growing family trees

SOS Kindergarten Gulu End of Year Concert

2009-12-02T11:05:00.011+03:00

Everybody was anxiously waiting for 21st of November 2009 when our concert was held. The day started like any other normal school day. Children and parents arrived in time. As parents took up their seats, children were getting ready to present a play and dances. The concert started at 11.00am with the children leading the national anthem and the school’s anthem.

It was real fun to see KG 1 children confidently reciting their rhymes, accompanied with actions, like “Elephant, Elephant, Mummy in the kitchen and Hello, Hello.”

The children have come a long way. Seeing them alone on stage for the first time in their lives brought tears of joy to their teachers and parents as well. Then KG 2 children also showcased what they had learnt in rhymes and poems. For them rhymes were not only said in English but also in Luo and Luganda.

As the rhymes ended, it was time for the Christmas play. Our children acted well, displaying confidence and independence on the stage. They were articulate and bold enough to face an audience of 180 people. The wedding day dance followed with children dressed like they were really going to a wedding party. Girls wearing their beautiful white frocks and boys clad in their suits, they put on a perfect performance.

The Kwazulu, Akogo and Kipepeo dances were the height of that day. Parents joined in the dance and continuously clapped and cheered. It was at that moment that Santa Claus, alias Father Christmas, emerged to everyone’s surprise and joined the children in the concert. Children, teachers, parents and friends cheered and applauded to receive Santa Claus with a lot of excitement. Santa Claus gave out presents to all children, thanking them for being good to their teachers and parents. He then joined the SOS KG family to cut the Christmas cake. It was a day full of fun and excitement. It was also an eye opener to the community, and at the end of it15 guests took admission forms to book well in advance for their children in 2010.

By Marion Otema, KG Head teacher

Twelve new children move into the village

2009-08-25T14:37:00.001+03:00

Children are like flowers. Whenever I watch them playing, laughing and doing any sorts of things I feel good and motivated. I see the SOS contribution through their eyes when they are happily living like children. It’s indeed satisfying and rewarding to see a child who was once deprived of parental love and care feeling good and well taken care of in an SOS family.

Since the children moved into the new village, there is recognisable evidence that their life has changed. When asked, most of them quickly express their happiness and appreciation. They feel good about the adults around them.

June and July were months of real happiness to the SOS families as 12 new children were ‘reborn’ into the village. Old children eagerly wait at the village car park each time new children are admitted into the village. They help with the children’s belongings and warmly accompany them up to their respective new homes. This gives a feeling of being accepted and a sense of belonging to the new children. Mothers organise the reception of the new children, each in a different style.

Surprisingly all the new children have changed and look very healthy and well taken care of after a period of just one month. When a relative of one of the new children came for a visit, the child felt so uneasy that he tried to avoid being nearby. When asked, the child expressed fear of being taken back by his grandmother, a conception that was only corrected by his SOS mother’s intervention. He is not to blame for the action. It goes without saying that his life had changed for the better. Friends, good food, good care, a feeling of being loved and a hopeful future are what he would miss.

Caught in the vicious cycle of the Poverty Trap

2009-08-14T10:02:00.003+03:00

On 5 August 2009, a Catholic catechist led me to Oke’s home (not real name), located 20 km away from Gulu town. We went to follow up on the case of three children referred to us by the catechist as being in a worrying and pitiful situation. This is the family of Oke and his wife, who live with their four grown up daughters in two old huts in a former Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp. Three of the four daughters have children. The eldest daughter is mentally unstable. She has had three children: two girls and one boy. The boy, the youngest, is now crawling and still living with the mother. The two girls were taken by the catechist, who, on humanitarian grounds offered to temporarily take care of them while she looks for well-wishers to take over, because she also does not have resources. It’s these three children that concerned me enough to make a follow up.

On reaching Oke’s house, we found all the family members at home. What raised my eyebrows was the situation we found them in. The three babies (grandchildren) were naked and as dirty as all the adults taking care of them. I imagined they had spent a month without bathing for lack of soap. They looked sad, apart from the youngest child, who crawled towards me with a big smile, and kept on smiling until we left. Probably he had seen a father. He does not have a known father, like his two siblings. Unknown abusive men take advantage of his mother’s mental disability and she ends up pregnant.

