Stories of Hope: Onon Charles

Onon Charles is a Sudanese refugee who has spent nearly all of his life growing up in Northern Uganda because his own country, Sudan, is suffering from the turmoil of racial politics and civil war. He and two other classmates have made the 3 hour journey by bus from Adjumani to Gulu simply for the purpose of having an interview with me. Though his two travel companions seem more reserved, Charles strikes up easy conversation as we meet outdoors at a local eatery. I don’t know him as well as I know some other students in the project, but he seems eager for the opportunity to talk with me. He is about 17 years old and in his second year of secondary school. Confident and clever, he revels in the attention as he tells me the story of his life.

Charles is, like many of his Ugandan peers, an Acholi. He was born in Sudan, though he does not know the exact date or place. He has two older sisters, now married, and an older brother from the same father. He knows nothing of his father, but assumes that he is dead. He has never asked his mother what happened and she has never told him anything about his father. In 1993, when Charles was still a baby, his family made the long, dangerous trek from Sudan to Uganda. Along the way, his mother fell sick and was taken to a nearby hospital. Word reached an uncle already in Uganda that Charles’ mother was sick. According to the story told to Charles, his uncle came from Uganda on a bicycle to get the family. Charles tells me that his uncle took the entire family back to Uganda on the bicycle – two rode in front and two in back. In Uganda, the family settled at Maji refugee camp where his mother eventually remarried and had four more children with Charles’s stepfather.

Life as refugees was a struggle, especially for a family with eight children. Charles’ mother continued to suffer periodically from the sickness that plagued her on the journey from Sudan. There were periods, Charles says, when she spent entire years in the hospital. Charles’ stepfather would sometimes try to dull the pain of life with alcohol, rendering him useless as a stable provider for the children. Consequently, one of Charles’ elder sisters would cook and care for the family. When they could, they would try to grow a little food on a small plot of land. However, they relied heavily on the food provided by the UN, as did all the refugees.

The family also endured constant attacks by the LRA in their vulnerable refugee settlement camp. Charles tells me the story of the first time they survived an attack by the rebels. He was about 9 or 10 at the time. The rebels came at night while the family was at home, sleeping. Charles had been dreaming when he suddenly woke up to see rebel soldiers inside the hut. He looked around to see that his step-father was missing. (They later discovered that he had fled the home without taking the rest of the family or even waking them up to warn them that they should flee the home.) The rebels immediately tied up his older brother, Okeny, to take with them back into the bush. They also wanted to take Charles’ older sister, Mary, who was at home. However, she courageously ran out the door before they could bind her. The soldiers chased Mary, but she was able to hide in some dense foliage. They returned to the hut for a torch (flashlight) and continued to search for her in vain. She crawled through the bush and was eventually able to run away and escape. After failing to capture Mary, the rebels took what they wanted from the home, including food, clothing, and Charles’ brother. When the rebels finally turned their attentions elsewhere, Charles, his younger siblings, and his mother fled the home in terror. His mother, who was carrying a baby, fell down as they ran. The rebels saw her fall and taunted her, threatening to make her one of their porters. However, having already taken what they wanted from the home, they eventually left her alone to flee. She and Charles’s siblings ran to hide in the bush until the rebels were gone. However, Charles ran ahead to a neighbor’s home to warn them that the LRA were on their way. As soon as he reached the home and announced the warning, the neighbor family panicked. They rushed to get out the door of their hut, and, in the process, trampled over Charles. Fortunately, he was not injured too badly and ran with them to the bush to hide. They remained hidden for several hours until they believed that the rebels were gone. Eventually, Charles found his mother and siblings and returned with them to their hut. In the morning, both his father and his sister returned, unharmed. However, Okeny did not return that morning. The family was heartbroken and, as Charles tells me, “miserable” the entire time that he was missing.

