Uganda’s population is about 30,000,000. A population racked with AIDS. Tens of thousands die each year. For years it has been the worldwide epicentre of the AIDS epidemic.

The people recognise their future has to be through self-determination. They recognise the children of the country are its future. But their needs far outstrip what they can currently achieve alone. Their government is bringing in brave new initiatives but lacks so much of the infrastructure and resources to achieve its aims.

The orphans live with relatives in the community which is the preferred way for orphan children to have a home life. Often this is an aged grandmother who has no resources to care for the child or maintain their home. Thanks to the generosity of many of the orphan sponsors we are able to improve the basic living conditions of the orphans and their guardians. Many provide beds and blankets, cooking utensils, pit latrines or even rebuild derelict homes.

Many are seeking to help themselves but lack the initial resources to make the first step in self-determination.

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ADOPT-A-GRANNY (OR A GRANDAD)


We recently began an ‘Adopt-a-Granny’ programme to help those so often left with their orphaned grandchildren.

Old age in Kabubbu has none of the state benefits that we receive in the UK. There is no State Pension, Housing Benefit or any other form of support. In fact your ‘pension’ is your children because they are supposed to look after you in your old age. However, If your children have died of the HIV virus, AIDS, malaria of other tropical disease they cannot help you and, moreover, you end up looking after your children’s children, your grandchildren.

Often you become too old or infirm to tend your vegetables to provide your food, you cannot get to the well to collect water and even if you could you don’t have the strength to carry 20 litres of water all the way back home and you have no income to provide certain essentials like salt, cooking and lighting oil, healthcare and so on.

For just £10.00 per month( €15 / US$20) through ‘Adopt-a-Granny’ you can support them with basic foods, healthcare, lamp and cooking oil, someone to collect their water and the occasional treat of a piece of meat.

I WOULD LIKE TO ADOPT-A-GRANNY – click here

COLLECTING FREE WATER

The social needs of Uganda are many and varied. Many of the people are determined to provide for a better future but their resources are too small to begin the task.

A clean water supply is a constant problem. In the major towns water is piped to an outlet. Even so, an English person would be advised not to drink it!

In Kabubbu the water supply was from a local stream. Children collected water in 20 litre containers and carried them home. You definitely wouldn’t want to drink from here. But this was all the local people had until the British Airways ‘Change for Good’ programme installed a fresh water borehole for the Kabubbu Community Primary School. The local community can also use this before and after school hours. Since then four further boreholes have been provided.

More boreholes are required throughout the community. They cost around £5,500 each. They would be an ideal project for a church group, youth group, company or other group to get involved with.

However there is a continuing need for collecting hundreds of thousands of litres of water from rainfall and storing it in 1,000 litre tanks at every house which has a corrugated steel roof to which gutters can be attached.

Gutters and a 1,000 litre tank on a concrete base costs £150.

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LEARNING FOR LIFE

The Kabubbu community is eager for education – whether for the children or for the adults.

Uniquely, within a rural environment, a Library and Adult Literacy Centre has been provided where many skills are being taught. English and writing are the most popular courses.

Teams from the UK visit Kabubbu from time to time to carry out certain building tasks and train the local people. Skills taught so far include bricklaying, building, erecting chain-link fencing, sewing, and dental hygiene. Representatives of UK based Community Learning Resource have also visited to assist in Adult Literacy training.

Kabubbu Community Library Service was established in 2003 to empower this rural community to move themselves beyond poverty. The Library contains resources vital for Community Development many supplied by British Airways, which is the major supporter.

Literacy and numeracy classes have made a huge impact on the self-esteem and skills of many illiterates, who now feel able to seek meaningful employment through a wide range of skills training groups including crafts, sewing, batik, building and farming.

Children who are not attending Quicken Trust sponsored schools are offered basic skills education and enrichment activities through the Library Service on Saturday mornings. Regular events and competitions organised by the Library stimulate creativity, promote cultural expression and celebrate new skills obtained.

The Library received a donation of books worth Ug Shs 10 million in April 2006. The donation came under a Pan-African campaign launched in November 2005 by the bank to celebrate and acknowledge community successes in the various African countries where the bank operates under a campaign called ‘Inspiration Lives in Africa’ which encourages citizens in five African countries including Uganda to nominate local community-based projects that inspire them because of the way in which they bring about positive change within their communities. The Library was among five nation-builder projects that were rewarded with a grant of Shs10 million each.