The mental status of Oke’s eldest daughter is seen as a curse to the family. Even the two other daughters, who seem mentally sound, have fallen into the trap of exploitative and abusive men, who impregnate them and deny responsibility, claiming that they cannot have children with mad people.

I stared at them in disbelief, asked myself how a human being can suffer to that extent without help. I later discovered that a certain NGO had built for them a small hut. But a house without any economic empowerment had little impact on their life. The grass on it is disappearing slowly by slowly without being replaced. They hardly eat two meals a day and the World Food Programme has stopped distributing food. They only rely on handouts given by sympathisers.

The family have a piece of land away from where they live. When asked why they cannot relocate to their land and grow crops, Oke expresses fear that this house in the IDP camp would be taken by other people. The house now becomes a roadblock to positive thinking. Some of their neighbours ‘help’ them by giving them handouts, while others use the daughters to till their land for food. I look at Oke forcefully expressing himself with desperation. Although he is happy to see us concerned, his rage is deep rooted in his heart. Tears roll down his fleshless cheeks during the conversation, which made us change the conversation. He sees no reason to continue living. He prefers death to suffering.

I reflect a little bit and deep in my mind I put the blame on the government and civil societies for not coming to the assistance of such extremely needy families. But why blame the government and the civil societies? We are also a civil society that can take care of Oke’s grandchildren to save their lives. I took courage and soon these children will be in a better home and look forward to a promising future.

Photos from the inauguration of the SOS Children's Village Gulu

2009-07-24T12:30:00.009+03:00

Four SOS Mothers Receive SOS Ring of Honour

2009-06-15T14:24:00.006+03:00

Better late than never. This news is coming to you belatedly. The truth is that while we were curious to enter the new village, we also had to work hard to make the occasion a memorable one. Making the new houses habitable and settling in the families required a lot of planning, hard work, and time as well, before and after the opening of the new village.

It is really hard to narrate on paper what actually transpired but a few sentences accompanied with some photos can explain it all. It was real happiness to children, mothers and other co-workers as the days drew nearer to the historical opening. They worked tirelessly and passionately to make the occasion a memorable one.

On Saturday 16^th May 2009, the day before the opening, four mothers were decorated with the prestigious SOS Rings of Honour to acknowledge their ten-year service as mothers. They included Mothers Harriet and Margaret from SOS Children’s Village Entebbe and Rose and Maria from SOS Children's Village Kakiri.

This historical event,which started at around 4.30 pm and two hours after the SOS President, Helmut Kutin arrived at the village, was presided over by Hon. Betty Ocan, female MP for Gulu Municipality and the chief guest. The rings were presented to the mothers by the Mr Helmut Kutin, after being blessed by the Archbishop of Gulu Diocese, Rt. Rev. John Baptist Odama. It was a brief ceremony, accentuated with dances and speeches and blessed with a downpour.

By 6.00 pm, the ceremony was over. The SOS President had dinner with all the mothers and other invited guests thereafter, before retiring to have sufficient rest in order to wake up early enough the following day for the grand opening of the new village.

New village to be commissioned soon

2009-04-27T11:09:00.006+03:00

Good News! The construction of the new SOS Children’s Village in Gulu that started in September 2007 has finally ended and the Grand Opening is scheduled for 17th May 2009. Yes, what started as a rumour is now turning out to be a reality. The Ugandan President and the SOS President have already confirmed their presence to preside over the opening ceremony of the new sweet home for 120 children.

Preparations and final touches are being made to make the occasion successful. Furnishing of the houses started a month ago by a four-man team from Nairobi. All the household property for all the families is at the site. Three new mother trainees have already been appointed to head three additional family houses, increasing the number of mothers from 9 to 12. There is already a waiting list of 17 new children to be admitted, increasing the capacity from 103 to 120 children with an average of 10 children per house.

All people are happy, eager and look forward with optimism to move to the new village. Children, mothers and co-workers are all seen visiting the project regularly, admiring the nicely built houses and a good environment created around them. Each family already knows the house they will occupy. Our plan is to settle in the families one by one before the opening and, depending on the progress of the craftsmen assigned to furnish the houses. life will no longer be the same for children and for us all as well.

