Real Partners Uganda - Newsletter12-07


Warthog mother nurses her piglets at Lake Mburo National Park. These are a favorite prey of hyenas and leopards that live in the park.	Spotted (laughing) hyena guards the entrance to the pack's underground burrow. Looks cute, but these 70 lb. animals are ferocious carnivores.

FILLED TO OVERFLOWING

by Elaine Griswold

After three wonderful weeks, we reluctantly said good-bye to our Ugandan friends and headed back to the U.S.A. Since then, I’ve been in Uganda in my dreams, and many of my waking moments are spent “being there.” It’s difficult to describe how much Africa can possess you. The land, the wildlife and the people worm their ways into your heart, and you are changed forever. It’s like an addiction; but one that energizes and gives perspective to your life. That is, when it doesn’t totally overwhelm you. Today, I’m feeling energized by it, so I will try to complete this newsletter.

First let me mention a delightful discovery that we made on this trip. A new “lodge” has opened in Lukaya: Bismilah. It is right next door to the guesthouse where we stayed on previous trips, but it is a big step up in comfort. “En suite” facilities- with flush toilets! Need I say more?

Our safari to Western Uganda was book-ended by two periods in Lukaya. Three of our leaders from Lukaya (John, George and Stephen), along with Judy Sconyers and, our partner in conservation and tourism, David Bakeine, joined us for three days at Lake Bunyonyi. It was wonderful to explore a different part of the country with our Ugandan friends. Traveling by boat was a first-in-a-life-time experience for John and George, and they were petrified, but came to enjoy it. Lake Bunyonyi is near David’s home village, and we spent a very rainy Sunday with his family at their church and home. The church service included enthusiastic praising, beautiful singing, clapping, jumping, two baptisms and multiple thanksgiving offerings. It ended with an auction of the gifts (avocados, cabbage, a rooster etc.) that people offered earlier; yet, it had an air of dignity and reverence. Although we couldn’t understand most of the words spoken in the local Rukiga language, we weren’t bored after three hours of sitting in the very front (place of honor).

The rest of our safari included Lake Mburu and Queen Elizabeth National Parks. Near the end of our safari, our senses were delighted by the sights, sounds, flavors, smells, and comforts of Jacana Lodge. It sits perched on the side of a crater lake, deep in the tropical forest of Queen Elizabeth NP. For the two nights we were there, we were their only guests. Talk about attentive service. What a memorable and restorative experience!

Our days in Lukaya were filled to overflowing. We spent many evening hours in discussion with friends and partners sitting on the tiny veranda of our room, sipping a cool drink and eating snacks. During the day we worked at the Good Shepherd CCC, attended church in Kalungi followed by dinner at Rev. Godfrey’s home, visited St. Stephen’s (Kalungi) Primary School, Kalungi Health Centre, the Masaka District Chairman^s house, and Eagles Wings Children’s Village. We were guests of honor at a fantastic groundbreaking celebration for the new Good Shepherd CCC campus. We attended meetings of the Good Shepherd PTA-Parents’ Council, and the Board of Trustees. We toured and discussed plans for the property and inspected progress there. We met with the Artisans Guild and bought lots of their baskets and crafts to give away and sell in the States.

We are happy to report that our meetings with the PTA leaders and the Board (and our whole experience in Lukaya) inspired and encouraged us. These community leaders are ready to take on a more active role in supporting and giving guidance to Good Shepherd in this new and exciting phase in its development

SPONSOR A CHILD PROGRAM

By Jackie Sarner

PACKAGES DELIVERED . . . Thanks to the gifts, money and small packages from sponsors and donors, we were able to assemble a little package for each of our 120 sponsored children. Upon arrival in Lukaya, it was our goal to visit each child’s home to deliver those packages and to interact with each family. We couldn’t have completed our task if it were not for George Kateregga, GSCCC’s Superintendent, who knows each child and living situation. A special thanks also goes to Judy Sconyers who finished the task during the days that three of us were away from Lukaya. (See her reflections in the article below.) It was especially meaningful for us to see the living arrangements for these children, to meet those who care for them, and to gain some additional information to share with the sponsors.

Children frequently can be seen in Lukaya carrying younger siblings who are entrusted to their care while parents work. The baby on this little girl's back is napping in the midst of all this commotion.