Okeny spent a month in captivity with the rebels. Apparently, he was forced to carry a heavy load of maize flour, but after a time became too weak to shoulder the load. The rebels gave him smaller pack to carry and forced him to continue. At one point, one of the rebels wanted to burn all the captives, but was restrained by other rebel soldiers. Eventually, the LRA left the captives at a remote camp in the bush, instructing them that when they were found, they were to give the UPDF specific information about where to find the rebel unit. The LRA were hoping to engage the UPDF in a firefight, but needed to use the captives to feed the UPDF information. When the UPDF actually did happen upon the abandoned group of abductees, they nearly mistook them all for rebels. They were about to shoot them as enemy soldiers when an old man in the area persuaded them that the boys were captives who had just recently been released by the LRA. News eventually reached Charles’ family that Okeny was still alive and had been released from captivity. Charles’ uncle rode a bicycle for a very far distance to find Okeny and bring him back home. Charles tells me that Okeny was exhausted and his legs were badly swollen when he returned home, but he was alive.

Following the rebel attacks on their home in Madji refugee settlement, Charles’ family moved several times to other refugee camps (there are many in Adjumani district) which they hoped would afford them more security. During this time, Charles and his siblings also struggled to study in school due to the disruptions caused by war and movement, as well as the problem of money. From P.1 to P.4, one of Charles’ relatives paid his school fees. However, the relative died, and in P.5 Charles found himself wondering how he would finish school. He decided to start his own “business” selling diesel fuel in Adjumani Town. He would purchase the diesel and then resell it in smaller quantities for a tiny profit. Charles would go to school during the day, and then walk to town in the evenings and on the weekends to sell the fuel. Walking to town everyday would have been a daunting task in and of itself considering that his settlement was probably at least 15 to 20 kilometers from town. Then, once in town, he had to acquire the fuel before standing on the streets for hours until it had all been purchased. In one week, Charles might make 2000 shillings from selling fuel, the equivalent of about $1.20. Despite the seemingly minute profit, Charles was able to pay for his uniform and his school fees and he even had some left over to contribute to his family. Because people in Adjumani are so poor and the schools so ill-equipped, school fees are much less there than in other areas of the country. Consequently, Charles was able to afford the payments to help some of his younger siblings attend school as well.

However, the intense schedule of going to school and working every evening took its toll. With the amount of time that was required to sell fuel, Charles did not have enough time to study, and he failed P.5 the first time. The next year, he continued with his business, but made sure to take more time to study. Some days, he would delegate the selling responsibilities to one of his brothers or another relative to give himself the time to work on his studies. This time, he was able to pass P.5. About the time that he completed P.5 successfully, Charles heard of a new project in town that was sponsoring children in their studies. After several trips to town to talk with the Adjumani Children of Hope staff, Chalres was enrolled in the project. Now he no longer had to worry about getting the money to pay his school fees. He and his brothers continued the business, however, because his family still desperately needed the income.

Charles has continued to study through the help of the project and to succeed in the classroom. However, the school system in Adjumani is so poor that the project has been concerned over the quality of education that students receive there. This year, Charles and over a dozen other Adjumani secondary students, at the project’s recommendation, opted to attend a secondary school in Gulu. The students board on school property during the school term, but return home to Adjumani during the holidays to visit their families. Charles seems to like his new school, despite the fact that he is far from his family. His favorite subject in school is Christian Religious Education (CRE) and he hopes to one day have a job which is related to church work or community work.

When I ask him about the situation in Sudan and the problems of being a refugee, Charles has much to say. He shares with me that he does not think the temporary peace in northern Uganda or southern Sudan will last because the leaders have not signed permanent peace agreements. However, he tells me that he believes that there can one day be peace in Sudan. The former leaders of the SPLA movement, he says, were not educated. But now, many young people are receiving an education and are learning about important subjects such as human rights. He hopes that the educated people will one day be able to put an end to the horrible conflict there. If there is ever peace, he says, he will return to live in his mother land. Although he likes Uganda, he admits that being a refugee is incredibly challenging because there is no food and not enough land for everyone to grow food. The refugees must constantly be at the mercy of aid groups such as the U.N. for their food and other goods. In addition, the education options for refugees are extremely poor, and, as a result, many people get married earlier in life – as teenagers – because they have no hope of finishing their education. Early marriage and lack of education only adds to the cycle of poverty many Sudanese refugee families face.