Life at the SOS Kindergarten

2009-03-26T10:01:00.007+03:00

It’s now a month since our SOS Kindergarten opened. There has been a positive change despite some challenges at the beginning, as the beginning of everything is always hard. The kindergarten started with hardly any furniture and an approved running cost budget to meet its operational needs. Despite those challenges KG children have a good life and enjoyable learning, thanks to a lot of innovation and hard work by the KG teachers. Furniture was brought two weeks ago and it’s now being fixed by a four-man team from Nairobi-Kenya, assisted by two SOS youths from SOS Children’s Village Kakiri. Among the many things done at the school, I have personally fallen in love with the way the classes have been decoratively changed and the various children’s activities. What still I find interesting is watching the children playing and learning in class under the guidance of the happy skilled teachers.

This term, the children made a pictorial story entitled “THE THREE LITTLE PIGS”, whose theme is animals and which is the theme of the term. When one looks around, all the teaching aids in the classes are composed of animals. But in this particular story, each child was given a role and they shaded the pictures themselves. They do artwork like painting, modelling and pasting. They role play the story. They dress up like the characters in the story. They are also making Easter cards, which they intend to give to their parents, and to SOS co-workers both in Gulu and other projects. Even without the play equipment, there is already a variety of interesting activities and the school is so far the best one can find in Gulu.

Good news from Gulu - the SOS Kindergarten opens

2009-02-11T11:52:00.006+03:00

I would like to convey my belated but sincere New Year’s greetings to all our readers and the entire SOS fraternity. How do you feel the global financial crunch?

Well in SOS Children’s Village Gulu, in spite of the global financial crisis, 2009 has brought and will continue to bring many good changes. The first good news is that the SOS Kindergarten Gulu finally opened today 10th February 2009 with 15 children, of whom 3 are SOS children. A good number of parents from the community flocked to the Kindergarten to pick up admission forms as soon as they heard a radio announcement last week, which ironed out our fears of not getting enough children.

Although we started with hardly anything apart from some furniture borrowed from the Day Care Centre (the furniture is on the way), many parents expressed satisfaction with the high standard and the beauty of the place. Three qualified teachers were recruited in November/December and have all along been making teaching aids in preparation for the opening.

Most parents raised concerns over the need to construct a primary and secondary school so that their children can go to a good school after finishing three years in the Kindergarten. This is everyone’s wish and a wish that should come sooner rather than later.

Christmas mood among children

2009-01-05T17:10:00.005+03:00

Children are aware of the fact that when the year is coming to an end that is, the festive season, they have two main celebrations. The first which has started coming in their mind is Christmas party and Christmas celebration. Meaning, the do not value New Year celebration. The children therefore prepared themselves ahead of time, when their opinions were sought as to what kind of activities they would wish performed on their party day? Their first answer was miming (dancing) Christmas songs as they did the previous year, they also wanted to sing and perform drama. But on that very day the unexpected event also cropped in which added flavor to the party.

The children’s Christmas party which took place on 22nd December 2008 was a moment of joy and happiness for the kids and it was more like a Christmas celebration. Thus on the 25th itself there was nothing much they could enjoy apart from going for mass, which almost all children went. There were a number of activities that were carried out namely; dancing gospel-Christmas songs, drama-‘The birth of Jesus Christ’, singing songs that reflected the value of SOS to them (children), cutting of the birthday cake for a child in house seven and giving of gifts to the best performing children in the year 2008. The children ate sweets distributed by Father Christmas (Driver), biscuits and took sodas.

Children were so happy to share their sister’s birthday cake and when it reached the moment of presenting a parcel-rapped so attractively for the 17 bright children who passed so well in the next class, the other children were quite and one could see in their faces(eyes) the feeling of jealousy and revenge. This gift was given by a staff from the clinic department as a promise she early on made. The party went on till 9.00 Pm as the children danced and danced.

The challenges included; inadequate fund to cater for other things, no staff suffice apart from the few mothers/ Aunties, poor time management by the children and above all less involvement of some mothers/ Aunties. All these make it so difficult to stand in the frontline in organizing the children’s party since you will have to be there from day 1 till the end in order for it to yield good fruits.

