Support our activities in Uganda
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International Board of Advisors
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Canada
Sally Bongard
Lizette Gilday
Caroline Hoen
Alan Monk
Kaitlyn Riordan
United Kingdom
Desi Dillingham
Phillip & Lorraine Hellen
United States
Scott Douglas
Geri Fitzgerald
Paul Hogan
David Mraz
Steve Wiley
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Children of Peace
If you would like to renew your sponsorship or want to start a sponsorship, please email
Lizette Gilday
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Who Are We?
BDC is a collaboration
between concerned Ugandans, African Great Lakes Initiative (a U.S. 501
(c ) (3) charity), and Canadian Friends Service Committee (charitable
number 132146549 RR0001). Our activities are based in Bududa District, Uganda
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Greetings!
No two days have been alike since I moved full
time to Bududa in the fall of 2007. Yet, now that I am in Metis, Quebec, Canada to recharge my batteries, I got to
thinking about how a description of July 23rd might give you some insight
into our activities and programs.
I get
down the hill to the school for the 8:30 A.M. opening and see that everything is ticking the way it should be. We will be having graduation ceremonies for the
nursery teacher training students and also for the computer students who have
taken outside exams in computer applications.
Our new, outstanding bursar, Paul Ndinya, has
completed our half yearly financial report at 9:30 A.M. and he wants to review it with me before we send it to Geri Fitzgerald in the
U.S. Geri is an former accountant and banker who guides us on our procedures and converses with us on a regular basis. Jordan Paulovic, a visitor from Ontario
has helped us with the Excel format we use.
To celebrate graduation, we have a thrilling soccer match between
the faculty and the students. I am inspired by how fast and agile the Africans
are. Jordan Paulovic, Andrew Sivick, and Karen Kumaki, all visitors from the
USA and Canada play on the students side and they play well and give it their
all, but they are upstaged by the Bududan men.
Next we have graduation and speeches. The speeches
are too long, but the messages are good and tailor-made for our population.
Then there is singing and dancing by the students
and then a demonstration of "La Macarena" by all of the visitors, and led by
Karen and Jordan, of course the African students are fascinated by the white
teenagers dancing a different dance and they are invited to try.
Lunch is next and since it is a special occasion,
everybody is having meat and a soda.
Soon, the older boys from the Children of Peace come
for "Boys Club" where we discuss ways in which they can keep themselves safe
and not get AIDS, and general "family planning", as they call it in Uganda. Kim
Sivick, a teacher from Chestnut Hill Academy, has offered to lead this as in
her past life she was a community health nurse. The boys were very impressed
with her knowledge and grateful to her.
Elsewhere on campus, Richard, our computer teacher, has
spent an hour on the lawn with his grads, and he comes in to help print
pictures of the Children of Peace, to accompany their letters to sponsors.
Karen Kumaki, our intern from McGill cuts the pictures.
Our tailoring students are still working in the
tailoring classroom as they are finishing the last few overalls and dustcoats
for Wagagai Flower industry in Entebbe.
Meanwhile, Maria Serevetas, the mother of Jordan,
and head of a Science Department in Whitby, Ontario, prepares exciting science
classes for the Children of Peace Program which takes place the next day,
Saturday. She is demonstrating four experiments having to do with Newton's Law.
When Kim finishes with the Boys Club, she starts
on a movie she is making with the footage she has shot at the soccer game as
well as other footage.
Jordan and Andrew are perfecting, the bucket
shower at the guest house.
Such is my last day in Bududa. Does it sound
stimulating?
I'll be travelling in North America over the next few weeks in order to speak about the Bududa Development Center and to thank donors for their support -- we could not continue our efforts without them.
Email if you can join us. August 28-30 in Vancouver Thursday,
September 9th 6:00 P.M. - gathering chez Sally Bongard, 54 Aberdeen,
Toronto, ON Friday,
September 10th- at Sheila Havard's Quaker Meeting, Coldstream,
southern Ontario Tuesday,
September 14th 6:00
P.M. - Gathering chez Cecily Lawson, Ave. de la Montagne, Montreal, Quebec Friday,
September 17th at 5:00 P.M. with Janet Stern, on Norwood Ave.,
Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia,PA
Barbara Wybar
Coordinator of Programs
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Germantown Friends Lend a Hand
Germantown Friends Meeting held a porch sale in May and donated half of
the proceeds to Bududa Development Center. The proceeds amounted to
$1,250.00 for our programs and all of us involved with this project
wish to say a great big thank-you to Deborah Cooper and her committee
of helpers and the members of the Meeting for this huge donation. This
amount will cover approximately half of the monthly payroll for the faculty at Bududa
Vocational Institute. Thanks to all involved.
