Surprisingly, their demand coincided with the approval of the construction of a Primary School in Gulu that was to be announced in December 2010. We expeditiously wrote a proposal to begin a Grade one class and submitted it to the Regional Office in January. Upon its approval, a temporary makeshift structure was constructed. It’s now a class to 22 pupils of which 12 are SOS children. The construction of the primary school will find us when we are already settled.

This development was received with open hearts by both the community parents and SOS mothers as well.

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Written by Charles Kiyimba / Village Director
]]> http://www.sos-childrensvillagesuganda.org/gulublog/?feed=rss2&p=174 0 http://www.sos-childrensvillagesuganda.org/gulublog/?p=165 http://www.sos-childrensvillagesuganda.org/gulublog/?p=165#comments Fri, 04 Feb 2011 12:01:53 +0000 admin http://www.sos-childrensvillagesuganda.org/gulublog/?p=165 It all started with a preparation of the boys who qualified to move to the youth home for the first time in the history of SOS Gulu, basing on the qualities of physical and emotional readiness, maturity and a minimum age of 14 years.

During the transition from the family home to the youth home, psychosocial, emotional (mental) preparation sessions were done, spelling out what a youth home is, what makes a child qualify for a youth home, expectations and why it’s good for them to move to the youth home as stated in the youth care policy guidelines. This was carried out by the Village Director and the Youth Leader.

On the 8th January 2011, prior to day, the youth boys moved to the youth home they had a blazing night at the family home with a camp fire from 9:00pm. Where they made fire and sat around while listening to music. After an hour, a spiced saucepan of raw beef for muchomo was passed around where each youth got some pieces. All anxious and filled with excitement, they started roasting the beef on the fire they had made and in the process; they started dancing up to 2:00am. You should have been around to witness the fun they had.

On the 9th January 2011, from 2:00pm, the youth boys couldn’t wait to go to their new facility, they started packing their bags with the help of their mothers. After packing, the young brothers and sisters were all eagerly waiting to accompany their big brothers to the new home, they carried for them their belongings up to their rooms, they didn’t stop on that, they helped un pack and organize the rooms for the big brothers. By 6:00pm, the boys had shifted and settled in their new home. The youth leader together with the mother gathered the young brothers and sisters and went back to the family home (children’s village).

January 10 2011, was another interesting and blessed day for the youth boys, they were ushered into the youth home with a special dinner at Acholi inn one of the best hotels here in Gulu, all smartly dressed in gentle and dinner clothes, this ignited a sense of maturity and totally seeing themselves now as grown up youth who needed to be more responsible. At 4:00pm the youth boys, mothers and the other staff were all at Acholi inn, this was a very special and memorable moment in their lifetime where dinner was served and the cake cut towards the end of the dinner. At 10:00pm, all the boys were back at their new home.

11th January 2011 marked the beginning of a usual day in the youth home, where house routines started. It was a very interesting and developmental journey full of fun that swept off the fears and set for the life of maturity, responsibility and self reliance.
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Compiled by Eric Ojobile- Youth Leader Gulu

“All the parents of SOS Kindergarten Gulu have no option to take away their children but to let a primary section to start in order to support our children for the betterment of Gulu community because of the good teaching and quality care that we have seen in the school. We therefore humbly request you to begin the primary section next year in 2011 so that our children who are graduating from the kindergarten this year can walk straight away to the primary section”, read the letter. The parents emphasized verbally that they will pay the money to support the school.

Suggestions were also made to begin the school with like two makeshift classes as the organization looks forward for the construction of a permanent school.

Well, this has always been my appeal and I am glad to hear that the community in Gulu has a lot of enthusiasm for a primary school to be established. I am equally concerned as I do not see any other good school around where I can place my children, including Mouna, currently in the third year at SOS Kindergarten. They have had a very good foundation and everybody is proud of them.

My wish now, like other fellow parents from the community, is to have the construction of the school coming up sooner than expected.

The market, whose construction started on 24th June 2010, was commissioned on 9th August 2010 in a ceremony that attracted many joyful local people. The ceremony, which started at 11.00am and ended at 3.30pm, was presided over by the Chairman of Koch-Ongako sub-county. It was also attended by a team from SOS Kakiri, led by the Village Director. A good number of local people brought their produce and sold it out to the guests. Several local leaders made complimentary speeches in appreciation of Dickson’s and SOS Uganda’s contribution to social development. It was quite evident from the speeches and the enthusiasm expressed by the residents that the market will go a long way in uplifting their standards of living.

Dickson’s inspiration to support the people of northern Uganda started when he first came to SOS Gulu for a 3-day visit in 2007. He visited several places, including Internally Displaced Persons camps (IDPs) where he came across so many suffering children due to the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) insurgency. It’s at that time when he developed a desire to contribute to the social development of the people of northern Uganda. When an opportunity came his way, he took advantage of it and raised USD 10,000. On winning the grant, he immediately asked SOS Gulu co-workers to support him by identifying a good location for the construction of the market. SOS Gulu, through its community Family Strengthening Programme (FSP), identified Onyona village in Koch-Ongako sub-county, located about 40km from Gulu town on Gulu-Anaka Road, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Odong Fabio, who offered part of his land for the market to be constructed.