SPECIAL NEEDS . . .While there, I learned that Lukaya is an overnight stop for trucks that travel between Mombasa in Kenya and Rwanda. As a result, Lukaya has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS cases, prostitution and orphaned children in all of Uganda. This situation is reflected in the children and families who attend Good Shepherd. Some of our children are orphaned and are cared for by extended family members like aunts or grandparents. There are six children who are being cared for by a matron who is given a small stipend from GSCCC. So there is a greater need than I ever anticipated!

As we walked through the village visiting families, it became apparent that some of our children have needs that extend beyond what the school sponsorships can provide. Many sleep on the floor, or ground, and do not have bedding: mattresses, sheets, blankets or pillows. Several walk to school in shoes that are too big or inadequate to protect them from the elements.

ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE . . .Many of our school families are not able to speak English; however, it is very clear that they appreciate all that is done for them. These signs of gratitude are built into the culture—warm handshakes, a woman going down on a bent knee, children grasping our hands and grinning, tears of joy and gratitude, etc. Meetings began with comments of appreciation. There were heartfelt announcements, both public and private, related to our work in Lukaya. There is no doubt that these people truly and graciously appreciate the support that they feel from their American families.

MORE SPONSORS NEEDED . . . Because of the generosity of people like you, we have been able to sponsor 120 children at Good Shepherd Child Care Centre. However, we learned from George Kateregga that there is a list of over 50 children who currently need sponsors. Please consider how you might help: talk to others about our program and encourage them to sponsor a child, consider sponsoring a second child, get a group together ... How wonderful it would be to start out the year with a flood of responses by folks like you who are willing to sponsor these children!

Editor’s note: To sponsor a child or provide some of the basic needs all our kids have, please go to How to Help...

REFLECTIONS FROM JUDY’S JOURNAL

by Judy Sconyers

George and I walk in the village from 4:00 until the light leaves us, and I can no longer see the children through the lens of my camera. We are delivering small gifts to the children of Good Shepherd Child Care Centre and taking photographs for their sponsors. George knows each child personally and where the family lives. As we wander farther and farther away from the familiar town center where the poverty is so visible and not alleviated by the garden plots and matoke plantings, the houses become grouped in small villages of their own and the surroundings are greener and more pleasing to my eye. The children play in groups, running and calling. Older children are returning from school in their identifying uniforms. A man pushing a bicycle has fish in his basket, and a woman is choosing one. Other women are sitting on mats on the ground preparing plantains (matoke) for their dinners, and in front of each is a pile of green peels and a pile of hard, white plantain. They will be wrapped in banana leaves and steamed over a small wood or charcoal fire.

As the day winds down, children bath themselves in or over colorful plastic basins which contain water hauled from a spigot somewhere in the distance. I myself bathed over just such a basin last night, but in the privacy of my bathroom where the spigot came out of the wall. As the evening progresses, the light fades, and the children^s activities have quieted from the noisy play of the afternoon. We walk by small mud or brick houses, and the tenor of the atmosphere has become more inward; adults and children are talking and laughing quietly around their evening meals in the glow from their cooking fires. They glance up curiously, and we call good evening.

The darkness is gathering in that profound African way where there is no electricity for street lights or TV's or computer games, and I ask George to lead me home. I am grateful for my flashlight and bug spray. After all, I am a stranger here.


Woman peels green bananas to prepare them for mashing and cooking to make Matoke, a food staple	Evening bath. With no showers in most homes children use wash tubs

SPONSOR A TEACHER PROGRAM

by Joe Griswold

Since our first trip to Uganda in 2003, we have worked, in a variety of ways, with St. Stephen's Primary School in Kalungi, a village outside of Lukaya. We’ve developed a special relationship with their remarkable headmaster, Gordon Ssekibaala, who works with a faculty of 10 or so dedicated teachers to teach over 700 students in this government-sponsored school. We have visited four times now, and each time we are welcomed warmly, introduced with speeches and entertained with a concert put on by their older students accompanied by drums. Seeing the children without shoes and in ragged uniforms performing with such joy brings tears to our eyes. We have managed to provide some help by engaging other organizations in fund-raising efforts. Last year St. Stephen^s was named a “model” school, thanks in large part to the efforts of Headmaster Gordon.