As with every student that I interview, I ask Charles if there is anything else that he wants to say or to tell people in America. First, Charles shares with me that he wants to tell parents that they should also work hard to provide for their children because children have rights too. The only father Charles ever knew was his step-father, a man who was often too inebriated to care for his family properly. He would occasionally helped dig in the garden, but never provided clothing or school fees for his Charles and his siblings. As a result, the children had to find ways to take care of themselves, something Charles realized that they should not have had to do. In addition, Charles says that he simply wants people to know about the difficult life that he had to lead when he was younger – a life rife with the challenges of a sick mother, an absent father, war, lack of food, poverty, and being a refugee. He wants people to know about the challenges that he has faced, not so that they will feel sympathy for him, but rather so that they can draw strength and hope from his life. Despite all those challenges in his life, Charles feels a sense of accomplishment and intense hope now that he has been able to proceed to secondary school. He says that what makes him smile is the fact that the project – or, more accurately, the people in the project – have cared about him. It has given him hope. Now he wants others to know that there is hope out there for them as well.

Stories of Hope: Okullu Jimmy

One word that comes to mind immediately when thinking of Okullu Jimmy is the word “overcomer”. Faced so many daunting and despairing situations in his life, Jimmy could have easily chosen to give in to despair on more than one occasion. Yet he has always found a way to overcome, clinging tightly to his faith through every ordeal. Jimmy is bright young man who is passionate about Jesus. Known by his friends as “pastor”, Jimmy is often leading rousing worship sessions or pious prayer meetings. He is a natural leader both at school and within the project. Though he faces the same problems of poverty as his peers, Jimmy has a decidedly positive outlook on life and he strives to spread that positive attitude to everyone around him.

Jimmy was born and raised as a child in the village of Loro in Northern Uganda. He is from a tribe called the Langi, close relatives of the Acholi. Though both his parents were alive when he was a boy, Jimmy was raised by his maternal grandmother and great-grandmother. As the story goes, Jimmy’s paternal grandmother did not approve of her daughter-in-law - Jimmy’s mother, Grace. Consequently, after Jimmy was born, his paternal grandmother convinced her son (Jimmy’s father) that he should send away his wife and his infant son, and marry another woman instead. Apparently, Jimmy’s father took the advice. He severed his relationship with Grace and married another woman. Grace took her young daughter – Jimmy’s half-sister – and moved to Kampala in hopes of finding some work there. She left Jimmy behind in the village, in the care of her own mother. And that is where Jimmy remained for the first 13 years of his life.

Growing up in the village, Jimmy was surrounded by the culture and lifestyle of his people. His grandmothers instilled in him a respect and understanding of his rich heritage. He became very skilled at farming and growing crops, an important way of life for his tribe and most people in Northern Uganda. His passion and skills did not translate into the classroom, however, where he struggled with his school work. Part of the reason for his struggles was due to the fact that he would sometimes miss school to help plant or harvest the crops. Another reason was the poor quality of teaching and the limited resources available in many rural schools in Northern Uganda. In addition, disruptions caused by war would often distract students and teachers alike from the academic process. The combination of mediocre teaching and the lack of specialized attention prevented Jimmy from realizing his own potential in the classroom. The only subject he enjoyed was mathematics, a subject that dealt with concrete numbers instead of words.

During his early life, Jimmy was too young to understand why his parents were not around. He was probably told that his mother was away working in Kampala. However, he was told nothing about his father. Consequently, Jimmy tells me that, as a young boy, he simply believed that he did not have a father. When Jimmy became older, his grandmother eventually told him the truth: that he did indeed have a father, but that his father wanted nothing to do with Jimmy. The shocking fact was that his father lived nearby and was a man that Jimmy had known and seen before. His grandmothers, bitter and hurt at the way that Jimmy’s father had cast aside his own wife and son so long ago, forbid Jimmy from ever approaching his father. In their minds, Jimmy’s father had made his choice long ago, especially now that he had a new wife and other children, and he did not deserve to have a relationship with his first-born son. He had never helped to provide for Jimmy’s needs, as any responsible father should do, and had never even expressed interest in Jimmy’s life. In their concern, Jimmy’s grandmothers not want to see him hurt further by the man who had abandoned him as a baby.

