To go, or not to go......?

I visit Uganda as a volunteer, but it seems to me that ‘volunteering abroad’ can have very different meanings.  And…. sometimes I’m challenged to justify spending money visiting a project rather than on the project itself.  If it costs trip fees plus funds to say, run a children’s camp, how do we know the local team couldn’t have found better use for that money investing it in local projects? 

Maybe the biggest problem is the difficulty in assessing the value of volunteer projects – how do you measure them? 

Is a camp judged ‘successful’ or ‘worthwhile’ if the children seem to enjoy it?

Or if the local staff say it is? 

Or if it means 160 children have good food for a week? 

What about less concrete outcomes of a foreign visit like communicating esteem or increasing international understanding? 

Do the parents have a say? Maybe its harvest time and the children are needed at home, or there’s a new classroom needed at a school or toilets, or a community garden, or more local staff to run a project…Lots of volunteer trips involve building or renovating.  Once I ‘helped’ paint a classroom.  I’m sure the local people repainted it after we left. They were perfectly capable of doing it themselves – and much better!  

How many times have you been asked to sponsor someone for a volunteer trip only to discover at least 75% of the money goes on funding trip costs?  

In 2008 we took a play parachute and helped local staff learn ways to use it. In 2015 it comes out most weekends for a community children’s club and goes to schools. Games have evolved to be ‘more Ugandan’ and it’s used for Bible studies and counselling.  Children’s eyes lit up when it appeared this year and it brought squeals of laughter.  Sometimes simple things make a trip ‘worthwhile’. In a culture where adults and children don’t have time to play together, I think that parachute has made a difference.  

At the request of local staff at different projects, the 4^th one went out this year (thanks Rachelle).

Actually I also have a different attitude if I think a trip will be potentially life-changing for the volunteer. After all, spending 2 weeks in Uganda 7 years ago took my life on a very different course, helping me understand the value of child sponsorship and of supporting local staff in sustainable community partnership projects.

The Internet provides seemingly hundreds of opportunities, not only for volunteering abroad, but also for ‘ethical volunteering’.  I think my thoughts align to some extent with the http://www.ethicalvolunteering.org/ guide.  Even better, the Global Care trips I’ve been on provided information and suitable answers to the guide’s 7 questions for volunteers.  Global Care works with local staff to identify suitable volunteer projects aimed at supporting sustainable projects.  We had good trip briefings, knew what was expected of us, and there was clarity about our own expenses - which were separated from camp costs.

However, I hope my love of Uganda and the people I’ve met, for the children we’ve sponsored over the years and for the staff who work with them, will never cloud my judgement.  I hope I’ll always ask ‘is this the right way to spend our money?’… and I’ll hope the answer will be ‘yes’!! 

Children being children

In my last blog I mentioned child sponsorship. So what’s my experience of child sponsorship? And what does Global Care child sponsorship look like?

We’ve sponsored children with Global Care for over 25 years.  We started sponsoring one girl, *Rachel, when she and our youngest son were both 7. They met each other in 2008 during a Volunteer trip to Uganda, when they were both 17.  We met Rachel again when we visited Rukungiri in 2013.  She’s married with a daughter and running a business selling grain. A real love has developed between my family and this Ugandan ‘daughter’ but we are truly humbled by the intense gratitude she shows us.At the camp we saw two children sponsored by  family and church friends.  

We met *Arnold when he was about 5. His father had recently been killed over a land dispute and his mother was struggling to look after her children on her own.  When we met him, we were shown his school bag which contained half an exercise book, a pencil stub, a razor blade to sharpen the pencil and a slice of potato for his lunch.  Arnold is now a healthy teenager – he looked happy and well and it was great to see him enjoying playing football with his friends like any boy his age. 

We also met *Babra, a shy 11 year old who was abandoned at birth on a neighbour’s porch and has suffered physical and emotional abuse.  She’s only in Primary 2 and struggles academically.  The family who took her in have suffered financially with the long dry season this year which has led to loss of income and consequently poor nutrition for the family. However, she attends school fairly regularly and gets a midday meal at school. As the week went on she came out of her shell and by the end of camp she was smiling and laughing with her friends and joining in with games and singing.  We are reassured to know that David, the Global care local children’s worker, watches out for the children. He knows if they haven’t been at school or if there are family troubles.  He knows every child by name.  He makes sure they’re fed and if they’re ill that they have medical attention.  Our Babra was not so shy with David!

