What a couple of days.
My head is spinning…. Today was particularly surreal. We stood on the
balcony outside the conference room looking out over the swimming pool and the
King of Buganda’s personal lake, then inside the conference room we heard Tom’s
feedback on his research project looking at children with disabilities in Soroti
district.
He gave us a lot to discuss and think about. I thought I
understood some of the problems after carrying out some preliminary research
for Global Care a couple of years ago.
How naive!! The reality is
saddening and at times the issues seem insurmountable. How can you fight for
the rights of a neglected group of people who are rejected and abused,
sometimes even by their own families? Tom told us stories of amazing mothers
who do the best for their children with no resources, no support and no
facilities and where the saying goes “If there’s a problem with the child he’s
his mother’s, if he’s successful, he’s his father’s”.
The key issues I’ve come away with are:
1. Transport
– how on earth can children with disability travel? There’s no adapted
transport, no money for transport or fuel, the roads are difficult for able
bodied people to walk on. How can they get to school, to hospital, anywhere?
The answer is: those that can, will crawl and stagger in the mud to reach their
destination.
2. Social
acceptance – how can you ensure that all children are treated with dignity and
respect, whatever their situation? How can you protect them and keep them safe?
How can you ensure they have rights? Part of the answer is to empower the
children, their care givers and their communities by education and by finding
people who will stand up for vulnerable children.
3. Culture
– how do you work for the rights of vulnerable children where the law works on
paper but not in reality, where gender issues pervade every part of society and
where disability isn’t always seen as a health issue?
In
a moment of madness I said to Tom – let’s try De Bono’s hats* to get this lot
talking it through logically and come to some decisions – 10 minutes to prepare
over coffee (by the pool of course) – and off we went. Not sure how successful it
was but we talked through lots of ideas and people were able to say what they
thought and felt. Never thought that would
come in useful in Uganda.
Spent
this evening chatting over issues such as prisons and repentance. Discussed the
various atrocities committed by women in the name of love. One of the younger women said ‘Why would a
woman do that for a MAN?’ One of the younger men said ‘Why would a man take a
second WIFE?’ Someone said ‘Why does God forgive a murderer who repents and how
do you know they’ve truly repented’. …… blog reader please discuss with your
friends J
And
finally we heard brilliant news about some changes that have happened to
improve the lives of children who have to live in prisons when their mothers
are arrested and/or imprisoned. And that dear reader you will hear more about
another day. Now I am going to try and
get some sleep before the dogs and muezzin join the crickets, talking, traffic
and occasional blasts of music or the blighters that get through the holes in
my mosquito net.
*Note:
De B’s Hats = decision making tool as used by yours truly when delivering
Facilitation Skills workshops
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