Acholi visit pt 2 – those we support

For a good few years now we have been supporting a number of young people through to attend mainstream education. Each one of the children chosen was nominated by members of the community, so none were chosen by us. And also, at the decision of the community, it was decided for each individual child whether we support 100% of their school fees, or just 75%, so requiring the parents to still contribute to the fees. There were a couple of reasons for this move – partly to enable the parents / guardians to have the dignity of still knowing that they were involved in their child’s education, and partly to ensure that those same took some responsibility for their child’s education.

As I say, this aspect was initiated by the community, and we as outside donors took no part in deciding who should or should not be on the 100% list and who on the 75% list. However, we did help set up a small table-top savings scheme in the community, to enable the parents to have a way to save up the money that would be required for the start of each term, and this has been very successful.

It has been so wonderful to see the progress of the children through school. And also to see the parents getting better at money management. Most of them don’t have regular income, and it seemed like there were always lots of instant reasons for instantly spending what they earned rather than managing to save anything. But over the years the parents and guardians have become pro’s at saving a little bit here, a little bit there, and this has extended to benefiting in other ways beyond just their child’s education.

In this blog I thought that I would just share simple profiles of the children that we support, in order to exemplify aspects of the background context with which the children are contending. Obviously, all are anonymised.

Of the 21 students that we support, only 1 lives with both parents, and 6 live with their own biological mother.

6 live with grandparents, and 1 lives with her biological aunt. In all cases, the mother is still alive, but for some reason has abandoned the children – sometimes due to mental health illness and inability to cope, sometimes in search of work, sometimes just run away in search of new life, and in case has found a new partner and that partner has refused to acknowledge any of the previous children so the mother has been forced to choose between children and new man – and chose the new man.

Of those who live with their own mother, all of them also have extended family living in the house also – either cousins, or nephews / nieces (ie grandchildren to their mother) or informally fostered children.

Three of the children that we support are total orphans (both parents died), and eight have been completely abandoned by their parents (but as far as we know, at least one parent is still alive). Of those eight, 5 live with extended family, and 3 live as part of families that are not biologically related. NB there is no formal fostering programme in Uganda, so in the case of these three, the families that takes them in will have to cover their costs with no support from outside.

The smallest household is 5 people across 2 generations, the largest is 16 people across 3 generations (mum, 7 children and 8 grandchildren), the average is 7 or 8 people. And for all these households, the number of people will vary at different times depending on all sorts of factors: a close friend or relative in urgent need of a place to shelter, someone from the rural village visiting the city for medical treatment, abandoned children being taken in etc.

The standard size house for all of these families is a single room tin structure approx. 4m x 3m. Inside there will be a bed in one corner, with a curtain across to create a bedroom. A number of family members will sleep together on the bed, and the rest will sleep on raffia-type mats on the floor, covered with blankets during the colder months. Not many will have mosquito nets.

There is no running water, and no electricity. Some have illegal hookups to power, some use a kerosene lamp at night, some have a small solar lamp, some just use whatever source of light they can find at the time (candle, phone etc). Cooking is done on charcoal – just one pot cooking at a time, no oven. Most of the time the cooking will be done outside, but in bad weather the stove will come inside, potentially filling the home with smoke. And if the stove is still hot in the evening, those sleeping on the floor must lie still and be careful not to roll against it. If the stove is left outside during the night it probably won’t be there in the morning.

Water is purchased from the nearest standpipe – could be up to 50m away, and carried back in jerrycans. Long-drop pit latrines are equally sporadically positioned around the community. All perishable food is purchased on a daily basis, as there are very few fridges in the community due to lack of electricity. Non-perishable foods (rice, posho, maize, sugar, salt, oil), are carefully stored to ensure that ants, mice or similar can’t get in.

Employment for the parents is, for the most part, temporary and unpredictable. Some sell food in the market, some work in the stone quarry. Some collect empty plastic bottles to sell to industrial buyers, some work as housemaids. Some go to construction sites looking for daily work, others try portering in the markets. It’s all very hit and miss on the whole.

And that is the context into which the Acholi Community that I visit is positioned, and from which the wonderful children and young people come that I have had the privilege of journeying with over the past years. Their resilience, their positivity, their determination to do better than previous generations is incredible, and I stand in awe of each of them.

They all refer to me as ‘mama Hellen’, and I feel so privileged to have such a title. To them I am not a total outsider, although nor am I by any means a total insider. But according to my Acholi family, I stand in the middle of that insider-outside spectrum, and it is a beautiful and honoured place to be.

 

Acholi update - pt 1

 

I’ve not done very well on blogging during my time in Uganda, so here comes a little flurry as I prepare to return to UK in a couple of days.

At the moment I’m in Ntinda, one of the Kampala suburbs, and whilst here I had a wonderful visit to the Acholi community that I’ve been linked with through CRED and LII for many years.

There are a few different projects that we’ve helped to set up over the years, and a main focus on this recent visit was meeting with the older young people that we are sponsoring through mainstream education. In all we are supporting 21 students, who between them span from Primary 2 through to 2^nd year at university.

There are a growing group who are at secondary school now, and I had been asked to meet up with them and chat about options for post secondary. In Uganda, they take ‘candidate’ exams at end of S4 (equivalent of GCSEs) and at end of S6 (equivalent of A levels). After that they might go to university, or vocational college. However, vocational college is also an option sooner than end of S6 – they could essentially go anytime from end of P7, although age wise they ought to be 16yrs or above, and obviously their secondary performance would impact which level of vocational course they could go on.

But when I met with the secondary students, my main message was that the most important thing was that they followed the course that felt most right for them. Not doing something that others were telling them to do, not living out a parent’s unfulfilled dream, but thinking about their own preferences and dreams, and taking a course that would help realise that dream.

I suggested that university isn’t right for all, and that vocational courses can result in a higher chance of getting a job. And I impressed on the youngsters that there was no expectation by the sponsors that university had to be the route that was followed.

Yes, they can try for university if they have a strong reason for doing so, and if their academic performance indicates that they will cope. But no pressure that they must go down that route.

It was interesting to see the responses of the individuals there. For some, this was clearly a new way of thinking – to consider a vocational course as a positive choice rather than a second best is not the standard way over here. Still university is what many families aspire to, even though financially it is such a huge burden. And the concept that it isn’t an automatic route to a job was another bit of eye-opening news.

And for some of them, they clearly still yearn to do university – which is fine, if they’ve got a strong, well-reasoned rationale for that choice. I just don’t want them to choose that route if it will actually just make their life even harder than it already is, with no great gain at the end.

For some of the others, the thought that they could stop school before S6, and switch to something more practical was definitely a great relief. One of the students came up to me after to talk this through more. They are really struggling with school, and the thought of 4 more years of it was just feeling too much. So to hear that it would be OK to switch to doing something practical at a vocational college, and come out with a certificate to show their skill, that message totally hit the sweet spot for some. Indeed one youngster was nearly in tears as the realisation dawned that they didn’t have to go back to school in Feb, but instead could start getting a qualification in the thing that they loved doing most – tinkering with bikes and cars.

It was a really good conversation with all of the young people, and such a privilege to be playing a role in helping them explore what might be the next steps for each of them. They come from such tough backgrounds, so much of life is stacked against them – but their resilience and determination really shone through in this meeting, and I pray that they all are able to recognise and fulfil their potential.