Living in the same small, rural area, however, makes it difficult to avoid someone completely. Jimmy tells me that he remembers talking with his father one time when they met along the road. As is custom in Uganda, they greeted each other. By this time, Jimmy knew who his father was. And, of course, his father knew who Jimmy was. Jimmy’s father extended an invitation for Jimmy to come visit him at home. Jimmy deliberated within himself, but eventually decided to visit his father. When Jimmy went to his father’s home one day, his father greeted him and made small talk. But in the end, he said that he had nothing to offer to Jimmy as his son. When Jimmy told his grandmother about the visit, she warned him to never go back to his father’s home. That was the only interaction he ever had with his father. Jimmy’s father died in 2003 of a sexually transmitted disease, most likely syphilis or HIV/AIDS.

Jimmy continued to struggle through school in the village. By the time he reached P.5, the class work so challenging for him that he was forced to repeat the grade again the next year. After the second time in P.5, Jimmy was finally promoted to the next class. However, he continued to struggle in P.6 and failed that class the first time as well. He repeated P.6 the next year, but by the time he completed the year, he still struggled to understand the concepts taught by his teachers. His grandmother talked to him about taking a vocational school course the next year, which meant that he would drop out of primary school and learn a skill instead. Jimmy began to think that he would have a better life as a farmer anyhow than he would if he continued to struggle through his studies with little to show for it. Additionally, it was difficult for his grandmother to continue finding the money to pay his school fees. By the end of the school term, Jimmy had decided he would not return to school the next year.

In 2002, the same year he failed P.6 for the second time, Jimmy traveled to Kampala to visit his mother. He had planned on settling down in the village and continuing a life of farming when he returned from his trip. While in Kampala, Jimmy’s mother expressed her desire for Jimmy to come live with her in the city. Jimmy had never been given the opportunity lived with either of his parents. Such an opportunity was nearly too good to be true. He decided that he wanted to stay with his mother, so he moved to Kampala.

Grace desperately wanted her son to continue his education. After moving to Kampala, she encouraged him to continue with school and Jimmy eventually agreed to keep trying. But financial difficulties plagued the family, especially after money was stolen from their home one day. Grace had started her own business selling some small items, but it did not generate much income. She searched Kampala for a school that would allow her to pay the school fees in installments, rather than all at one time. She finally found a school that would enroll Jimmy and accept her partial payments. So Jimmy returned to his studies, but he found a number of challenges awaiting him in his new Kampala school. The most minor of these problems was that he had to walk a very long distance across town each day to and from school. A much bigger problem was the fact that Jimmy could not speak English. Although all schools throughout Uganda are, in theory, required to teach in English, most rural schools do not do so. Jimmy had spent his entire life in the village, speaking his tribal language both at home and at school. But in Kampala, all schools teach in English, even in primary school. Consequently, children in Kampala learn from a young age to speak the language. In addition, the academic standards in Kampala’s urban schools were much higher than the standards in rural schools. Thus, Jimmy was far behind his classmates both in academics and in his ability to speak and understand English. The school decided to demote Jimmy to P.5. After already repeating both P.5 and P.6 in the village, the demotion at his new school was incredibly disheartening for Jimmy. His first semester at the Kampala school was spent struggling to understand English. The only subject in which he could really participate and excel was mathematics. He could at least understand the numbers, even if he did not understand the words that the teacher spoke. After the first term, Jimmy had performed the poorest out of the entire class.

For the second term of the school year, Grace was able to transfer Jimmy to another school that was closer to their home. He would no longer have to walk such a long distance to attend his classes. However, once the teachers at the new school observed Jimmy’s performance in class, they decided to demote him further to P.4. Jimmy became exceedingly discouraged, expressing his desire once again to quit his studies and simply work for a living. But his mother encouraged him to stick with school at least until the end of the year.

