and then the bursary, Ben has turned his life around, and he desperately wants to help others do the same. He chose to do hair styling, and when I asked him why he said ‘everyone has hair – everyone needs a hair stylist! It’s a never-ending role that there will always be a demand for.’ His favourite part of the work is shaving, but he’s happy to do the full range of hair styling if it brings him in more clients.
Having met with the four young people, and listened as they shared their stories, they then showed me with great delight the start-up packs of equipment that they happened to be given on the day of my visit to mark the completion of their course.
Faith and Emily both received a treadle sewing machine, table, stool, bolts of material, threads, machine oil, zips, buttons, a mirror and two chairs for clients. Ben and Sam both received an electric clipper set, hair straighteners, shampoo, a portable hair washing sink, chairs, solar panel and battery so that they can use the electric items, hair extensions and braids, and other hairstyling paraphernalia that I didn’t quite recognise! They really are set up with all that they need to get started, and it was lovely to see the joy on their faces as they looked through all of the equipment that is now theirs.
It was such an honour to be able to sit with the four and hear them talk about their lives. To listen as they spoke about the dark and hopeless places that they had come from, and the turnaround that had come their way through the bursaries was a beautiful and inspiring time. It was a reminder of how transforming lives doesn’t need to be huge and impacting for many at a time, but can be one person at a time – for those whose lives are changed it is just as valuable an input.
I think Ben summed it up for them all when he said ‘I am so grateful to God for giving me this opportunity – it has changed my life. I urgently request for there to be more opportunities if at all possible so that others who were in the same bad place as me can have a new chance at living’.
If you would like to get involved in changing a life – just let me know!
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