A group of six children also went for the Mega Children’s party following the invitation of one of their staff. The numbers of children were limited to six due to money problem because they were to pay 5000 USH per child. But feed back have it that, they did wanders there since they were the only children who performed before over 400 other children. They gave Christmas welcome songs, danced, and distributed SOS seasonal greeting cards to the district Officials, who unfortunately did not come. The Management and staff of Mega were so pleased to have them and were told to come again next year!. One of the child in person of little Agenorwot Jennifer left the crowd in suspend since they were wandering how a young girl like her would recite a poem (title is “Peace”) without reading it from somewhere.

CHILDREN’S BIRTH DAY CELEBRATIONS

2008-12-11T14:47:00.003+03:00

It’s not a common practice in the Acholi culture to celebrate children’s birth days. Most ordinary people do not know their dates of birth. Surprisingly, one can easily tell his or her age when asked. What again is quite amusing is that one can tell the same age for over a period of 3 to 5 years. This is common with ordinary people who are not educated. But in a few modern families, it’s a different trend.

Some SOS children do not believe that the age on their personal file is their correct age. They always want to be called ‘little ones’ for years. This is common with girls especially when they are approaching adolescence. They always prefer reducing their age so as not be seen as big girls. In view of this, the SOS Mothers have made it a practice to celebrate children’s birth days as a way of encouraging them to accept their dates of birth.

SOS Mothers celebrate children’s birth days each in a different style according to her ability and available resources. For instance mother Julian, who has been very active in celebrating her children’s birth days, sometimes she prepares cakes and other times she chooses to buy sodas, biscuits or sweets. Her children love very much this moment. It’s like Christmas to them in which all the family members participate actively. They prepare poems and sing birth day songs to the celebrants. The children feel happy, excited and loved by their mothers on this occasion.

Story by,
Pamela Atim, Sponsorship Assistant

SOS Gulu commemorates World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse

2008-11-26T18:08:00.008+03:00

On 19th November 2008, SOS Gulu joined the rest of the world to commemo-rate the World Day for the Prevention of Child Abuse, whose theme was “To raise visibility, mobilize participation and make prevention a global priority”. Prior to that day, SOS children had about two weeks of rehearsal on several different activities, which included mainly drawings, debating, poem and songs that depicted the rights of children.

On the D-Day, the Village Educator pinned all the children’s drawings to the movable two notice boards and placed them in strategic places for other people to see. These were drawings by very young children about the goods and bad things they see around them. And in the evening, when the children returned from school, they made their presentations of poems, debates and songs to fellow children and SOS staff. The motion of the debate was “The right to Freedom is more harmful to Ugandan children than good”. As each side tried to defend themselves, the audience could not help themselves from laughing. And at the end of day everyone had something to take back home.

SOS Staff and Mothers get trained on fire prevention

2008-11-20T17:58:00.012+03:00

Although fire extinguishers were placed in strategic positions in the village, hardly anyone could use them to extinguish fire in case of any fire outbreak. Consequently, a one-day fire sensitisation session was organised and facilitated by a police officer from the Fire Emergency Department in charge of fire rescue outbreaks in Gulu.
All SOS staff and children participated in the training. They had an opportunity to learn how to use fire extinguishers among other fire fighting techniques the police officer taught them.
The training came at an opportune moment when the SOS families are about to relocate to the new village.

Skill Development in SOS Children’s Village Gulu

2008-11-07T15:25:00.008+03:00

Children need to be exposed to as many skills as possible to enable them to realise their full potential. In SOS Children’s Village Gulu, our holiday programme is made in such a way that we do not only concentrate on academic work but also emphasise extracurricular activities. We take advantage of a diversity of skills our SOS mothers have, coupled with external support to help our children to learn a few things that might be of great benefit to them in future. Besides, such activities help us so much to deal with redundancy amongst them and to indirectly discourage bad behaviour.

Knitting is one such activity for which girls have developed a strong liking. During the second term holidays they made a variety of items ranging from sofa covers to door mats. We organised a small internal exhibition and we invited the fellow co-workers and the Canadian volunteer students to come and appreciate their work. Some ended up buying the items, which made the children feel good and valuable.