We’ve had the tremendous privilege of meeting some of our sponsored children, and watching them grow and mature. In Rachel, we’ve see the outcome of having support for education and access to health services.  Several of the Global Care Ugandan staff were sponsored children themselves and speak very highly of the scheme and opportunities it gave them.   Having received so much they want to give back to the next generation of vulnerable children.

The camp provided an opportunity for sponsored children to have a week of ‘being children’. Away from the pressures and battles of subsistence living, of fighting for survival against the elements, struggling to endure in extreme poverty or with disability and disease, these children were able to simply have fun. 

They laughed at adults making fools

of themselves, enjoyed performing songs and drama, chuckled at the antics of the Mzungus (white people), played on the playground, and raced each other amid giggles and happy screeching.  

They were well fed with three meals a day including a variety of protein and vitamins as well as the inevitable piles of starchy food.  They were loved and cared for.  If they were ill they were given healthcare.  It was a tremendous privilege and joy to be part of this – and to see each child go home with a mattress a cup and a plate thanks to the generosity of our friends and family.

Our team saw sponsorship working in schools partnerships where schools buy land and provide the whole school with food for midday meals. Where new latrines have been built to improve sanitation and encourage girls to attend schools. Where building huts to accommodate staff encourages teachers to work at rural schools.  We’ve seen Global Care partnerships with local communities including projects as diverse as digging wells and providing protected springs, providing HIV counselling and testing, supporting the development of school buildings, and working with volunteer community health workers.

I am unashamedly promoting the work of Global Care because I not only have faith that it works, but I trust the people on the ground in Uganda and the team in the UK. Every time I visit Uganda (this was my fifth trip) I see something that involves a member of the local staff in sacrificially giving of their time – wanting above all to serve the children who they see as their responsibility.  Every time I go, I see more evidence of an organisation working to provide support for sustainable projects and enabling local communities to learn new skills or become self-sufficient.  We read so much negative press about NGOs in Africa, I want to shout for my Ugandan friends who clearly demonstrate that Global Care is good news for the projects it supports.

For more information on child sponsorship please visit: http://www.globalcare.org.uk/sponsor

*Names changed to protect identity

The Cost of Living

While we were in Uganda we heard that my gorgeous sister-in-law had been diagnosed with breast cancer. In Uganda we spent time with friends going through health heartache themselves.  While I don’t want to diminish the enormity of a diagnosis of cancer, my sister-in-law had access to free tests and scans and several consultants, and will have access to a comprehensive treatment programme. Our Ugandan friends were having to fund all their healthcare and for a diagnosis such as cancer, even if services can be found, costs are likely to be prohibitive.

Have you ever looked at health statistics for other countries compared to the UK?  Here’s a few to get you started (from 2013) courtesy of WHO and the World Bank:  

• Life expectancy at birth m/f (years): Uganda  57/61, UK 79/83
•  Probability that a newborn baby will die before reaching age five  (per 1,000 live births): Uganda 66, UK 5
• Probability of dying between 15 and 60 years m/f  (per 1 000 population): Uganda 380/317, UK 88/55

Visit Uganda and you don’t see many older people.  Most families have stories of infant or child death, or death from a preventable/ curable disease.  At camp we had a minute’s silence to remember a sponsored child who had recently died. 

For a rural community the nearest professional health services may be many miles away, people needing to walk or be carried for hours to reach help.  If you’re lucky you can access a bicycle and with money you might afford a motorbike ‘taxi’.  But that’s just the start – you need money to pay for attending a clinic, medication, tests or scans, every night in hospital, surgery, every doctor you see.  If you’re in hospital someone has to look after you – to provide food and do your washing.  Hospitals have areas for relatives to sleep, wash and cook.  And of course your nearest hospital may not provide the specialist care you need – so then there’s more transport and accommodation costs.  

