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.