In the third and final school term, the family’s financial difficulties were getting worse. Grace’s business had collapsed and she was forced to work in the market sorting beans and peanuts. Every day after school, Jimmy would come to the market to help his mother sort. Their situation became so critical that his mother decided she would leave Kampala and return to the village by the end of the year. They did not even know where they would stay when they reached the village. Jimmy believed that this was the last time he would ever go to school for the rest of his life. Though he knew that he would never be the top student in his class, he wanted to end his education with some kind of small achievement. So he resolved to be the student in his class with the highest marks in mathematics. Incredibly, he succeeded.

By the end of the year, Grace had begun to receive some food through the World Food Program to feed her children. Released from the burden of having to buy food, she could use her paltry earnings from the market to pay rent and the remainder of the school fees that she owed. In addition, the family had another stroke of good luck. A sponsorship program had heard about their struggles and wanted to sponsor Jimmy’s education. Thus, at the end of 2002, Jimmy was enrolled into Children of Hope. His sister also gained sponsorship through another aid organization in Kampala.

Life was suddenly infused with hope for Jimmy and his family. Grace decided to remain in Kampala now that Jimmy and his sister could attend school through the help of the projects. The depression and discouragement that had gripped Jimmy for the whole of the last year suddenly paled as he realized the new world of opportunity that had opened before him. Someone wanted to pay for him to go to school, which meant that someone believed he could succeed! Before he received sponsorship, what Jimmy saw in his future was a “very dark” life of hardship and gloom. But the unexpected aid offered through Children of Hope roused him to believe that he had the chance to “be something” in the future.

Jimmy again transferred to a new school where he began P.5… for the third time. He had at least learned a little English after a year in Kampala, but he still performed very poorly in his classes during the first school term. His marks were slightly better the next term, but he was still near the bottom of his class. Finally, one of Jimmy’s teachers took notice of him. She believed that he was a bright boy, but struggled due to his limited English and disrupted schooling. She moved him to the front of the classroom where she would be able to help him more readily.

It was around this time that Jimmy was given the nickname “Pastor” by his classmates. He had been learning about God both from church and from his involvement with Children of Hope Bible studies. One day, before a big exam, he announced to his classmates that he was going to pray for them to do well on the test. Some students laughed, but others bowed their heads and joined his prayer. After that day, his classmates always waited for him to pray before they started an exam. And they began to call him “Pastor” from that point on.

When he passed P.5 that year, Jimmy had moved up to the number three position in his class - an incredible improvement for a boy that had started out the year in last position. Throughout P.6, Jimmy continued to improve his standing. First term, he was in ninth position. Second term, he was in fifth position. And by the last term, Jimmy had become the top student in his class. He became very popular with the students and teachers alike for his disciplined study and his outgoing personality. In his final year of primary school, P.7, Jimmy was consistently the top student. He was also elected to be “head boy” – the equivalent of school president – by his peers. Such a turnaround, from demoted, dejected village boy to head boy, was astonishing to all who knew Jimmy’s story.

Meeting Jimmy nowadays, I would have never had an inkling of his depressing past. He is confident and outgoing. He has continued his academic excellence well into secondary school and is now into his third year of secondary school. In addition, he continues to be well-liked by his peers and teachers. He was easily elected to be assitant head-boy this term. Jimmy desires to study medicine one day at the university, a dream shared by many Ugandan youth. However, he also has a knack for business. He has often bought seeds or other food products at a low price and then resold it for a profit to help his family. He also still carries the love for farming that was instilled in him by his culture while growing up in the village. He dreams of one day having both a farm - where he can grow crops and raise animals for a profit - and a clinic where he can practice medicine.

Aside from his academic accomplishment, Jimmy has an incredible passion for the Lord. The label of “Pastor” has stuck with him over the years. He is often called upon to lead prayer or worship sessions, a task which he performs with enthusiasm. In addition, he is a member of the Hope Alive! Leadership Corps, a group of students chosen by the director for their outstanding leadership potential. As a member of the Leadership Corps, he is tasked with responsibility to help lead activities or Bible studies for younger students in the project. In addition, he continues to use his excellence in math to help others. He now tutors some of his peers as well as a number of younger Hope Alive! students. Even in the midst of his busy schedule of studies, church activities, and caring for his own family, he finds time to help others.