Some healthcare is free…  but the only free clinics we’ve seen weren’t staffed by professional/ trained healthcare workers and medication is scarce. The ‘Global Fund’ provides grants for medication such as antiretroviral therapy (ART) to fight HIV and TB – then you read, ‘Uganda aims to increase coverage of ART to 69 percent of people living with HIV in 2017 from a baseline of 44 percent in 2014’.  Depressing.

We saw a child who lost her feet due to persistent infection and children born with HIV who didn’t have treatment and consequently have on-going health problems. 

We’ve seen children funded by NGOs for a first surgery for congenital problems but then there’s no funding for subsequent surgery – and they have residual deformities and health problems.  When we lost our cases we found all the prescription medications we needed – there was no shortage of drugs, but while the cost was insignificant to us, in some cases one pill can cost half a day’s wages.

And then there’s Global Care.  I was so impressed by local staff.  If children were ill they were taken to clinic. Every day someone took food three times a day to the 6 children admitted to hospital during camp.   Sponsored children have access to medical funds and there is a special fund for major health problems or surgery.  Local staff go out of their way to make sure children are well, and if not, transport them to clinics or hospitals and make sure they have tests, medication or surgery they need. They support families with ill children.

One morning Tom said to me ‘someone wants to see you’.  I turned round and saw a pretty smiling teenager and my heart missed a beat as I recognised *Ekellot. I was telling the team about her on the way up from Kampala as I felt sad thinking about her. I suspected she would have died in the two years since we’d been to Soroti. She had HIV and TB but was seriously depressed and not compliant with her medications.  She was extremely ill, and not improving when we left her even though the local Global Care team were doing all they could to get her medication and watch her taking her pills.  The staff told us that she became too ill to be looked after at the centre and went back to her village. However, the staff had passed her details to TASO (The Aids Support Organisation). TASO provided support and counselling and she became involved in their drama group visiting local schools and youth organisations providing information about HIV/AIDs.  Now she was looking happy and healthy. Yes, I cried! Another girl we know well who has HIV was also looking well and more cheerful than last time we saw her.

Good food, healthcare, transport, love and security, education, working with local communities and support organisations, and overall a commitment to provide for the most vulnerable children, that’s why I support Global Care and why every year we continue with sponsorship.

*name changed and photos not of children written about in this blog! 

Who built the ark?

Since I didn’t get time to write a blog while I was in Uganda, I’ve decided to retrospectively blog about our trip.  Today I‘m going to introduce The Ark.  

According to t’Internet, an ‘ark’ represents something that provides protection and safety.  Think about a group of children needing a safe environment…. and for whom living in Africa makes them particularly vulnerable.  UNICEF say ‘Children with disabilities (CWD) are one of the most marginalized and excluded groups in society’, discriminated against through negative attitudes, inadequate policies and legislation, and often with no rights to healthcare, education and protection.  The World Health Organisation (WHO) claim that ‘Children with disabilities are almost four times more likely to experience violence than non-disabled children’.  In developing countries 90% of CWD do not attend school according to UNESCO.  The UNICEF funded Research study on children with disabilities living in Uganda provide some insight into the situation in Uganda.

Global Care have created a day centre in Soroti, currently caring for 10 CWD.  All The Ark children have physical disabilities, most have mobility issues.  Some have learning disabilities too.  On our visits to Uganda we’ve met many CWD and often been shocked by the way they live.  The children are generally isolated, some locked or hidden away away for hours, or left with relatives and neighbours who don’t care for them properly.  We’ve met guardians who couldn’t work because of looking after a disabled child - further deepening the cycle of poverty and hardship. 

When we arrived at the Soroti Centre this year, having greeted the staff, the next thing I wanted to do was get into The Ark.  We had to finish camp preparations first but then some of us hurried to The Ark. I can’t describe the feeling when I said ‘Hello’ to a child I hadn’t seen for 2 years, and her face was washed with smiles; or when *Simon reached out his arms to be picked up giggling with glee then jumped with excitement as I helped him stand.   *Martha (who is blind) brought tears to my eyes when I stroked her face and she smiled and reached up to touch my hand.   

