Salvation Army team in Uganda continues to help 'returnees'
A young woman is trained in brick laying
IN Northern Uganda the truce between the rebel Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) and other parties is holding firm and people who fled the fighting are gradually returning to their villages and trading centres. Sadly, in many instances they return to find buildings destroyed and no basic infrastructure in place. This is where The Salvation Army International Emergency Services team – Major Ray Brown (UK), Captain Stuart Evans (Australia) and Micah Raymond (Canada) – comes in, as it helps 'returnees' to go back to something like their former level of livelihood.
One of the activities that the International Emergency Services (IES) team has focused on has been the construction of permanent Early Childhood Development centres (ECDs). In some cases temporary structures that were put up quickly and cheaply as a response to immediate need have been replaced and in other situations ECDs are being constructed on newly-identified sites. ECDs give pre-school children who have been living in anything but normal conditions support and a feeling of 'normality'.
Some ECDs have been finished and handed over to the community but the construction programme has not been straightforward. Weeks of overnight rains have turned some roads into quagmires, with only four-wheel drive vehicles having a hope of accessing certain areas. On at least one occasion Simon, the IES construction contractor, has had to sleep overnight alongside his crew in his lorry on the road, the vehicle having been completely bogged down way into the bush.
It may seem amusing to be stuck in the mud but road transport is a serious issue. Dangerous at the best of times, it is worse in wet conditions. Recently, an ambulance on an emergency call got stuck on a road that the team uses regularly and the patient died at the scene.
The rains have made the sites themselves problematic. At Apado, for example, a pit latrine had to be dug twice and eventually abandoned before a completely new location was chosen. It is a back-breaking job to dig deep pits and you can only feel sorry for the labourers.
Linked with the ECD programme is a caregivers training programme. The caregivers – volunteers selected and supported from within the local community – are trained to look after children within the ECD programme. Two types of training have been organised – a basic course for new and potential caregivers and an advanced course for those who have completed the basic training and want to progress further. So far, almost 350 people have taken the courses. Local trainers were recruited to run the courses, following a dedicated and carefully constructed curriculum developed in conjunction with Unicef.
Emergency team members have been involved in the presentation of certificates of attendance, which are highly prized by the delegates, some of whom travel miles in arduous conditions to attend the courses.
The emergency team is also supporting the Bala Stock Farm Vocational Training Centre. Started by IES in 2004, the project – which trains 30 internally displaced young people per session – is now the responsibility of The Salvation Army's Uganda Command with financial support from HopeHIV and Chatham Finance, but the proximity of the centre to Lira, where the IES team is based, has meant that the international team has been happy to provid administrative oversight. The team organised a certificate presentation ceremony for the outgoing trainees which included each graduate being given the basic tools for their trade (a sewing machine for sewing graduates, for instance, or a plane and spirit levels for carpenters and builders). The team was also on hand to welcome 30 new trainees who were eager to commence their six-month course of tailoring/sewing, joinery/carpentry or brick laying and concrete practice.
Ten selected graduates from the centre have also been selected by their instructors to receive a small loan (repayable over a six-month period) to enable them to set up small businesses. The trainees, all of whom receive entrepreneurial training as part of their course, will not be left without assistance as the scheme allows for regular visits by their former instructors to ensure that mentoring as well as monitoring takes place.
It is obvious that the emergency services programmes have been hugely appreciated by their beneficiaries but it has been particularly pleasing to receive letters of thanks.
Akullo Milly, head teacher at a school for 600 pupils situated deep in the Ugandan bush, hand-delivered her letter, which says: 'This is to say we have appreciated the equipment you have delivered to the school. You have shown great love and care for the children. Thank you very much for that. May God bless you.'
And Okullu David, also a head teacher, writes: 'I humbly wish to register a multitude of votes of thanks to you and your team ... Long live The Salvation Army. Thank you for the date and day when The Salvation Army was born.'