Scottish Catholic Observer

The riots in England this year have shaken many communities. All the more because the majority of us are ‘the privileged’ of the West—we do not struggle every day to provide food, water and shelter for our families. Yet one disillusioned young man said to a reporting journalist, when interviewed for national television, that his reason for joining the riots was because:  ‘I have had enough.’ ‘Enough of what?’ he was asked, to which he had no answer. Perhaps he had simply had ‘enough of having enough.’

My sons and I had just returned from Uganda, where there was far from ‘enough’ for the HIV orphaned children who were being cared for by the charity Watoto Child Care Ministries and who I had travelled out to work with as a family with three young  boys aged 8, 12 and 15 years who had recently lost their father. Watoto had offered us all the opportunity to help out as a part of global team on a baby project in three different orphanages around Uganda.

Watoto in Ugandan means ‘children’ but for Ugandans it means ‘hope.’ It is a holistic childcare programme targeted towards meeting the essential needs of parentless children with a goal to provide spiritual, physical, emotional and educational care for every child so that each will become a responsible Christian and productive citizen of Uganda. With a vision to reach tens of thousands of children Watoto is committed to raising the next generation of Ugandan leaders. Watoto’s aim is to care for children in family environments rather than in institutional orphanages and though children under the age of 2 are cared for in small orphanages, these children are then looked after in childrens’ villages which include clusters of homes, a primary school, high school, water project, medical clinic and multipurpose hall which is also used as a church and community centre. The strategy of the charity, established in 1994 is based on the belief that as the children are trained academically and spiritually they will enter society equipped with the necessary life skills and moral values to make a significant and lasting impact on the future of Uganda.

Watoto Children’s Choir since 1994 has toured internationally as ambassadors for the charity and consists of children who have endured the agony of losing one or both parents and who now live in Watoto homes. It is their ‘Concerts of Hope’ which have deeply moved many around the globe and whose visit to Edinburgh last year has made many Scots aware of their work.

The two-week project my family were offered by the charity after we made the preliminary contact, was simply to help in the looking after of children in the orphanages, but the condition of being accepted on the project was to each raise $800. Initially, we felt that this was a very significant first obstacle, but we were clear that if God’s plan was for us to go, this was achievable. It felt right to us for many reasons—Watoto was a project with faith as its foundation, a working faith—perhaps an opportunity to deepen our own faith, a thought that kindled our passion.  It was also a chance for my children to witness poverty first hand and realise how privileged they were (rather than hear their mother bawling for the hundredth time: ‘you don’t know how lucky you are!’),  but more importantly to meet the orphaned children, first hand,  who were ‘worse off’ than themselves. They had already often heard in their grief ‘there are always those worse off than yourselves’ which had provided little comfort! By going they could physically, hold out a hand to them and to love them, even if just for a short time.

Some well-wishing friends were concerned about the health risks and the safety for the children in particular, but we entrusted to God this opportunity that we had been presented and allowed God to show us the way.

With burning passion for the project, we set to work. Our oldest son launched into training for a sponsored bicycle ride from Edinburgh to St Andrews, roping in a willing friend as a companion, generating a huge amount of interest from family and friends, with an offer of free shirts being printed for the boys and support crew for the day. An attempt to pull together raffle prizes proved a struggle until we stopped trying to engineer so much ourselves and allowed  family and friends to help! They did! The interest rippled, driven by the boys’ enthusiasm…   St Peter’s Primary School in Edinburgh agreed to a non-uniform day, a muffin sale at St Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh supported by Mgr Michael Regan, raised hundreds, a coffee morning at St Columba’s Church and later some car washing schemes had us all exhausted. We then went onto receive many donated gifts to carry with us: footballs, tennis racquets, clothes, toys… we effortlessly tipped our bag allowance. Our only real hurdle had melted into insignificance—God’s hand was guiding us every step of the way.

It was not without some trepidation that we finally set off to Uganda, armed with a bulging first aid kit, fully vaccinated and swallowing anti-malarial tablets. Our first impression of Kampala, the capital city of Uganda, was of dusty chaos-driving from the airport through the city late at night, we could hear loud music and the roar of motorcycles about us and on the roadsides burning cooking fires around which mingled children and adults, trading on the roadside in front of metal shacks which were ‘shops’ by day and ‘homes’ by night. In the darkness, people would be walking along the potholed dust road or cycling by with bicycles loaded with food or wood. We seemed to quickly adjust to our ‘other world’, helped by the fact that Uganda is English speaking and that from the outset we were looked after by a guide who would become our good friend, from Watoto.’

The ‘Global Group’, the members of which we met the next morning and who were to be our companions for the next two weeks, were a group of young people from all over the world. They were later to confess that they were concerned that they had been lodged with children in their group, imagining that the youngsters would not be able to get involved in the task ahead. Their initial impressions were soon dispelled. In each of the two orphanages in Kampala in which we spent several days, there were 60- 80- children, under the age of two.  Some were HIV orphans, but others had been abandoned, rescued by health workers or temporarily housed if parents were not able to take of them for their own health problems or the health issues of the child. We struggled to remember the names of the babies but we certainly did not struggle to work out what we needed to do. We launched into feeding, nappy changing and cuddling the babies whose arms were reaching out in search of a loving cuddle and a little extra attention.

When I would turn to see what the boys were getting up to, I could see a wonderful picture of them becoming adept at feeding two babies at a time, holding babies on their knees, pushing babies around in prams or on push-along toys, blowing soap bubbles for them to catch… busy loving the babies they had so recently been themselves.

We travelled also to Gulu. A northern town where as recently as four years ago, General Kony, leading the Lord’s  Resistance Army was raiding small villages, murdering scores of inhabitants and capturing children to then terrorise them into fighting alongside him trapping them in their own fear by murdering and dismembering their family members in front of them. It was the action of this wicked man and his followers that had left many children orphaned in this area as well as many families having suffered torture, physical and sexual abuse and destruction of their livelihoods. The orphanage in Gulu was still being completed but already housed children. As the other orphanages were, it was being run by local workers but relied on volunteers to ease the working burden on a small number of permanent staff and to be able to give to the children a little more attention which would never be in excess. Here Watoto was also involved in other schemes to support the traumatised and bereaved with working ‘trauma groups’ and projects to train people in a skill so that they could support themselves.

We had the privilege of visiting the communities children were moved to when they were more than two years old. The villages held several hundred children, built and funded entirely by ‘Watoto’. Here they were educated, nurtured and love. There was an overwhelming respect for education for the children knew that they were the ‘privileged ones’. The headmistress let us know that the aim of the school was to nurture ‘job makers not job seekers’. However, what was overwhelming and most moving was the faith that the children were being brought up in. We heard many stories of how God had been at work in the community, whether in the rescuing of a child who would have otherwise died or in the physical and financial support that had come at crucial times. In these communities, as in the orphanages, there was an open expression of faith, devotion and worship. It was not a love that was hidden- it was a love that was to be expressed and shared.

We have returned from Uganda deeply affected by what we saw and experienced and although the children and myself are now back to our normal routine, we feel privileged to have been able to see the money raised being put to good use and see first-hand how so little is ‘enough’ for so many if there is faith and love in our hearts.  We have been humbled and pray that we can all learn to recognise in our lives where we have ‘enough.’

‘It is not a matter of thinking a great deal but of loving a great deal so do whatever arouses you most to love.

n To find out more about Watoto Child Care Ministries visit http://www.watoto.com/ call  020 8592 1287write to PO BOX 690, Dagenham,    Essex, RM9 5YZ