Everyone was grateful for Dickson’s heroic positive contribution to his society. Many wished him the best in life and more wisdom to look for more funds to build for them a health centre. In his remarks, he pointed out that community development is a everyone’s responsibility and he appealed to everyone present to participate as contributing members of the society. He argued them to maintain the market properly for the benefit of everyone. Well done Dickson! Well done the sponsors!

Yes, I have seen both physical and programme expansion. I have also been lucky to grow with the organisation, from one position to another and from one location to another. All this has been good and satisfying. But I am deriving more satisfaction from the success stories of former SOS children, who get to live a happy life. My satisfaction is deeply entrenched in having participated in their upbringing on one hand and in the fact that they are also appreciative on the other hand.

I feel happy when former SOS children get employed and live independently. But I feel extremely happy when they get married. Last year, 2 former SOS children in SOS Children’s Village Kakiri introduced their future husbands in perfectly well organised ceremonies. This year, on 24th April 2010, another former SOS child, Proscovia, introduced her fiancé in a ceremony that left the guests agape. As if that was not enough, on 1st May 2010, the two lovebirds tied the knot in a wedding I regard to be so far the best in 2010. I doubt whether I will attend any other wedding as interesting as this one. It was glamorous, attended by people of class and whose reception was organised in one of the best hotels called Munyonyo Resort Beach hotel.

I looked at Proscovia’s SOS mother posing for a photo with the newlywed couple. She was filled with a lot of joy, which made her look even younger. Deep inside me, I reflected upon the SOS mothers’ incomparable contribution towards humanity. Bravo! SOS mothers! Without you we would not be proud of these success stories.

According to Mrs Margaret Odwor, the chairperson of Gulu Women Farmers’ Association, they chose to celebrate with SOS in appreciation of their contribution towards humanity and as mothers; they felt good to share with the children. Indeed, everyone felt happy about their donation and their choice of sharing with the SOS children. The donation added value to the children’s diet. Children were also happy to receive the milk, which was finally distributed equally to all the 12 families.

Talk of the changing situation in the north. For a long time it was conflict and conflict and conflict. Now it is time for people to re-settle into their original homes. Over 70% of FSP beneficiaries were displaced into the municipality. And the FSP strategy of family strengthening provides for withdrawal of families who gain self reliance.

In the current situation, some families in Gulu are leaving the programme area to go back to their original homes. Will they also be reported to have been withdrawn? That can’t be. How about those who are uncooperative and all efforts to empower them have been received with cold hands?

This has been a battle in the programme and we finally settled for the following words:
Withdrawn for those who are phased off upon gaining self reliance.
Relocated for those who have gone back to their original homes.
Discontinued for those who are uncooperative or unwilling to work hard to gain self reliance as a family.

But that does not end the story; there are also those who have partly relocated but their children continue to study in town. They go to their village for holidays and this we refer to it as partial relocation.

The opening ceremony, at which children thanked the donors, was attended by the local community and leaders of the local district council who said that the facility will go a long way to helping local children.

Once the library was declared open several children dived into the book shelves and sat down at the reading tables, totally absorbed in the books. The only noise came from the adults who were being shown around.

The verdict was ten out of ten for five year old Nancy, a local child from the community who commented, “I have seen some good books – I will continue coming here”.

I would like to share with you one experience, which will never leave our memories. This was a team building activity in which we were tasked to participate in several scary activities. On 2nd February, we boarded a minibus very early in the morning and went to a location about 100km north-east of Nairobi.

On reaching there, we were warmly received by Mr. Savage, the proprietor. At that moment, we could not figure out the kind of team building activities we were going to do. A team of 4 instructors came, divided us into two groups and briefed us on what we were going to do. In the morning we did activities like wall climbing, spider web, trust fall and land mine and in the afternoon we went for water rafting on the River Tana.

The morning activities were really hard. They required a lot of perseverance, planning and collective participation. They inflicted a lot of fear on most of us. We finally had to get out of our comfort zone to accomplish those difficult tasks.

But the morning activities were just an icebreaker. It’s when we were told to board the minibus to go for water rafting that we started getting worried. Although we were given life jackets and helmets to wear for our safety, we felt uncomfortable. Our discomfort grew from time to time, more so for some of us who had never stepped a foot in water to swim. We were all filled with unbearable fear: fear of water, fear of the unknown, fear of waterfalls and above all, fear of drowning in the water.

Yes, there was no way of escaping. As soon as the minibus dropped us to the starting point, it left. The only way to travel back to the camp site was by water, a journey that took us over 3 hours. Each one of us was given a paddle and told to enter the water. All of us had to paddle, following the instructions given by our leaders. We could at times paddle forward or backward, fall on the right or left of the raft and hold on the raft. All these actions had to be done collectively or else the raft could easily capsize.

Mr. Savage, like his name, is a bad-turned-into-good person. When we reached somewhere, he stubbornly and mercilessly sprinkled water with his paddle onto us that made us wet. As if that was not enough, he pushed us with his paddle, one by one, off the raft into the deep water. It was a shocking experience for me. The first time I nervously struggled to come afloat and ended up swallowing several litres of water. He did it to me the second and the third time as if he was only targeting me. But we were all treated alike by Mr. Savage. After rafting half the journey, we got used to it and the fear somehow reduced. We reached our destination and Mr. Savage finally turned out to be a good friend to everyone.
I no longer fear water. The experience has even motivated us to be adventurous and persevering. Just a pity I couldn’t take my camera onto the river!