Reintegration for former child soldiers in Uganda

A story of fatherless Children Born in Captivity, a case of Family tracing!!

 The longest civil war in Africa still goes on in the Central African Republic, South Sudan, and parts of Eastern DR Congo. To those working with youth in the Northern region of Uganda (and of course, the youth themselves), hearing of Children born In Captivity being rescued without their fathers or fatherless children or at worse, Children without mothers comes as no surprise. Yet until now, we have had little sense of proportion. It is tragically common to hear a story of a former abductee (girls in this case) being with children whose father has been killed or is still fighting with the LRA.. Yet we have had little sense so far whether such experiences are the norm or the exception. Our Report suggests that the truth is somewhat closer to the latter.

The reintegration work after the War involves modern therapies and traditional aspects depending on the belief of the client and his family members. This report brings you the story of  #Sue(not her real name), who is among our 8^th Beneficiaries. #Sue who is now aged 34 years, comes from one of the villages in one of the districts neighboring Gulu District.

She does not remember the date and month of her abduction, but remembers that she was abducted in the year 1996 until; when she was rescued in the year 2014 with her two children, aged four years and two years, a girl and a boy, respectively.

On return, she appeared on a Local Radio to convey peace messages to the local community and encourage those still in captivity to come out of the bush.

 One other important mission was for her to try and trace the family of the father of her children born in captivity which did not yield any fruit at all by any measure.

Her hope of knowing the father's family to her children was dashed as nobody responded to her Radio call as the intended message did not reach the family of this man whom she left in the LRA…Many other efforts were made through her friends to try and trace the family to no avail.

The final breakthrough came when the Watye ki Gen project, together with Terra Renaissance, did a family tracing and, on a helpful clue, contacted the local council authorities in Lemu West, Kitgum district, wherefore we were able to rightfully locate the family of the late “Cong-gwok”(not real name) who was the father of the children of #Sue.

 In 2014 after her Reunion, a very sad news reached her while at Terra Renaissance training center that “Cong gwok” was accidentally killed by an Elephant in the Central African Republic, which was later confirmed by military Reports by returnees who escaped from the Central Africa Republic.

The traditional ceremony

In Acholi culture, when one stays away from home for a very long time, a cleansing ceremony has to be performed before he/she is welcomed home. In the cleansing ceremony organized by clan elders, the person returning home is led through a number of processes.

Terra Renaissance, together with #Sue, set off for Lemu west in Kitgum on the agreed date. A journey that would take two and a half hours by road through the places of Unyama,Paicho, Cwero,Lacekocot, Laguti,Acholibur, and Kitgum town.

We were to be welcomed from a little distance away from the home….#Sue was ordered out of the car for stepping on the egg.

An elderly person approached us, ready to lead the ceremony before we could gain a peaceful entry into the home.

The elderly person strolled over with dry pieces of spear grass and an egg in his hand. He gently lit a fire on the grass and passed the hot flames around the hands and feet of #Sue, after which she was made to step on an egg.

The hot flames of the spear grass symbolize “burning away” the wrongs her hands might have carried out or her feet might have stepped on whilst in captivity….It also symbolizes a “light” over all the darkness she experienced while away in captivity, according to Mzee  Lotingamoi(a pseudo name), who presided over the ceremony.

He continued that stepping on the egg (newly laid local chicken egg)  is believed in Acholi to make the person “pure” since the egg is innocent and pure. This was to wash away all the bad things that come along in life, i.e. sickness, bad luck etc.

After which, a sumptuous meal was prepared, and everyone enjoyed the food, and after this, she and her children could now mix freely with others in the community.

This is always done as part of the preparation for the successful reintegration of the formerly abducted persons into the Acholi community.

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Resilience+ Skills for jobs= Change!

Our story of human transformation with Resilience towards Self-Reliance and sustainable economic dependencies

On behalf of all members of Terra Renaissance, we would like to thank everyone for their generosity and continued support of the program in Uganda.

 Thank you for your love, your wise thoughts, your hard work, and above all your respect for everyone. We are more than proud because of you the members and friends of Terra Renaissance.

Today, we proudly stand behind Terra Renaissance and all its standards for total hope, for a reason for the advancement of ideas for a better tomorrow.

Terra Renaissance promotes small-scale entrepreneurship by training the change agents whom we should now refer to as partners for change on Small-Scale Business management, micro credits, and product development. We provide small credits that help in giving a timely boost to the beneficiaries’ businesses as they can maximize their stocks, materials as well as equipment which have gone a long way in improving and empowering their lives.

Our learners (Change agents) are trained through Business mentorship to help them in understanding and managing a small-scale Business by sharpening their abilities to think critically, analyze, and make the right decisions at every stage of their businesses toward business profitability and hence self -Reliance.

Today we bring to you the story of Francis and Nancy!

Francis and Nancy were trained by Terra Renaissance from May 2017 to November 2018 in Fashion and Design. After graduating, they together started doing Tailoring as a business at Opit trading Center in Omoro district-Northern Uganda, which was not their home town but was chosen on the basis of a good business location, empowered with an initial capital of 200,000UGX/52.63 USD and a manual sewing machine each of them, and an embroidery machine as a group asset from Terra Renaissance.

Currently, Francis and Nancy have grown their working capital and Francis has acquired a Baby lock machine and two other sewing machines for their workshop.

They have orders to make clothes for various customers in their community. Francis currently trains four (4) learners who are members of the community at a minimal fee of 70,000 UGX/18.42 USD per person per month. They have received a number of inquiries from more parents to enroll their mostly young girls to learn at their workshop which is regarded highly in terms of the level of skills and the quality of products. However, due to capacity issues in terms of available machines and lack of space he can only intake four persons at a time but he expects to train even more as he plans to buy more machines for their workshop in the future.

Although they face challenges of social domestic issues, especially on the part of Nancy making her miss work several times and the difficulty in transporting materials from Gulu city and little sitting space for the Workshop, they will not be moved...…Francis and Nancy have bigger plans to put yet more effort in the business so as to train more members of their community. Francis’s highest expectation is to fight poverty in his family and his community at large.

 Having started the business in early 2019, they also faced the brunt of the impacts of the Covid-19 Pandemic when the business was still in its infancy where just like anywhere else in the world, they faced and battled hard the pandemic which shook the economic security and their self-reliance efforts, the economic health of their customers and the buying strengths as tremendously affected during the past two years of 2020 and 2021.

 Francis and Nancy had to innovate and diversify their businesses by going into farming which supplemented their feeding and the surplus for sale to cater to other social needs in order for their work to make a difference, or cope during the pandemic.

 All of us at Terra Renaissance are and should be encouraged that the state of their businesses and many others are slowly gaining ground amidst the high inflation in Uganda and will continue to be resilient ever in the coming years with the discovery of the vaccines for Covid-19.

With stories of hopes like this and friends like you supporting our calls, we remain fully motivated and committed to the mission and strategies of Terra Renaissance.

Links:

• Terra Renaissance's homepage