Sadly, in most of Uganda, public schools are failing to provide children with a sound education in the primary grades. There are several reasons including very low funding for school books, supplies and equipment, and extremely high student to teacher ratios. For example, St. Stephen's receives an amount equal to $100 US per year for all costs beyond salaries, and average class size hovers around 70 students with one teacher; some classes are up near 100! There is little wonder that huge numbers of children start primary school and most have dropped out before they finish primary 7. Those dropouts are sentenced to lives of hardship.

The Ugandan educational “crisis” is just one reason why our partners at Good Shepherd Child Care Centre are committed to a quality education for each child that includes learning in a classroom with no more than 30 students and with adequate educational materials for teachers and students. Obviously, teaching this way costs more than the government model; but it is very clear already that results are far superior. To fund these “higher” educational costs, we previously developed the Sponsor a Child Program (see the article by Jackie Sarner above). In recent months, we have been approached by three donors who wondered about sponsoring teachers, rather than children. We were delighted, and the donors were amazed to learn, that for most teachers, the cost was between $1500 and $1800 per year. For this, GSCCC provides a fair salary and a benefits package.

We hope that individuals who sponsor teachers may have occasional direct communication with them through email. During our recent trip to Uganda, we interviewed each of the eleven teachers and the administrators at Good Shepherd. All four of us were impressed with the strength, dedication, and overall happiness of the faculty. They were very positive about their fellow teachers and supervisors and the cooperative working environment. Predictably, all would welcome a pay “increment” plus more materials, equipment and classroom space. The three sponsored faculty members expressed sincere gratitude for the support, and especially for the fact that someone in the U.S. cares enough about them and what they are doing to make a large commitment. We hope to have even more sponsors for our teachers at the time of our next visit.

Teachers Agnes (top), Sylvia (middle) and Amina (bottom) are hoping for sponsors, The cost is $1600 per year including salaries, food, housing and a savings plan.

We hope you might consider sponsoring a teacher, either individually or with a group of friends. See Sponsor a Teacher...

Parents and town officials dressed up for the 2007 Ground Breaking Day celebration visit the new poutry house built with donations from Community Presbyterian Church in Brigantine, NJ

GROUNDBREAKING CELEBRATES CAMPUS DEVELOPMENT

by Joe Griswold

During our recent stay in Lukaya, we joined a celebration of groundbreaking at the Good Shepherd Campus. Over 250 people attended an event that included performances by the children, speeches, presentations of gifts, dancing and a full Ugandan meal, cooked outdoors by the GSCCC staff. Guests included parents, town officials, and representatives from both local and district (state) governments. Nearly everyone was dressed for a party, with women in their floor-length dresses of beautiful fabrics and many men in coats and ties. All this happened in a big open-sided tent erected on the school playground under sunny (hot) skies.

Following dinner, nearly all the guests walked up the dirt road, muddy and rutted from earlier showers, to the new campus where we climbed on small trails and through grasses and weeds to the site of the new poultry building. This facility, built with donations from Community Presbyterian Church of Brigantine, will house over 400 chickens, an incubation /storage room, and an apartment for the caretaker (see picture sheet). Later, we joined in a tree planting ceremony.

We walked around the property several times during our visit to do the initial site planning. During one visit, I walked up over the crest of a hill and came face-to-face with a beautiful red and white spotted cow. A hybrid, she has the very long horns of the local Ankole breed, and her swollen belly confirmed that she was in advanced stages of pregnancy. When you look at her picture you will understand why we named her Freckles. Recently, Freckles gave birth to a healthy she-calf that looks just like her mother.

Our walks also took us through planted fields with beans, bananas, maize, and fruit trees. It was so encouraging to see that very soon our children will have a more nutritious diet, and that income will be generated from sales of excess produce, eggs and milk to support the education of children at Good Shepherd Child Care Centre. We are on the road to self-sufficiency!

If you would like to help, please consider a donation to help us build a corral and barn for our cow and calf, and the other farm activities. See Campus Development...

Good Shepherd kids (center) make friends. Oscar Ssenkindu (lf) and Sarah Kamatenesi (rt) are sponsored by the children of Leeds Ave. Elementary School in Pleasantville, NJ.