Jimmy has much to say about the influence of the project on his life. He first points out that the small things the project gave him, such as school supplies and school uniforms, helped him to fit in at school. Because he was wearing a uniform just like all his classmates, people could not judge his background or economic status. It helped to “balance” things and give him more confidence in the classroom. He also appreciates the opportunities given to him by Hope Alive! to be in leadership positions where he could learn how to speak to others and offer guidance. Additionally, Jimmy appreciates how the project has stood by his family, even when his mother has faced extreme financial difficulties. Currently, his mother makes hand-made jewelry which she sells to Hope Alive! in order to get money for rent and food. Finally, Jimmy’s face becomes serious as he tells me what I can see is really on his heart. He says he feels like the project has “built” something in him: a heart of helping. Hope Alive! supported him and saw him through the difficult times in his life. Now he believes God has brought people to him whom he can help in return. Jimmy still lives in poverty, but now he can offer the skills and knowledge that he has gained through his own life situations, coupled with his intimate understanding of the love offered through Christ, to give others hope for their own bleak lives.

Stories of Hope: Ojok Soweto

The term child-headed household is a word commonly spoken in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps such as Koro Abili. In the past decade or so, many children have lost their parents to AIDS or to violence. To make matters worse, the violent conflict perpetrated by the rebel army, the Lord’s Resistance Army, or LRA, often kept them separated from friends and family who might offer support. “Child-headed household” is a term used to describe children in Northern Uganda who are being cared for by older siblings or relatives who are still only children themselves. Most of the child “heads” are in their mid- to upper-teens. However, the anomaly exists of much younger children being forced to care for their families. Ojok Soweto has carried a tremendous burden of responsibility already in his short lifetime. He is now 14 years old, but his serious face speaks of troubles and suffering far beyond his years. He has been the primary caretaker for his three younger siblings for the past three years. He has had to provide food in the midst of desolation, safety in the midst of war, and hope in the midst of despair. He kept his family alive when all they had was each other. Here is his story.

Soweto was born in the village of Abole in 1993. His parents, like most villagers, were peasant farmers. He was the first-born child, followed by two more brothers and a sister. Soweto remembers living in Abole up to the age of 8 or 9 with his parents, siblings, and grandmother. Up to this time, the LRA had made few forays into their village. However, one day, men dressed like the Uganda People’s Defense Forces (UPDF), or government forces, came into the village and began to converse with the people. The villagers were not alarmed because, by this point in the war, the UPDF were there to protect the rural population from the LRA. The soldiers remained in the village for most of the day, even cooking and eating their supper there. However, when the soldiers left later that evening, they stole the villagers’ money and goats and chickens, though they did not harm anyone. The villagers later realized that the men were actually LRA soldiers who had been wearing UPDF uniforms. However, they did not realize they had been tricked until they heard a report that the LRA had attacked a nearby village later that night. It was then that the villagers realized the men who came to their village had actually been LRA soldiers wearing government UPDF uniforms.

After the encounter with the rebels, Soweto’s parents realized the danger of remaining in the village. That same week, they packed up their belongings and moved their family to a place near Gulu Town where they would be less vulnerable to “visits” from the LRA. Soweto had already completed P.1 and P.2 at a school near his village. He had passed P.2 near the top of his class. When he joined another school in town, however, the new school required reports or the proof necessary to show that he had completed P.2 at the village school. In their rush to pack up and leave the village, Soweto’s parents had either lost or failed to obtain the necessary school documents. So, even after all his hard work the year prior, Soweto was forced to repeat P.2. But this was only the beginning of his troubles.