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Collaboration Between the Students at Chestnut HIll Academy, Philadelphia and the Students at BVI
Our supportive friends at the the Chestnut Hill Academy come through year after year, helping many in Bududa, in countless ways. In July, teacher Kim Sivick came over with her son Andrew (his second visit). In addition to their great work in Bududa, they brought 10 surplus laptops which will be used in our expanding computer classes and to support administrative activities. Kim has started a website and blog to highlight their work and soon we'll publish the link in the next newsletter.
Andrew Sivick, Intern Karen Kumaki and Jordan Paulovic with staff soccer team with much appreciated new t-shirts from CHA
We've included a short article that Kim wrote in the blog about the Children of Peace Program. "The Children of peace program enriches their week day academic
programs. In addition, the schools in Bududa offer lunch for a fee. The
Children of Peace program will pay the school fees for children in
their care. The Children of Peace have a social worker who visits each
home when a child is referred. Apparently there is a range of extreme
poverty. If you have one parent, a real latrine and food more than once
a day than you probably won't qualify.
Most of
these children jump off of the truck laughing and smiling, delighted to
have another day of school which translates into another day they get
fed. Some of the children won't smile at all. The social worker told me
it often takes a new student months to smile. These kids are so poor
and so traumatized that they are unable to smile. There lives are
desperate and they are well aware of their situations. It is not
uncommon to visit new students and find them living in absolute
squalor. Last year when Andrew was in Bududa, he found one child living
in a goat shed. This child had lost both of his parents, probably to
AIDS and was living with an uncle who was a drunk and did not care for
the boy in any way. The school tried to get food to the boy as often as
possible but even this was difficult as the uncle would steal it if he
found it on the boy.
Children
that have been attending for awhile are generally slightly better off
and the social worker helps to get home situations improved."
School truck arriving on Saturday
for Children of Peace Program
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Summer Intern Karen Kumaki Reflects On Isaiah and Saturdays..........
" I have always loved children. Something
about how they are almost always smiling, how friendly they can be, and the
silly things that come out of their mouths. It all charms me. So for me,
interning for Children of Peace was perfect. Sure, it was not all playing with
kids; I spent long hours in the office developing spreadsheets, typing dozens
of letters to sponsors, organizing files, and trying to figure out who would
donate bednets for the children. But Saturdays were when all these important
tasks faded away. Suddenly, the compound would be filled with the sounds of
children. I couldn't walk anywhere
without meeting twenty of them. It was a wonderful reminder of why I was here
and working so hard.
I
got to know these children personally as the weeks passed. I heard their
stories, listened to their dreams, and laughed at their games and smiles. But
Isaiah stood out because he seemed to have no smiles or dreams. During his first Saturday with the
program, he spent the entire day having jiggers dug out of his feet while the
other children stood around and stared. He didn't smile or speak or even cry the entire time. And as the weeks
passed, he remained withdrawn.
Isaiah's parents had deserted him.
He lives with his grandparents, both of whom are in poor health, and three
other brothers. Isaiah doesn't go to school, does not get enough food, and has
had a much tougher life than most seven year olds. As I learned more about him,
I made it my goal to get him to smile. It was not easy. But by the time my stay
in Bududa was over, my efforts had been rewarded by the teeniest of smiles from
Isaiah. And after weeks of trying to get a response out of this emotionless
child, fighting off the fleas that he left with us, and even all the paperwork
I had done for the program, that tiny smile made it all worthwhile."
Karen hails from Maine and is attending McGill University in Montreal.
Karen & Isiah
 
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Return to Bududa
"Last November Philip and I made our first
visit to Bududa, having met Barbara through John Harrington, an Englishman who
works for a coffee cooperative near Bududa. We had spent a very busy two and a half weeks and at times
there were 7 volunteers in the guest house, all doing our best to help in
whatever capacity we could. Like
most who visit the project, we fell in love with the young kids, the older
students, the teachers and the place itself. The beautiful view from the veranda of the guest house and
the three crested cranes which nested in the same tree every night was
something we never tired of. We
thought we would go back in about a year but after helping Paul and Scott with
the Strategic Plan over the winter months, it became very apparent that in
implementing the plan there would be so much additional work for Barbara and
the staff, so we decided that perhaps it would help if we went back to Uganda
in May.