We all felt emotional as Tom played ‘round and round the garden’ with a blind and deaf child who was previously unresponsive - and she smiled broadly as she was tickled. They are incredibly appealing, responsive, and rewarding children.  I think the whole UK team fell in love with the group and most team members developed a real connection with at least one child.

As the week progressed, we brought the Ark children up to the camp tents where they could listen and watch, or sing and dance.  There was no shortage of volunteers to help carry the children so they could be involved.  We took it in turns to sit with and support these lovable noisy, messy, sometimes difficult to control, children on the mat in the shade.  We managed to help them join in with games and activities. I don’t think any of us will forget the voice singing out ‘Be bold, be strong’ throughout the day or the girl who loved the crafts and wanted her own work folder. My heart skipped when *Acem looked at us and audibly said Hannah’s and my names, mouth and tongue struggling round the words and arms and legs flailing with effort.

These children have such potential – and provide huge reward and joy.  We saw improvements in many of the children from our last visit. I have tremendous awe and respect for the Ugandan team who collect the children each morning and take them home at the end of the day, who feed, change and bathe the children, play with them, talk to them, and teach them songs.

Every time I meet the children in The Ark they challenge me. Challenge my expectations and perceptions, challenge my prejudices and my response to such naked need.  

I know I need to never forget that these 10 are the ‘lucky’ ones, and we need to find ways to fight to improve the situation for many more children with disabilities.  Thank you Global Care for The Ark. Thank you Global Care for a sponsorship scheme that includes children with disabilities. 

*names changed to protect identities

Don't forget to remember

On Wednesday I had to get up early to drive to the office.  It was dark outside, and cold in the bathroom because the heating hadn’t started.  I switched on the lights downstairs and started to make breakfast, I was still cold. I tried to remember the last morning when it was this dark, quiet and cold.  It came flooding back…  Kisiizi hospital!

I’m feeling cold as bright lights appear through the darkness and the car slowly approaches our hotel

It is cold as we pull up at the side of the road and Arnold struggles to climb into the high car

Hats, scarves and coats have appeared but still we shiver as cold air comes in through the open door.

The car has heating, it doesn’t reach beyond the first row of seats. I don’t have a coat, or a hat.

The road is rough, the car bounces along and veers from side to side dodging potholes and oncoming traffic.

I realise we’re avoiding people and animals and bicycles – out on the road, no lights, no protection

Notice Arnold, pain on his face. Each bump jars his sensitive joints and skin.

Hungry, I remember the chapattis the hotel made last night so I could have breakfast.

Two chapatis, 5 people.  We try to eat slowly to make our allotted portion last.

The hospital appears, people milling round the fence, climbing out of cars, lorries, buses, taxis, motorbikes

We join the ragged group going through the gate and see a queue of people already waiting patiently on benches

In the cold.  At 7am.

I can see my breath in the air.  I flap my arms and stamp my feet. I’m so cold

I look at the weary bunch of people struggling with pain and sickness, and the cold.

Not everyone has a blanket or a coat.

More people arrive, shivering, but not complaining, to sit, waiting patiently.

Can’t move or you’ll lose your place.

At last the sun  began to warm up the air. We’ve only been waiting for 2 hours.

Slowly the queue of people are registered, and moved to another queue

Then assessed, and moved to another queue

Now it’s too hot to stand outside the shade.

Sun, blistering down, burning skin and making the metal poles supporting the roof too hot to touch

Overpowering heat. Makes the ill feel worse.

People carrying their sick family stagger under the weight and heat

Relatives bearing stretchers from one ward to another stumble as rivers of sweat pour down their faces and necks

I walk outside for a break.

Humanity has gathered to profit from sickness and those who have to care for the patients: food and clothes stalls, raw meat hung on a tree

The smells and dirt and flies and heat threaten to over-power me.

I stop.

Come back to my journey to work in my comfy hire car.

Don’t want to remember, don’t want to forget.

