Imagine: You hear men at the door one night. They drag your husband outside. As you watch through the window, they brutally kill him in cold blood. Then they move on to other houses.
Your nightmare has just begun. Leaving nearly everything but your baby behind, you flee in tears while you have the chance.
I know this is a brutal story. But it was the stark reality for Kasime, an adolescent mother from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) who was forced to flee her home last year amid rising violence.
Five years ago, Kalista had no hope for any kind of future. She had fled South Sudan’s civil war with her six younger siblings to the relative safety of Imvepi Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda. She escaped the violence of war. But sadly, at Imvepi she exchanged the threat of violence for the heartbreak of sexual exploitation.
As we reported in January, the enhanced agriculture training program we initiated last year in response to a growing hunger crisis within Imvepi Refugee Settlement produced remarkable results. A total of 200 adolescent girls participated. One of those students is Caroline. At harvest, her crop yield was more than impressive: 440 pounds of sorghum, over 600 pounds of maize, and more. Selling excess crops allowed her to buy clothes and bedding for her children, renovate her small thatched house, and purchase goats. And she has stored enough cereal grain to last her family until mid-May.
In Imvepi Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda, Africa’s hunger crisis was compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as severe international food relief cutbacks. In response, we initiated a hybrid agriculture program designed to provide the youth we serve in Imvepi supplemental food relief, while also giving them the training, tools, and supplies they needed to grow their own food. Now we are thrilled to announce that the agriculture initiative has proved to be a resounding success – and your support made this possible!
If you had asked Carolyn Baldwin a few years ago whether she thought her sewing skills would someday help young women half a world away stay in school, she might have shrugged you off with a laugh. In fact, that’s more or less how she reacted when Krista Brown, ChildVoice Donor Relations and Outreach Coordinator, first approached her about volunteering to help make reusable menstrual pad kits for ChildVoice’s THRIVE Program.
If you had asked Carolyn Baldwin a few years ago whether she thought her sewing skills would someday help young women half a world away stay in school, she might have shrugged you off with a laugh. In fact, that’s more or less how she reacted when Krista Brown, ChildVoice Donor Relations and Outreach Coordinator, first approached her about volunteering to help make reusable menstrual pad kits for ChildVoice’s THRIVE Program.
Volunteers have been a key part of the success of ChildVoice’s programs over the years. Our volunteers come from a wide variety of backgrounds. Sometimes, they possess a skill set they never would have thought to be of use to war-affected youth living in a far-off country. One such volunteer is Carolyn Baldwin, whose considerable sewing skills have made her an integral part of our THRIVE reusable menstrual pad programs. Carolyn is not only a volunteer; she and her husband, Mark, are committed Amplified donors and give monthly to ChildVoice.
ChildVoice recently sat down with Carolyn to discuss her background, her interest in humanitarian aid, and how her sewing skills have proved far more valuable to ChildVoice’s THRIVE Project than she could ever have imagined.
Margaret is a 17-year-old South Sudanese child mother. She and her grandmother fled to Imvepi Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda to escape war in South Sudan. Sarah suffered ongoing domestic abuse in her home in Uganda. She was once beaten so badly that she was hospitalized and unable to use her hands for several days. Fatima escaped from the hell of a violent forced marriage in December 2021. At the age of 14, she was abducted from her village in Borno, Nigeria by Boko Haram.
On January 10, 2022, Uganda reopened its schools to some 15 million students, ending 83 weeks of school closure—the longest of any country during the COVID-19 pandemic. But lost education is not the only casualty created by the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns. A “shadow pandemic” has emerged in a number of countries across the globe: sexual violence and exploitation of women and girls.
As we start this new year, I have a challenge for all of us. What if we completely flipped the script on how we see overseas trips? What would happen if we saw our international hosts not as recipients of our charity but rather as providers of their knowledge? What would happen if we all made a commitment to replace asking “what will you do on your overseas trip” with “what are you hoping to learn?” What if we truly listened to those who return about the wisdom they gleaned and actually incorporated some of the lessons they learned into our own lives? What would happen if we went on overseas trips and were okay with just being?
The resilience shown by many of the traumatized adolescent girls we serve is amazing. But their hopes and desires for renewal can be buried deep under the layers of physical and mental pain they are wrapped in. Peeling those layers away takes a lot of nurturing care and patient guidance – even when the girl or boy involved is already showing you how much they want to heal. Here are the stories of two such remarkable girls.
Given what she has been through, it might seem somewhat surprising that Flavia can speak positively about her dreams for her future. By the time Flavia made the decision to flee escalating violence the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC or “Congo”), her world had already descended into chaos. But her refusal to give in to despair speaks to the spiritual strength she has displayed ever since her arrival at ChildVoice’s Lukome Center.
I first went to the Lukome Center in May 2019. I was 9 years old. To be honest, I did not like the idea of going. I thought that it would be miserable, dirty, and hot. But my parents said that we were going as a family so I didn’t have much of a choice. My one goal was to not completely hate it and maybe have some fun.
Our second to last night in Uganda started like any other but then something unusual happened. We were at chapel and all of a sudden Agnes started catching bugs in the air. Soon after that, other girls joined in as well. . . We could not believe it. We will get to try the termites we have heard so much about!
The past year has presented the world with heartbreaking challenges. The pandemic shows no sign of ending soon, but thankfully, the Lukome Center—where we bring traumatized Ugandan and South Sudanese girls who need a safe and nurturing space to heal—has reopened, and our students are finally getting back to their normal routine!
Lockdowns in both countries have created unintended issues for their sizable refugee and internally displaced persons populations, most significantly hunger. At Imvepi Refugee Settlement in Uganda, some families are reporting that children are getting just one meal a day. ChildVoice caseworkers have also documented at least five cases of attempted suicide. . .
Gladys—a strong young mother with a broad smile and a can-do attitude—runs a small restaurant at Imvepi Refugee Settlement in northern Uganda. It’s a far cry from her life just a few years earlier, when, shortly after becoming a child mother as a result of sexual exploitation, Gladys was forced to flee war-torn South Sudan with her mother and infant son Emmanuel.
Today, Hanan runs her small hairdressing shop on one of the busiest streets in the city of Arua, Uganda. Hanan is incredibly grateful that she’s now financially independent and able to provide for herself and her young son, Joshua. Hanan credits the skills she gained at the Lukome Center, including “saving, record keeping, and business plans,” as she put it. Together, we can continue transforming the lives of girls like Hanan whose lives have been shattered, their homes, their villages, and their dreams destroyed.