When initially asked about his parents, Soweto becomes quiet, hesitant, and stares at the ground. It is the look and actions of a boy who has had to bear too much in his life. But he slowly begins to tell me more of the story. When Soweto was 10 years old, his family was able to get a bicycle, a much sought after commodity in rural Uganda. His father would often use the bicycle to travel back to the village during the day where he could tend to the family’s garden. Although it was risky to travel to rural areas in an active war zone, Soweto’s father knew that his family would starve without the source of food and income that their garden brought them. Consequently, he would risk the danger on numerous occasions, as did other men, to return to the fields in the village. According to Soweto, his father was riding the bicycle back to town one day when a group of rebels happened upon him. As part of their campaign to inflict fear and control, the LRA had made it common knowledge that anyone caught riding a bicycle would suffer severe consequences. Though the exact details of his father’s death will always be a mystery, Soweto knows that his father died in the bush that day at the hands of the LRA. Later that same year, Soweto says that some other people from the area became jealous of his mother because she had a bicycle. As is a common belief in rural Uganda, he tells me that he thinks they used witchcraft to cause her misfortune. A common “witchcraft” practice in Uganda is to poison people. Possibly poisoned, Soweto’s mother fell sick suddenly and was taken to the hospital. Soweto’s childhood memory is fuzzy when it comes to the details surrounding his mother’s death, but it appears that she was brought back home from the hospital before she died several days later. She was still a young woman, probably only in her twenties.

After his parents’ death, Soweto’s grandmother took the children to Koro Abili IDP camp where she stayed with them for a time. Fortunately, before she died, Soweto’s mother had been saving a little money that she had earned by selling fish in the market. Soweto’s grandmother used that money to build a hut for the family, buy food, and pay the fees for Soweto and his brother Jimmy to go to school. Because he was only a young boy at the time, Soweto says that he does not know exactly how much money his mother had saved before she died. He only knows that his grandmother told him it was finished after she had bought school uniforms for the children. Soweto attended P.3 at a primary school near the camp, but he was unable to pay the exam fees at the end of the year. Consequently, he was not given credit for passing the class.

After a few months, Soweto’s grandmother abandoned the children. It is unclear whether responsibilities elsewhere forced her to leave, or whether she was simply tired of caring for the four children on her own. Whatever the case, Soweto was left with the tremendous responsibility of caring for his three younger siblings. At the time, Soweto was 11, his brothers Jimmy and Dennis were 8 and 4, and his sister Kevin was 3 years old. The children still had the hut that their grandmother had built within the camp, but they had little else for survival save for the clothes on their backs, a few saucepans, and one papyrus mat for them all to sleep on. There were no blankets, no cooking utensils, and no food.

Soweto and his brothers became a team bent on survival. They had no one to turn to but each other. Soweto tells me that his brothers were helpful and would listen to what he told them to do. Their little sister, however, was an added burden. As a baby, she had just been learning how to walk and talk when she came down with a serious illness, probably malaria. She survived, but has not been the same since. After that, Kevin did not speak or interact as other children her age. Also, she had been unable to walk since her sickness. Soweto tells me it was not difficult to take care of Kevin because she did not cry very much. Whenever they had to move long distances, Soweto would carry Kevin on his back. When the boys needed to go out to scavenge for food, little Dennis would stay with her or they would ask a neighbor from the camp to look after her. Kevin seemed largely unaware of all that was going on around her. Perhaps it was a blessing that she didn’t understand the gravity of their situation.

The children persistently faced the problem of food. A sympathetic neighbor from his old village allowed Soweto to come and do a little work in his local hotel. Soweto would wash the dishes and sometimes help to wait on tables. More importantly, he had the opportunity to observe how the food was prepared. As a male child, he had never been formally taught to cook, and thus had no skills to prepare food for his siblings. He struggled with what little he had learned at the restaurant, as well as through trial-and-error, to cook supper for his family. However, besides the problem of preparation, Soweto had no money and no goods for which to obtain food. Sometimes he would go out to the bush to search for wild roots and vegetables. Other times, he would search in the garbage. According to one of the original project mentors, when the project staff originally came across the children, Soweto was cooking vegetable peelings that he had found in the trash piles around the camp. Another time when an aid worker visited, the children were eating molded, contaminated bread because they had nothing else.

Additionally, the children faced the imminent worry of an attack by the LRA. If the rebels were to raid the camp, the children would run to the bush and hide just like everyone else. But the camp and the surrounding area offered little protection. Soweto tells me that he had always felt much safer when his family lived near town, a place where the rebels feared to venture. In the camp, as young children without a parent to protect them, Soweto and his siblings were incredibly vulnerable. Soweto especially, because of his age and his sex, would have been sought after by the LRA as a new “recruit” for their cause. Had he attempted to flee with three young children in tow, especially one who was disabled, Soweto would have been an easy target for abduction. Fortunately, the children did not suffer through any major attacks by the LRA while they were alone in the camp, though the threat constantly loomed over them.

