Deaf/hearing YWAM Team

Deaf/hearing YWAM team learns much from their hosts in Kitgum, N Uganda

Unexpectedly, we were generously lent a new town house by one PAG member, Rhoda, who was also the Assistant Chief Administration Officer for the District. We invited Rhoda to outline some of the challenges Kitgum District faced and her District’s vision and goals. Students were quite surprised at the amount of issues and the scale of need her office has to try to deal with. A much deeper understanding grew of the implications  of widely varying attitudes towards taxation.

    Pastor Jackson, founder of the PAG church in Kitgum took us to an exhibition  where we were shown photos and objects unique to the Acholi Tribe, who make up much of the local population. We were shown a recently made film, ‘Untreated Wounds’, which outlined some of the atrocities and the efforts being made to bring perpetrators to justice, to gain compensation victims to re-settle Abducted children were brain washed to kill, often their own tribes people in other villages. An incredibly complex situation! Two of our students were orphaned during the raids & two staff also had to flee for their lives in earlier conflicts.

    The whole team was very moved by Glory Special Needs School Director, Nurse Sister Teddy (top right) ’s explanation of how 30 of her 120 children there were dumped anonymously outside the school during the night, leaving the school with the difficult dilemma of accepting children without any school fees.

    Now parents whose children have Nodding Diseases were also asking the school to care for theirs but the spread of the disease is making all fearful to try and meet their needs. Some of us, centre photo, were taken to one of numerous villages where the disease has affected many. Some of the follow on epileptic fits result in  severe burns or drownings for those fitting near stoves or water. Few can swim and most are scared by the sight of the convulsions.