Eyes on the road ahead, car heater on, lunch in a plastic box alongside the thick coat in the boot

Pass an accident, ambulances, paramedics, fire-engine, police cars, tow truck

Don’t want to remember, don’t want to forget

Two cheers for taxes

We are at the airport and we’ve both hit the point where we can’t think straight or make decisions.  I’m looking forward to my bed, food variety (I’m unbelievably full of starch), a tap that produces drinking water, hot showers and wearing jeans.  I was dreading the journey this morning – the road is so bad that sometimes the only way to drive is on the wrong side of the road in the ditch, but then of course the cars/buses/bikes coming in the opposite direction are heading straight for you.  In the event I slept for most of the way this morning, only waking when Charles swerved violently, we went over a bump at speed, or he slammed on the brakes. Then I thought about Tom in Soroti who gets up 4 days a week to start collecting the children to bring to the centre, and 11 hours later will drop the last one off.

I’ve been musing in the last couple of days at how incomparably different my life is at home.  I love Uganda and I love my friends here, and I’m sad to be going as I don’t know if and when I’ll be back.  So – I hereby give anyone reading this blog permission to tell me off if I complain about any of the following things.

1.      The M1 queue in the mornings and the length of time it takes to get to work.

Remind me of those children in Rukungiri who had a 2 day trip to hospital for surgery, then a 2 day trip back to the rehab centre.   Get me to imagine how much pain they feel as the transport bumps and rattles along the unmade roads or slides in the mud.   Remind me that here many people walk to work or school which can be several kilometres away.  They have to walk in tremendous heat and pouring rain. They walk along the side of treacherous roads. Many can’t even afford bicycles.  Allen said the furthest she’d travelled was to Kampala for a Global Care conference.

2.      Anything to do with food!

Remind me that many people here have only what they can grow on whatever piece of land they have.  Remind me about Arnold and his family who were having a meal of cassava – their only meal that day.  And don’t let me forget how much starchy food I was given as that’s what fills people up.  Remind me about banana wilt, floods and droughts and the people so ill and frail they had nothing to eat or sell and couldn’t afford to get to the hospital.  Show me my pictures of the children in the hospital with malnutrition.

3.      My job

Remind me of the parents of a disabled girl who had to go out every day to look for work digging a neighbour’s land.  As that was their only source of income they left the child locked in a shed each morning.

4.      Paying taxes

Remind me that we have free healthcare, at the risk of contradiction I’ll add good roads, free education, a police force and law enforcement agencies and prisons where justice and punishment are not directly related to how much you have for a bribe. We have foster carers, social services and social security.  Our children with disabilities (CWD) have free medical care, surgery, physiotherapy, speech and language therapy, day care, schools, hospices, respite care, mobility allowance and that’s not all.  Here the CWD are amongst the most rejected and despised in the country.  These vulnerable children often live in extreme poverty and few have adequate access to such services.

I could go on! Money, pensions, housing, electricity, clean water, running water, ‘dustbin men’, re-cycling, washing machines, proper beds….

We have been encouraged by so much on this trip – particularly the passion and care shown by the Global Care staff, the work that’s being done with the CWD and the dedication of the staff at Rukungiri, Kampala and Soroti.  We were delighted to see children who had put on weight from the last time we saw them and who appeared healthy and well. It’s been brilliant to see the things we’ve sent out or raised money for being put to good use in the skills centre at Soroti.

We’ve come back with a huge shopping list that we need to discuss with the Global Care UK staff – but we have been challenged to step up our attempts to fund-raise and recruit sponsors.

As I wait to board the plane, I know that my heart will always have a place here and I hope I’ll hold onto the value of making a child smile.  This trip we learnt that our sponsored girl at Atiira was abandoned by her mother and left on her neighbour’s veranda when she was 3 months old.  She’s a shy, introverted little thing.  But on this visit we made her smile with finger puppets.  It doesn’t take much.  That little girl has an education, a meal at school each day, support for healthcare, and a lovely team who look out for her.  How much does it cost us? Each month our sponsorship is not much more than the cost of us going to the pictures and having a bag of popcorn. www.Globalcare.org.uk