SOS Children participate in the annual Gulu Walk

2008-10-30T20:25:00.011+03:00

On Saturday, 25th October 2008 hundreds of people from all walks of life participated in the annual Gulu Walk, an annual event symbolic of the Acholi children of northern Uganda, who used to walk long distances each night to town centres for safety, during the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency (LRA) for over 20 years.

Gulu Walk is an annual event that was initiated on 23rd June 2004 by two young Canadians Adrian Bradbury and Kieran Hayward to raise awareness about the desperate plight of the children, whose rights were extremely abused during the insurgency.

Dignitaries, NGO representatives, adults and children participated in the walk. Over 20 SOS children, mothers and other co-workers, donned in orange Gulu Walk T-shirts, also took part in the event, which started at 8.00am at the Gulu District headquarters with several stopovers at various points. After a 12 km walk, all the walkers finally assembled at Kaunda Ground to listen to motivational speeches at about 11.30 am. They were entertained with traditional dances and served with refreshments. The Chief Walker was Archbishop John Baptist Odama.

This year’s theme “Youth and children in Peaceful homes” rhymed very well with the SOS vision that every child belongs to a family and grows with love, respect and security. The war in northern Uganda is almost over with no physical fighting going on, though the LRA rebels are yet to sign a peace agreement to iron out any fears amongst the local people. However the war experiences will continue to have adverse and long-term effects on the Acholi community. For instance trauma is most likely to deprive children of love, respect and security if no quick intervention is made. It was therefore an opportune moment to sound it out clearly to the people the need to create peaceful homes for the children to grow up well.

Can beneficiaries be relieved from the burden of fuel source? FSP Gulu wants it so.

2008-10-17T18:17:00.011+03:00

Displacement, poverty, chronic illness characterizes the nature of families supported by FSP Gulu. Acquisition of firewood, charcoal, and the main source of fuel has always been difficult for these families. The SOS Co-workers read about briquettes from a GTZ manual but had never followed it up. In another attempt to seek knowledge and ideas through exposure, the FSP Programme Coordinator visited the Agricultural Trade Show in Jinja organized in July this year. That was how briquettes was physically discovered at the show ground.

Chris, a student of Agricultural Engineering at Makerere University was more than willing to travel to Gulu and have the people trained. “We want to spread this technology as far as possible”, he says. Chris visited FSP Gulu in October and trained SOS staff, beneficiaries and youth on how to make briquettes, a charcoal like material used as energy for cooking. Briquettes are defined as the compressed biomass or organic waste into fuel source. It is made out of organic waste: banana or potato or cassava peelings, rice husks, saw dust, anthill soil, cow dung etc. Briquettes made out of cow dung and banana peelings burn completely into ashes and are used mostly for cooking light food while briquettes made from anthill soil generate heat for longer hours.

Surely National Forest Authority will be more than happy to hear this if the people take it up seriously, family income and time spent looking for fuel will be saved, and there will be reduced expense on waste disposal by the authorities

The trainees have made an action plan specifying the time they will personally experiment in the presence of their colleagues and in turn train others.

Story written by
Denis Lyagoba, FSP Program Assistant

New village construction nearing completion

2008-10-06T10:04:00.006+03:00

It’s now one year since the construction of the new village started. What sounded like a myth is becoming a reality. The construction company will be handing over the village to SOS Children’s Village Gulu by the end of October 2008. They are currently working on the final touches. When they handover, it will take maybe one to two months to furnish the houses before we finally relocate. I see ourselves moving into the new village either in December or January next year.

The village really looks so good and a nice home for the children. “The children are lucky”, mentioned one visitor from Austria. Indeed, they are lucky. But it’s not only the children who are lucky, the community as well. When I move around Gulu town, I see nowadays several compounds being planted with grass the same way we have done in the new village. We have set an example for many people in the community to improve their livelihoods.

Besides the construction of the village, several activities are concurrently going on in preparation for the new village. They include recruiting new mother trainees and teachers for the kindergarten and admitting new children among others. The Gulu project is growing bigger and bigger. When we finally relocate to the new village, we shall embark on yet another episode of growing family trees.