"Little Ones"

Children!!

Lots of children
Children carrying children on their backs
Children calling: Hi Mzungu, Bye Mzungu,
Hi Mzungu, Mzungu, Mzungu!
Children with hands reaching out to touch white skin
Children “helping” me up the mountain side
Children climbing into my lap
Children kneeling at my feet in thanks for a gift brought from far away
Children singing
Children dancing
Children clapping and smiling
So many children--
some bright and shiny
some caked with mud
Precious children; loved by God.

REFLECTIONS ON UGANDAN CHILDREN
By Elaine Griswold

Based on Mark 10:13-16 (loosely translated in the Good Shepherd motto: “Forbid us not.”)

After four visits totaling nearly twelve weeks in East Africa and lots of reading and communicating with Ugandan friends, I’ve come to understand gradually how our visiting, sponsoring, sending a note or a gift, paying attention to Ugandan children makes them feel special and gives them hope--it blesses them.

The first insight I had about this came from our bird guide in 2003. Hamlet Mugabe is now a thirty-year-old but he remembers well how it felt to be young and very poor, growing up in a small town in the southwest of Uganda. Every once in awhile a white person, a Mzungu, came through town. If the Mzungu was pushing his bike up the steep hill near Hamlet’s home, a gang of little boys would beg to push the bike for him. Whomever the Mzungu chose had a story to tell and felt very special for a long time. This was not because the visitor gave him money or candy but because he gave the child attention.

We have seen this same thing time and again--especially with the children of Lukaya and at Good Shepherd in particular. It is rare for a child to ask for anything more than to hold a hand or sit in a lap. These small exchanges make the child feel very happy.

Judith and Lydia are two little Good Shepherd girls we met in Jan. 2006. They are twins and sponsored by our friends from north Jersey. When we met them they were very shy and frightened. We could not get them to smile or even to look at the camera. In Nov. 2006 we saw a change--and on this recent visit the change was dramatic. They came over to us and offered us a lollipop during the big groundbreaking celebration. They both wanted to sit in our laps. Their mother is trying to hold her family together, but it is very difficult. She has 5 children and one grandchild, and they all live in one rented room. She has no regular work; but she has hope for the future for at least two of her children, and she is so grateful; she spent a few shillings on lollipops so that her girls would have a gift to present to the Mzungus.

Teacher Agnes Namugerwa gave us more insight into how fragile the self-images of these children are. We interviewed all the teachers and we asked each what could be improved at Good Shepherd. Among her answers was: uniforms for all of the children. We asked her why that would be so important--explaining that in the U.S. most schools don’t have uniforms. She said, “without a uniform the child feels isolated, but, we love them. They feel smart and part of the school when they have a uniform on.”

It doesn’t take much to make a big difference in the lives of these children. Our sponsorship, cards, visits and small gifts say “we care,” “you are special,” “you matter” “I believe in you.” Many times it’s this encouragement that gives the child in poverty enough to find a way out.

We are blessed to have as partners young men and women who had some encouragement when they were young. We can see the results of someone else’s kindness. Just two examples:
Hamlet Mugabe was befriended by a scientist from Colorado who lived across the road from him as a teenager. He taught him how to identify birds, and Hamlet found his passion. After a hard struggle and much determination to get more training, he is now a field scientist hired by Wildlife Conservation Society (Bronx Zoo); and he has his own safari tour guide company: Hamlet Birding Tours and Safaris.

George Kateregga was sponsored by World Vision when his mother was dying from AIDS. He did so well in school that he was sponsored all the way through his university studies. He’s now the superintendent of Good Shepherd Child Care Centre. He knows every child--all 275 of them--and their family situations. His sponsor’s investment is now paying off more than a hundred-fold.

Each of our leaders has a similar story--someone in their childhood blessed them and helped them to see that they had potential--that poverty was not their life sentence.

Now, we are blessed to be partnering with these amazing people and confident that all that is being done to encourage the children at Good Shepherd will make a difference--now, and even more in the future. Thank you all for supporting, sponsoring and encouraging this project.

Donors may receive the paper version of our newletter, Partners' Progress - Uganda by mail.