Simple Needs

Artificial light, safe drinking water and good food are just some of the simple needs of
northern Ugandan’s – who are millions of miles away from having an economy that could afford to have a recession like Ireland’s.

The world recession has affected them - but only by the cuts in foreign aid budgets, which the people here would be devastated without.

These are a friendly and hugely polite people, who worry about just being able to live each day in the severe hardship and poverty they are in – and many young children are very malnourished.

They rely so much on NGO organisations like Caritas Pader, who are funded by Trocaire, to help them return to their homesteads and to get the things they need to become self sufficient once again.

Almost two million of them lived peacefully with their own crops and animals to provide food and money, but since 1996 they were all put into “displacement camps” by their government because of the war with the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).

The government destroyed their homesteads so that they would not return during the conflict and their food and animals were stolen.

The Acholi tribe in north Uganda dominate the remote Pader district where myself and photographer Noel Gavin met with the people of two “return camps” that provide them with more space and services than the displacement camps – and are located near their homesteads, where they all intend to return to.

Pader was the location of the first rehabilitation centre for escaped child soldiers from the LRA, because it was so close to where the LRA operated their reign of bloody terror in Uganda.

All over the region there are people building huts in their former homesteads, but there remains hundreds of thousands of people living in camps, some of which are very cramped with bad sanitation.

Everyone here has lost someone to AIDS or from the war with the LRA.

Atto Christine (20) of the Lagwai parish camp in Pader, who has one child of her own and mothers the five children of her dead sister, spoke to me outside her house wearing an old Arsenal FC polo shirt.

Most Ugandan's support the big English soccer clubs and gather around any available TV in their hundreds in a town or city every weekend to see the games.

She described how a simple solar powered lamp has hugely improved her life.

She lives in a straw roofed hut in the middle of an entire region that has no electricity – so at night it is pitch black.

She said through a translator: “The solar light does not produce any smoke, so that is good for us inside our home, and I don’t have to spend money on paraffin for a lamp.

“There were incidents of houses going on fire and children being burned.”

Christine hopes that the light, which lasts six years and is provided by Trocaire, will enable her one year old child, Okello Francis, to read safely when he is attending school.

She said her sister died from AIDS – which is still very endemic in Uganda.

Sean Farrell of Trocaire, who regularly visits the people he helps in Uganda to see what need’s they have, said they hope to provide these solar lights to more camps, as well as goats, seeds and assistance in getting their original homeland back.

He told a large group of malnourished and poverty stricken, yet hugely hospitable and friendly people from the Kineni camp: “Trocaire are here for the long term.

“I’ve been to many villages. The demands are many and we will do what we can. And we keep our promises.”

Odokonyera Jackson (28) from Lagwai explained how a goat he got from Trocaire will enable him to give at least one of his eight children an education.

“The goat can deliver young who I can sell and get money for things like education and medical care.”

Jackson has four of his own children, but he also cares for the four children of his sister who died from AIDS and whose father was killed by the LRA.

In Uganda a child is orphaned when at least one of the parents dies, and usually the aunt or uncle will care for the children.

Jackson said he wants to go home, but he still fears a return of the LRA and there have been reports of rogue armed groups roaming the area.

Widow Akongo Naekolina (43), who is HIV positive and who is a mother of seven is one of the people who has returned to her homestead.

She said she is happy to be back, but because of her health and the death of her husband, who was a Ugandan army soldier, she must rent out some of her land to afford food and other needs.

The clearance of land mines also remains an issue in the Padar region.

Dad of one Okemy Bosco (22) said at his home in the Kineni return site, where 2,200 people live, that until three mine fields are cleared he will never return home.

“Hopefully we can go home, but there are three mapped areas of unexploded mines in that area,” he said.

In the same camp an elder, Otting Santina (65), said it is difficult for her to return to her homestead and provide for herself because of her age and the frail condition of her 80 year old husband.

She was once beaten by the LRA who forced her at gunpoint to fetch them water during a raid and killed five of her close relatives.

She remembered a time when every village was happy with plenty of crops and animals.

Santina said: “I’m not certain for the future of the country. For the youth, if war ends then it will be good, but not otherwise.”

Michael Caritan of Caritas thanked Irish people for helping them provide simple needs like solar lights, goats and seeds to the impoverished people living in camps.

He said: “We are very grateful for what the community on Ireland have done for the people in Pader.

“It is our appeal that more support should be given to continue to support these people.”