It’s been a while, and world of COVID-19 continues to deliver unexpected challenges and opportunities. My family and I are fortunate in that we live rural lives, and those have remained relatively unchanged, with minor adjustments. But others have not been so fortunate, and the pandemic has had a devastating impact on many in our own communities and around the world.
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| Peter in 2013 |
During this time, I’ve found myself more reconnected with Uganda than I have been for a while, largely because of Peter, a young man some of you may remember from my time in Peace Corps and a blog I wrote about him on this site in March of 2013. When I met Peter, it was in the context of his trying to help the street kids, and only later did I discover that Peter himself was living on the streets. His desire to help others, even as he, himself, needed help, was what drew me into Peter’s realm and prompted me to help fund his return to school. Some of you reading this contributed to that effort and Peter and I both remain very grateful for the extra years of education that has afforded.
As we’ve stayed in contact through the years, I’ve witnessed Peter’s continued commitment to helping “his” kids through a charity he founded, M-Power Gulu (aka Edu-Power Gulu). Peter’s focus has been getting kids back to school, receiving vocational training, and when appropriate, helping kids reconnect with their families and villages. There are 800-some-odd homeless kids in Gulu, and Peter’s organization serves about 70 of them. They are homeless for many reasons, but most are related directly or indirectly to the twenty-year war waged in the north, ending in 2005/6.
When COVID-19 arrived, we all know it has hit the most vulnerable hardest, regardless of their country or status. The homeless children in Gulu were no exception.
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| Some of Peter’s Kids |
When the street-children lost their access to food sources with the closing of businesses, loss of tourism, etc. the usual food-scarcity became a full-scale crisis. As they scavenged for food, many were savagely beaten and/or raped. As the situation worsened, I made the decision to start a GoFundMe campaign to help feed the children and, when appropriate, re-connect kids with their families and villages. If you’re interested in learning more about that, or contributing, click Feeding Homeless Children in Uganda.
This blog is simply to bring you up to speed on what that campaign has made possible, thus far, and share what some others in the world are facing as a result of the pandemic.
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| Peter now, with some of the homeless he is helping |
The campaign is twofold in its goals: feed the kids and re-home as many as possible. The re-homing is really important, because it accomplishes a number of worthy goals, one of which is to reduce the number of at-risk children on the streets of Gulu. That in turn reduces the number of children who need to compete for food in an already strained system. More importantly, it reunites kids with family.
I know what you might be thinking; I’ve thought it, too. If they wanted to be with their families or could be, why are they on the streets, and it is really healthy for them to return home, depending on the causes for their being homeless. This is a complicated question, because we all know there are many reasons kids end up on the streets: finances, abuse, adolescent rebellion, and stubbornness… There’s a long list. But in Uganda, there is another cause, and it goes back three decades to the war years. Kony’s war.
To this day, many of the homeless can trace their situation to some family member being a victim of that war, either directly or indirectly: grandparents killed thereby orphaning their children, who went on to have children, who, themselves were orphaned. The war lasted twenty years and spanned three generations, resulting in unimaginable cruelty, loss, HIV/Aids, and crushing poverty. The list is endless, so Peter’s kids and hundreds of others are left dealing with the fallout.
Your funds are helping!
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| Travel is daunting |
Here’s what your funds have helped accomplish thus far and it’s just the beginning: in the past 24 hours four children have been reconnected with parents in villages as far as a day’s drive away. Just getting there is a challenge, as you can see from the picture on the left. A trip that might take an hour in the states, can take most of a day in the bush and more, if it’s rainy season.
In Peter’s words:
Peter with Okello and David “Okello and David were so please yesterday to meet their elder brother and his wife Aber and their ground father (grandfather) Onen Patrick, when we reached there, they welcome us in very special way that I can’t explain the joy they felt to see their Sons again after a long times and they even thought that they will never see them again.
The Father said that we send his greeting to YOU and he glad for the pray and donated to support this program which has made his family back together, he said his family started separated after when the rebels took his Son who was the father of Okello and David and killed them, ever since their father was arrested and killed by rebel, his family has been going through a lot of problems and he is glad that God is fixing now, he added by requesting that if some help could be offer to build some small house for his two ground sons who had returned home he will be glad for that since they will still to borrow a place to sleep, David and Okello also added that they will work hard to make sure that they settle themselves they we taught them to work hard and I said to them that all things are possible when they believe and trust in God and work hard for it.”
The remaining kids are receiving nutritious meals consisting of beans, rice, posho (think hard-cooked grits), green and some meat. Yesterday more funds were released to purchase basic cooking supplies and more food, making it more cost effective moving into the future.
All meals are served on reusable plates and utensils, so there is no waste of funds on disposables.
Thanks for reading, and again, please feel free to share the blog or the link to the GoFundMe Campaign.
https://www.gofundme.com/manage/feeding-homeless-kids-in-uganda
Stay safe and thank you all for your continued interest and support.
Nancy