In 2006, Children of Hope opened a site in the Gulu area. Their initial focus was to enroll children of child-headed households. Soweto, Jimmy, Dennis, and Kevin were one of the first families to be supported by the project. They immediately began to receive food supplements and eventually were given additional supplies such as cooking pots, mattresses, clothes, mosquito nets, etc. Even more importantly, a Children of Hope mentor was assigned to watch over the family. The mentor, whose name was Martin, began to visit and check on the children several times a week to provide compassionate oversight and to ensure that the children were receiving the things that they needed. Gradually, the children began to emerge from the dark life of mere survival that they had been forced to live.

These days, Soweto’s grandmother has returned to the camp to live with the children. Now that the burden of provision has been lightened by sponsorship, perhaps his grandmother now feels that she can handle caring for her grandchildren. However, Soweto’s grandmother is elderly and frail, and the burden of responsibility still falls largely upon Soweto’s young shoulders. He alone digs in the family’s garden because his grandmother is too sickly and the other children are still too young. However, his grandmother will sometimes walk the 7 km to the family’s garden to help collect the rubbish (discarded weeds and debris). Soweto tells me that it takes her all day to make the journey because she is so weak. The three boys are all in school. Without an educated adult at home to help them and encourage them, however, the two younger boys especially struggle with their studies. Little Kevin still lacks the social and perhaps mental capacity to be able to interact as other children her age. The project has pursued means to determine the nature of her disability, but medical experts are in short supply in Northern Uganda and it has been difficult to find a doctor who can make an accurate assessment of her condition. With some encouragement, she has now begun to stand and to walk for short distances, though her legs are still weak. Kevin stays with her grandmother, or a neighbor, during the day while her brothers are in school.

After missing a year or two of school following his parents’ deaths, Soweto leapt back into his academics with a passion. Last year he passed P.3 as the top student in his class. Although this year, he is 14 and only in P.4, he continues to delve into his studies with enthusiasm. When asked what makes him happy in life, Soweto says that learning something new in school and understanding it causes him a happiness that stays with him all the way until he reaches home. A hint of pride and accomplishment briefly appears in his face as he talks about school. He loves to learn and is obviously a bright student. Hopefully, the passion for learning will remain with him as he continues to mature. Oftentimes, children who are behind in school struggle as they mature to deal with the embarrassment of being older than all their classmates. As it is, Soweto will not graduate from primary school until he is 17 or 18. Soweto makes no response when asked about his dreams for the future. Perhaps in his attempts to survive the present, he has not allowed himself to think about the future. Eventually, Soweto provides a general answer in reference to his future. He hopes to have a good family, to be “close to God”, and to be able to help other people. He says that if he ever had the means, he would buy a plot of land in town because that area is more secure in the event of war. Then, if the fighting resumes (which it very well may), he can offer a safe place for his family and others who might want to come stay with him.

The problems Soweto’s family faces now concern the consequences of peace. Yes, peace. Authorities are encouraging people in the camps to return to their villages now that there has been peace for the past two years. In fact, they are beginning to force people out. Soweto worries about how his family will manage the move. They have no one to help them rebuild their home in the village. The children will have to travel a much greater distance to reach their school. They will be further away from the oversight and aid of the project. Sadly, all they have is currently in the camp. If they leave, they will again have nothing. This is the problem faced by many of the project’s children who are part of child-headed households. Hope Alive! is working on solutions to aid the children in their relocation outside the camp and forming plans for continuing to monitor them on a weekly basis.

Soweto, his brothers, and his sister have come a long way in the past few years. Though Soweto still maintains a veneer of seriousness and intensity, he is now beginning to enjoy some aspects of his childhood that were lost - such as being able to play soccer and spending time talking with his friends. He and his siblings are now beginning to feel that sense of security that they lacked for so long. They are now beginning to think about the future. Soweto’s advice to others, especially those who have had to grow up without their parents: “Don’t worry, because God can still make the situation change [for the better].”