When free means fees

Today (Saturday) we had a leisurely start – very welcome after all the travelling and early mornings. We’re the only people in the hotel, which feels a bit odd. The manager speaks excellent English and has been very accommodating.  And, we may not have any hot showers this week, but we did have amazing bird spotting opportunities over breakfast. Then we headed to the Global Care office to talk and plan.

We started chatting, and very soon found ourselves treading a familiar, but none the less shocking, conversational path. We talked about what it means to be the most vulnerable people in society. We were told that one of the great things about working for Global Care is having your eyes opened to the depth of people’s suffering. You can live your life in relative comfort without knowing a whole section of society exists. People who live in ramshackle dwellings, with no kitchen or toilet, no water, no source of light, children with no clothes or shoes, people who go to bed (lying uncovered on bare earth) at night, having had nothing to eat all day.  

Global Care supports the most vulnerable children. Children who live at this level of extreme poverty, but also have other pressures. They may be orphans, or have a single parent with HIV or addiction, or disability, or mental illness.  Some children have HIV. Living like this can be very stressful.  Children feel they are not the same as other people. They don’t like mixing with others in public, and if they get the chance to go to school, they think their status as orphans makes them different from other children and they become isolated and withdrawn.

The idea of Universal Primary Education (UPE) is that all children, wherever they are in the world, should be able to access free primary education. In Uganda the reality is that all schools charge fees and children can’t attend unless they have uniform, shoes and stationery.

In Rukungiri there are 158 sponsored children. There used to be 200 but as children grew up, sponsors chose not to renew their sponsorship and stopped their support. There are 2 huge files of children on the waiting list. Sponsorship pays for the items needed to attend school – and the fees. It pays for food and for welfare (such as routine medical needs).  On Monday, the first day back at school after 3 weeks’ holiday, we’ll be very busy as the team have to make sure all the school fees are paid for sponsored children. While we were chatting, a mother came to sort out fees for her child. We’d met her before. She has a 16-year-old disabled daughter who can only be transported by her mother carrying her on her back. So the mother can’t work and has the extra expense of a child with major disability.  How is she supposed to find school fees for her other children?

I’ve heard these stories before – but somehow it feels even worse now there are less sponsors and so much need. Outwardly things appear to be improving in Uganda, and even local people may be unaware of the serious level of poverty some people live in.  For some the poverty cycle hasn’t broken.  Children have no chance of going to school when there is no spare money – and if there were any money, it would go on food. 

I’m sitting outside my lovely room gazing at the most amazing view.  The sun is hot but there is a pleasant cool breeze rustling through the palms at the edge of the lawn.  I’ve just eaten chapatti I saved from breakfast as there was too much, with avocados we bought in the market. Tonight I’m having Tilapia and chips.  Not far away, if we drive to the centre, we pass children digging in a rubbish dump. Somewhere within my view, there will be naked children going to sleep hungry and ill.

 

We can't do everything.

We can't do nothing.

We can do something.