SIX SOS GULU CHILDREN VISIT TRINIDAD & TOBAGO

2008-09-29T09:41:00.002+03:00

Six SOS Gulu children were among the lucky few children selected to participate in a student exchange visit programme between Uganda and Trinidad & Tobago. A team of 19 SOS children composed of 6 children from SOS Gulu, 6 from SOS Kakiri and 7 from SOS Entebbe left for Trinidad & Tobago, accompanied by 3 SOS co-workers. They travelled in three groups on 10th, 12th and 14th August for a one month-visit. Prior to their departure, they were involved in a series of trainings especially in music, dance and drama.

While in Trinidad they visited various cultural sites, factories, big government people and many other good places. The small boys and girls were treated like VIPs and they really liked the place. They had the best exposure SOS children in Uganda have ever had. They had a chance to visit big cities and busy airports like Dubai, Brussels and New York. They sat for the first time in very big and aeroplanes. They made friends and each of them came back with small notebooks full of email addresses of their friends, with business cards of responsible people they came across.

The children are changed and will never be the same. Their perception towards life is now quite different. They are so happy and appreciative to us for having selected them. When they returned on 17th September, everybody was so excited to see them especially their mothers and fellow children. They had several days of storytelling to their colleagues. The stories are quite many and I wish to ask them to write them down for our Blog readers to read.

CVAP ACTIVITIES IN PICTURES

2008-09-17T11:56:00.013+03:00

This year two groups of CVAP (Concordia Volunteer Abroad Program) student volunteers came to SOS Children’s Village Gulu. They participated in various activities that included growing crops with the families, malaria awareness campaigns and painting houses for the FSP (Family Strengthening Programme) beneficiaries. Here are some pictures to show what they did.

Using music as therapy at the SOS Children's Village Gulu

2008-09-02T12:09:00.004+03:00

Two music therapists - Bethan Lee, from England and Jantina Bijpost, from Holland - have come to SOS Gulu to offer music therapy sessions for children and training for staff. They have been offering clinical sessions to four small groups of children each week. These sessions offer the children a chance to have individual attention in a small group setting and to control what happens in their group. Music is used as a form of expression, exploring themes such as emotions and communication. Through musical games, the children learn to co-operate, compromise and form creative ideas in a safe, non-judgmental environment. The children are very enthusiastic about their sessions, and have begun to form small group identities, learning to respect each other and their individual offerings. They also enjoy the movement and dance that takes place in the sessions, which incorporates their local culture.

The current groups have been running for seven weeks and will rotate after ten weeks. During the next groups’ sessions, some mothers and aunties will be trained to continue the therapeutic work once the music therapists return home at the end of December.

Thanks go to Bethan and Jantina for their contribution to the SOS children. Thanks also go to Nicky Haire, from Scotland, who helped to set up the work in July but has now returned home.

THE INSEPARABLE TODDLERS

2008-08-11T11:17:00.005+03:00

Denis and Tom (not real names) are children that have discovered happiness in SOS Children’s Village Gulu. Not only are they happy with themselves, but they are also a source of joy to fellow children, mothers and co-workers.

Admitted into the village a few months ago and coming from different backgrounds, they have easily adjusted to the village life. They are always seen together, playing together and doing many things together. It’s still a mystery as to how they communicate and find themselves together, when they still do not talk and are from different families.

Denis is a jolly, lovely and generous boy who shows a lot of enthusiasm about his mother. His love for her is exceptional. He follows the steps of his mother wherever she goes. He is always smiling when he is with her and comfortably interacts freely with others in her presence.

Tom, on the other hand, finds the driver one of his best adult friends. Just seeing him coming, he runs towards the car, babbling some words trying to imitate the sound of the car. He has an ardent love for vehicles.

Much can be said about these two friends, but for now suffice it to say that they have really found a sweet home in SOS Children’s Village Gulu and everybody is proud of them.

SOS DAY CELEBRATIONS IN PHOTOS

2008-07-22T13:07:00.007+03:00

This year’s SOS Day was celebrated in advance on Sunday 22 June 2008. It was a low profile occasion with only the children, co-workers and CVAP volunteer students (Concordia Volunteer Abroad Programme) participating. The children presented a short drama, songs and Acholi dances. The chief guest was an SOS child, who made a prepared speech and gave out certificates of recognition to the CVAP volunteers who have just finished their volunteer work.

