Prison Party! - Parting Gift = 2 year old

Today was an awesome day……an extremely long and dirty day, but amazing still the same. We left the house at 6:30 am and got home after 7:30 pm. Renske has been working with a group called Foodstep for the past year or so. The organization was founded by a Belgian couple about 6 years ago. They are pretty amazing and the work they do is not easy. They started out on a completely different project in Northern Uganda but when they found out about a "rehabilitation project" sponsored by the government that is essentially a children's prison, they invested all of their efforts to this project.

The prison is called Kampiringisa and is a place where children from the streets end up if they are caught by the police. There are frequently "round-ups" of street children where up to 300 at a time are put into huge trucks and driven an hour and a half (or a 3 day walk) outside of the city to a place where they can't run away back to the city. Although, hundreds escape every year and find their way back to the streets - begging, stealing, or doing whatever they need to survive. The conditions in the prison are not great, and when Nathalie and Werner started out, they were apparently much worse. There is so much I could do to explain the living conditions today, but I am going to stick to the big points and if you want more details you can ask me the specifics. The NGO also has a website http://www.kampiringisa.org

First of all, the only real adults in the prison are the guards, who don't do much except for count to make sure the children are where they are supposed to be and punish them by beating if they are disobeying or if they try to run. There is a social worker employed by Foodsteps that helps with minor things, but not the day to day tasks. This means that the children learn to fend for themselves. They do the cooking, the washing, the cleaning and caring for younger children. There are children as young as 1 year old in Kampiringisa - how a child could end up there is sad. Sometimes a parent simply abandons them to the prison, sometimes they are caught by the police on the streets, and sometimes the parents are in prison so the children are sent to Kampiringisa. The worst is that the government is supposed to be providing the funding to support the rehabilitation of the children, yet little has been done beyond a very minimal amount for food and guards to be paid. NGO's such as Foodsteps have built new buildings, starting a woodworking and leather work shop to make furniture and shoes, built gardens, and provides medical care weekly to the children. They visit every Thursday and every 2nd Saturday have a party with good food including meat and vegetables instead of rice, beans and porridge. The kids trust the Foodsteps volunteers because they are a consistent presence in their lives, which most of these kids have never had.

In addition to the work in the prison, Foodsteps attempts to locate families and permanent homes for children through social workers. If no family can be found, they offer to take the child to the Foodstep home where they have a real bed, clothes to call their own, consistent meals, school support, and basically a loving family environment. The have helped so many children, but the numbers of children never seem to get lower. They have been working so hard and continue to have a positive attitude about their work and their mission. They are truly an inspiration and I hope I get to see more of what they do.

As for our day, we were helping with a group of dentists who came to provide care for all of the children. They yanked quite a few rotten teeth today an did some basic cleaning and preventive care for the kiddos. In the meantime, the rest of us spent time with the kids, helped them eat lunch and dinner, and played games with them. In addition, Renske has been providing basic medical care and supplies to the kids so we help a little with cleaning some wounds and applying some ointments to faces. These are the days that I love in Uganda. I come home and all I want to do is shower because I am full of food, feces, sweat, dirt, and probably lots of other things. Showering is amazing because you wash off a film of red dirt and usually reveal a bit of sunburn and some new scratches and bruises. It's totally worth it to be helping to make an impact in these kids' lives, knowing that the project is very well managed and has been a consistent presence for the kids.

I have a hard time putting into words all the thoughts that were running through my head today. The biggest thing is that I can't imagine these kids are just completely abandoned. They have no family, no community, not even an orphanage that has taken them in. There aren't foster homes waiting for them, there are not other alternatives. It is literally a dumping ground to get them off the streets. If they try to leave, they are tracked down and brought back. Some of the young ones are bullied by the older ones rather than being taken care of by them.

Today Renske was able to get permission to take a 2 year old girl, Rose out of the prison to be eventually placed into Foodsteps. Since they have never had a child as young as 2 and she is basically about as developed as my 8 month old nephew, Renske took her in for at least the weekend to get her cleaned up, checked out by a doctor and hopefully ready to live in a stable, but busy environment. Can you imagine what is going through her head? She doesn't speak any language we understand because she comes from a tribe that doesn't speak Luganda or English. She has only known the streets and Kampiringisa. Now she rode in a private car, had dinner sitting at the table, took a bath (and cried the whole time), and is going to sleep in a bed for the first time ever……ever! That's over 2 years sleeping on the ground or a floor.

I like working on projects like this, and seeing what people really go through in Uganda, but it is so hard to see. Even visiting the country, it is easy to separate yourself from what is really going on if you aren't paying attention to the realities. There are still children abandoned, there are still witchdoctors casting spells, there is female circumcision, there are child sacrifices, and there are kids suffering without anybody in the world to stand up for them. Although I now know many Ugandans who have a pretty good chance in life, with parents, an education, and opportunities, I sometimes forget what happens those that are the worst off. The most promising thing is that Nathalie and Werner along with Renske are showing these kids that people love and believe in them through persistent involvement in their lives and teaching them about Jesus. A favorite part of almost any day trip is the singing. The kids got together with drums, dancing and singing to praise God through music. They get truly excited and are given an opportunity through Foodsteps for a better chance in life.

Okay, that is a long rant, and there is so much more I could say about the day and about the project, but I can only say so much and you probably are having a hard enough time reading through this long length of writing. I didn't take pictures today because it is frowned upon by the guards and I don't like to overstep any boundaries. It's basically a bunch of big buildings without any real private space for anybody. Oh yeah, and there are locks on all of the sleeping rooms so that the kids can't get out in the middle of the night. I think I still need to fully process the entire concept of this place and all of the things that went through my head as I heard stories and saw the children living at Kampiringisa.