The community continue to need books and resources for both the Library and Adult
Literacy Centre to encourage them in their endeavours.

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SPIRITUAL WELFARE - THE CHURCH IN KABUBBU

The local community has a strong spiritual emphasis. Christianity, the Muslim faith and the Witchdoctor are powerful influences on life. Coming from a ‘Western’ background we have greater comfort with Christianity.

We have strong questions of the influence of the Witchdoctor. His hold over the community is based on their fear of him. His cure for a man with AIDS is for that man to have sexual intercourse with a virgin.

He works with charms and animal sacrifices in his compound and sometimes, it is said, even child sacrifices. The ‘Night People’ meet round a recent grave dancing naked and chanting and then digging up the recently buried body and eating the raw flesh.

We choose to work with the local church and we act as a bridge between churches in the UK and the church in Kabubbu.

In this way we have been able to put a roof two churches, provide a baptistery where over 200 people were baptised when it was first used in March 2004, provide musical instruments and worship resources. 250 Bibles donated by the Stuart Hine Trust were presented to the children at the Kabubbu Community Primary School in the local language and 50 Bibles to the Kabubbu Church enhancing the spiritual life of the community.

A programme of showing inspirational films to the community has started with attendances of 200+ with many making a response. This only takes place when we visit Kabubbu because of the needs of technical equipment that is not yet in place permanently.

A more recent development has been a new church established at Trust High School. As this will be a school with boarding pupils there was an identified need to provide specific spiritual development for them. At its first meeting in November 2007 over 100 people attended and this has continued. School pupils will add to this figure from February 2008 when boarding starts.

Resources needed include a data projector, laptop computer capable of showing DVD’s, a fully functioning sound system and so on.

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PASTOR TRAINING

The church has great needs for literature and training for Pastors and for Bible Study groups.

We have conducted training seminars on many topics including one for eighteen rural Pastors to assist them to better care for their congregations.

A Minister from a UK church offered to conduct Pastor training among a group of 18 rural Pastors. After some consideration his theme for the week was ‘The Father Heart of God’. An essential for the Pastors as the majority of them look at their own upbringing by their fathers and see God in the same way. A father in rural Uganda is often harsh in his treatment of his children and their mother, disciplines through beatings, issues orders to his family instead of involving them and eats first and separately at meals with his wife and children eating whatever he leaves. We have witnessed many of these aspects of life.

The concepts of love, compassion, loving discipline and so on were alien aspects to the Pastors in their teaching to their congregations.

Many in the UK think that they need to go to Uganda as Evangelists to convert the people. Uganda has thousands of its own Evangelists who can speak to the people in the local language using local illustrations and referencing local customs and traditions.

Theological training and an understanding of the scriptures is needed. This requires all manner of teaching aids – and most of all those with the skills to teach them by visiting Kabubbu.

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RESOURCES FOR PASTORS

The church has great needs for all sorts of literature for Pastors and for Bible Study groups.

We have started a library of books to help the Pastors teach themselves on a wide range of topics and more are needed. The ideal way of getting these to Kabubbu is, frankly, by us purchasing them from Kampala bookshops or organisations like Christian Literature Crusade based in Kenya. We have to transport goods to Uganda by air and with local shops and CLC being close and well stocked you are helping two organisations as well as Kabubbu Pastors!

Essential for using modern resources is a DVD player, projector and sound system. There are so many great resources in this medium that can easily be transported to Kabubbu and used in the training centre. Teaching cassettes are also a great resource that is easy to transport.

Bible study materials for the congregations are in short supply.

We were pleasantly surprised a year or so back when one evening the four ladies we sometimes employed to cook for the teams we took to Kabubbu approached us asking if they too could have a Bible. Later in the evening, by the light of the moon, we found them huddled together outside our house avidly discussing what they were reading. Obviously a much treasured gift that may counteract the power of the Witchdoctors who, with their superstitions, bring so much fear into the rural communities.

An essential help to the Pastors is a bike to help them travel the mud tracks to reach their congregations and conduct visiting. Some have been supplied – more are needed. Instruments, especially drums, are a vital aid to worship and guitars although we will need to provide training with these.

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