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Orphaned Irene Sees A Future In The Stars
by Nigel Marsh
 There is something about the stars that gives 14-year-old Irene Namasinga hope for the future.
Maybe it’s their beauty, or maybe she visualizes her parents up there somewhere, but Irene loves looking at the celestial display at night. Ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, and she says simply, an astronomer. It’s not an answer you expect to hear often, among children in one of the poorest communities in the world.
There is no electricity supply in her rural neighborhood in Rakai, southern Uganda, so on a clear night the equatorial display is truly stunning.
Irene slips out of the mud-brick and iron sheet home, leaving her brothers Bernard, 16, and Joseph, 12, and her little sister Diana, 11. Sitting in the compound among the banana plants, she simply stares upward.
Eventually, satisfied with the show, she goes inside again, ready to sleep and continue the more prosaic life of an orphan of the AIDS epidemic in Uganda.
The children’s father died of AIDS in 1996, almost three years after his wife. Daddy was a mechanic, something proudly remembered by the boys Bernard and Joseph, who want to follow in his footsteps. With no one else to care for them, they stayed put in the family home.
Stargazing is not for Bernard; he has too many responsibilities for that. He has been head of the household since he was 13.
Little Diana also has a plan for her future. She wants to be a nurse. Nurses are important people in Rakai, the district in which AIDS was first recognized in Uganda. Here the sicknesses attached to the syndrome have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and produced 60,000 orphans by 1991, the last time accurate statistics for the district were available. Children like Diana have had a lot of opportunities to see nurses at work.
"We were registered in World Vision’s program in 1994 following our mother’s death in 1993," explains Bernard, a bright and thoughtful child who seems to bear the responsibilities of a man well.
“I have been responsible for the family on my own since my father died, but I don’t know what would have happened without World Vision.”
Bernard has struck up a good relationship with World Vision’s parish development community worker Dickson, who is a regular visitor. Before Dickson there was Mary, who the children called Mum and with whom they spent hours cooking and praying.
"It’s good to have someone to whom I can tell my problems," says Bernard. “Without that I don’t know what might have happened.”
World Vision has helped in a variety of practical ways, too. Sponsors were found for Joseph and Diana by World Vision Australia, and the income helps the family and the community.
"We grow food in our garden, things like matooke [savory bananas]. But when we have been hard up and had nothing to eat, World Vision has helped us out. I haven’t had to ask for more than a month, though."
Bernard is one of scores of beneficiaries to receive a bicycle in the last few days, and he is very enthusiastic about it. Fetching water from the borehole half a kilometer away, going to the dispensary for drugs when his siblings get sick, visiting the World Vision office – there is no end to the plans he has already made for the bike.
It is also a source of concern, because someone is trying to make their difficult lives even harder. “When we go to school, thieves have been stealing things from around the house,” says Bernard. "Bunches of our matooke have been taken, and someone in the village even has one of our hoes. We will have to be careful with the bicycle."
The project staff agree; on hearing about the problem, they make arrangements to visit local leaders in an effort to improve the children’s security.
The family has worked out a mature schedule for household chores, sharing responsibilities like cooking, washing and sweeping. "Sometimes they don’t listen to me when I ask them to do things," says Bernard thoughtfully. "Then I have to sit them down, we talk some more, then they do it. I never have to hit anyone!"
The children treasure the Bible they have in the house, a reward when Bernard completed his catechism. After that, World Vision agreed to enroll him in a Life Ministry Bible correspondence course, and he has successfully passed the test set at the end of it.
World Vision is helping all the children continue their schooling by providing schoolbooks, pens and uniforms. For now they are all at the same institution – Ssanje Primary School.
Bernard’s science teacher in Ssanje Primary School, Deo Matovu, is one of a growing band of teaching staff in Rakai who were orphans themselves.
As part of its commitment to improving education in its project area, World Vision sees needy pupils through secondary school. Bright students are encouraged to go on to teacher training college at World Vision’s expense – provided they promise to come back to Rakai to teach.
So far, at least 180 teachers have been sent for training through this initiative, and the quality of education in rural Rakai is soaring.
"Teaching is very important," says Deo. “My parents died while I was in secondary school, and I would never have had the chance to go on to further education without World Vision.”
Our visit falls just two days after the inauguration of four smart new classrooms at the school. A further two blocks has been renovated. This brings the total number of classrooms that World Vision has built to 35, and renovations to 259.
The school has a new lease of life, and Deo and his colleagues are excited about their working environment. The local authorities are pleased, too, recognizing World Vision as a caring and constructive partner.
Perhaps most importantly, the pupils recognize the importance of what has been done for them.
Bernard says, "World Vision came and made our school much better. The buildings are good, and there’s no more dust." His brother Joseph adds, “And we sit on chairs now!”
Stargazer Irene offered her own, simple vote of thanks to World Vision. “Without them, we probably wouldn’t be alive, and certainly not together.
"Some of us would have had to have gone to other places to find food, and then we wouldn’t be a family any more." |
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