Childrens "Sevices" part 2

I went with another gal from church to meet Natalie and catch the van that would drive us the 1 ½ hours to the “camp”. This week, thanks to donations from church members and other resources, all the kids had at least a pair of trousers. Many had shirt, albeit torn ones, and some had sandles.

There was no electricity since Wednesday and therefore water had to be dipped from a pond to fill large barrels to use for cooking and cleaning. This was the only water for the 200 + kids who were there this week. Although the kids had not eaten for 3 days, some benefactor had brought posho and rice last night and the kids had two meals today. One meal was hot porridge, about 1 ½ cups of water cooked with posho flour. The second meal was simply rice. No beverage, no fruit, vegetables, seasonings, just plain food.

Thank goodness, Natalie and others of her friends will serve one real, big meal tomorrow, rice, potatoes, beef in gravy with other vegetables and milk to drink. What a feast!

The 20 girls are kept separated from the boys. In fact we saw only 3 of the 20 girls today. None of them are in school. There are scholarships for 4 boys so far, with 16 more who want to go and learn. The school is only a 2 mile walk away.

The physical plant has many buildings including a large multiunit dormitory for the boys, a cafeteria with two kitchens, an assembly hall, administration building, a carpentry workshop, girls residence house and several other buildings whose function I didn't know. There are large yards and some fields around that could support gardens, if anyone knew how to dig and plant. (Ali told me the place was originally built in the 1980's for teen-age criminals to rehabilitate them rather than put them into the adult prison.)

There are just 3 or 4 paid staff to operate the entire place, covering all shifts. Or maybe the kids are simply locked into their dorms for the night. I don't know. Speaking of dorms, there were about 34 sets of double bunk beds to accommodate the 180 boys, ages 3 to 18. the bottom bunks had mosquito nets, but the top ones didn't.

This is a government run facility, in the middle of nowhere with kids who are seen as problems. There is currently no attempt to reunite the kids with family members, although each week some of the kids run away in an attempt to find their mom or dad. But Kampala is a city of almost 3 million people and the neighborhoods and areas change rapidly with all the building that is going on. It is common for the escapee to be picked up and returned in a month or so.

It is hard to know if life here in the camp is better than the one they had begging on the street.

More later.....