Some CVAP students broke down in tears as they were bidding farewell to the children with whom they had interacted so much in various activities.

SOARING FOOD PRICES IN GULU

2008-07-15T12:06:00.003+03:00

Since July 2006 when the peace talks started in Juba in Southern Sudan, northern Uganda has witnessed a return to relative peace. Gulu town is growing fast but the cost of living is incredibly high and unbearable to most local people.

The prices for foodstuffs have more than doubled, making Gulu the most expensive town in Uganda. For instance fuel that was sold at UG Shs 1,350 (USD 0.83) by the end of 2007 is now at UG Shs 2790 (USD 1.70). Beans have increased by 50%, maize flour by 71%, pigeon peas by 233%, simsim by 134%, groundnuts by 73%, cooking oil by 125%, milk by 37% and cowpeas by 433%.

This current situation is attributed to several factors: global warming, the 20-year civil war, the recent floods, the rural-urban influx and the opening up of the Sudan market, to mention but a few. Although close to 80% of the people have returned to their homes and are no longer living in IDP camps (Internally Displaced Persons camps), weather changes still remain a very big challenge to the farmers. Rains are less predictable than they used to be and many people end up harvesting little.

SOS Gulu participates in Day of African Child Celebrations

2008-07-11T11:23:00.003+03:00

On 16th June, SOS Children’s Village Gulu joined other NGOs, schools and Gulu district officials to celebrate the Day of African Child in Kaunda ground. The theme of the day was “Child Participation, Children to be heard and seen”. Indeed it was a day for children to be heard and seen. The chief guest was a child from Trinity College Gulu, whose speech emphasised the need for the children to be heard and taken care of. He raised concern over fellow children who were still in captivity, which has denied them a chance to grow as children.

Twenty SOS children, seven co-workers and 23 Concordia Volunteer Abroad Program (CVAP) student volunteers participated in the walk from the Gulu district headquarters to Kaunda ground. Prior to the celebrations, SOS Gulu took part in a series of preparation meetings together with other stakeholders and also made a contribution to making the occasion successful. The children also entertained the guests with dances and presented their artwork for the day’s exhibition.

New children's village on course to ready by September

2008-06-19T10:51:00.006+03:00

The construction of the new village is nearing completion. According to the site engineer, it will hopefully be handed over to SOS Children’s Village Gulu in September 2008. Workers are busy fixing tiles inside the houses, installing electric fittings, painting both inside and outside and many other things. The planting of grass and hedges around the boundary has also started. There are many and various tasks being performed simultaneously. The village has already taken shape and it is evident that by September it will be ready for occupancy.

We have, on the other hand, embarked on a kindergarten development plan, which will focus more on the staffing pattern and plan, children’s enrolment and budgetary needs. All these have to be done expeditiously to ensure that the SOS Kindergarten becomes operational by January 2009.

On the side of the children, there is burning hope and desire to move into the beautiful spacious houses. Besides, the mothers and other co-workers also feel good about the developments. Indeed it is going to be a nice place to live in, a place that is already being admired by many people.

FAMILY STRENGTHENING PROGRAMME SUPPORTS CHILD RIGHTS CLUBS IN SCHOOLS

2008-06-13T17:48:00.003+03:00

Being a child focused organisation, SOS Children's Villages cannot leave out issues pertaining to children’s rights in its operations. Sensitisation on these issues has always been a policy for co-workers and children within the project. This time round SOS Children's Villages Gulu through the Family Strengthening Programme (FSP) has embarked on a serious programme to sensitise pupils and their teachers on child rights and child protection in all schools where the FSP beneficiaries study. This has been deemed very important particularly in northern Uganda where most children have been most abused during the 20-year civil war and are still vulnerable to more abuse.

Since April, FSP social workers have helped to form child rights clubs in four schools. They gave out t-shirts and posters to the clubs, on top of carrying out sensitisation sessions for the club members. A comprehensive work plan that covers many areas of intervention was made, targeting both teachers and pupils in schools. This intervention will go a long way in helping many innocent children to become aware of their rights.