Returning for the second time it was easy
to fall back into the work routine of the school. There had been quite a number of changes since we left, not
the least being the appointment of Paul Ndinya the Bursar and Betty Bigala, the
new school secretary. Betty had
worked in a local secondary school for over 20 years and with this experience
introduced a new sense of order into the admin work of BVI. Paul, an experienced accountant, had already made good inroads into the
financial records.
A number of meetings were held with the
Principal George Kutosi and staff members to decide how everyone could push the
plan forward; the outcome of which was Betty overseeing a very large timetable
affixed to the wall, covered in 'deadlines'. We prioritised the tasks and looked at those where we, the
visitors, had the most experience. Betty and I worked on the personnel files of the staff, to ensure all
necessary documentation was brought up to date and George and I agreed that
staff appraisals were a priority (I had taught in a previous life!). We duly observed all staff members
taking lessons and met with them afterwards for discussions of their work. It was a great pleasure to work with
George and Betty.
We both helped in English lessons and one
of the highlights was listening to the students debating - a session prepared
and run by themselves. At the end
of our stay we had an assembly where they enacted a traditional song and dance
for a circumcision ceremony. The
main protagonist was Paul, one of the carpentry students, who obviously had
missed his vocation and should seriously consider a career on the stage! Barbara said she couldn't remember
seeing teachers and students have so much fun together.
BVI seems to be a school on the move
now. New students were appearing
on a weekly basis and there was a lot of energy about the place. Barbara supplies much of the energy
herself but with new staff in place assisting with the day to day running of
BVI, it seemed that everyone felt they had a stake in its success.
We have Ugandan friends in Kampala and when
I spoke to one on our way back to the UK, she said that when she heard about
the landslides in the district earlier on in the year, she had wondered how "our
people" were. Such a lovely
observation. You visit Bududa and
no matter what you are able to contribute you are accepted by everyone and for
a short while they become your people too. "
Lorraine Hellen
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Painting Day in Bududa
"Thursday 3rd June is a Public
Holiday in Uganda - Uganda Martyrs Day - so BVI would be closed for the day -
no students, no teachers. What should we all do on that day? (that's
Philip and Lorraine, from England, Barbara, and Karen, an intern from McGill
on a 2-month assignment at Bududa Development Center.
Well,
the reception area of the main office was not looking very bright and
welcoming, and the computer room was
looking decidedly tatty; and we
had a bit of money in our pockets,
so we decided to paint the walls - maybe a ceiling as well? - enlisting
the aid of a few of the lads in the hostel across the way.
A hectic day in Mbale enabled us to buy the
paint, rollers and brushes, and a few other necessaries, and off we went, expecting to do the bulk of the
painting ourselves.
We couldn't have been more wrong! Five boys turned up, and they could not have been further
from the stereotype of a sullen teenager reluctantly dawdling over a few
domestic chores.
Quite the opposite; as soon
as they got their hands on a roller and some paint there was no holding them
back.
Now this was very encouraging, but it did bring its own problems; it was difficult to restrain them long
enough to lay newspaper to protect floors, and to point out the need to go carefully near the ceiling
and other edges. In the end the job took longer than it might have done, as we had to do a lot of remedial work
- wiping off splotches - as we went along.
We also needed a (carefully supervised!) remedial session at the end of
the day, painting white onto ceilings where blue had encroached. After all, the BVI students just don't get exposed early in life
to the subtleties of interior decorating;
but I think they may have picked up some useful experience as they went
along.
No matter, things went very much quicker than they would have done
without the lads. We had thought
that we'd do the reception area in one day, and perhaps make a start on the computer room - to be
completed the following week (when
there was another closure for a public holiday). As it was, we not
only finished both rooms, but also
polished off the teacher's room, at
the front of the computer room, as
well.
Well done the lads - the best collection of
Sorcerer's Apprentices in Uganda!"
Phillip Hellen, UK
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Barbara Wybar
Programs Coordinator, Bududa Development Center bwybar@yahoo.com
(all comments/suggestions/feedback welcome!)
http://bududaprojects.org
USA Mailing Address: c/o Geri Fitzgerald, 324 Kings Highway, Kennebunkport, 04046 (checks payable to Friends Peace Teams)
Canada Mailing Address: c/o Sally Bongard, 54 Aberdeen Ave., Toronto, ON M4X-1A2 (checks payable to Canadian Friends Service Committee)
UK Mailing Address: c/o Philip Hellen, 12 Park Road,
Surbiton, Surrey SM2 7EP (checks payable to African Great Lakes Initiative)
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