What is compassion?

The team has just left on safari and so I am taking the chance to get a few words down before Karine and I start our day with meetings and other “must do” things. I am jealous that they are going to see all the amazing animals! Oh well, it will be good to have three days here to get other types of work done. I am also going to spend some time today visiting Muhamad and his family so that will be great.

The charter of compassion states: “The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religions, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, to honour the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.” Sally and Duncan are two people who embody this charter in every way.

Sally runs a home for girls off the street or girls who need a safe place to live because their home life is dangerous. She currently has 30 girls living in her home and the youngest must be no more than 4. Imagine what that little girl has lived through to make it into Sally’s home. She feeds them, clothes them, shelters them and gets people to sponsor their schooling. As the girls get older, she offers them tailoring, catering and beadwork classes so that once they leave her centre, they can make it on their own.

The girls we see at Sally’s are not broken as you would expect. They are full of love and joy. As we arrive, they all come over and give us a big hug to welcome us. They sing and dance and we talk about life together. Sally gives these girls the right to tell their stories so that they can then start to heal. Many of her girls have come from the North where they have been child brides to the LRA soldiers. They were kidnapped and presumed dead. When they reappeared after the war ended or when they were able to escape, the families were happy to see them but they were “used goods” and no longer valuable to the family. These are the girls who run away to Kampala to find a better life and end up on the streets.

Sally counsels them and helps them work through what has happened to them. She tells them: “These people have affected your past but they cannot touch your future.” Then the healing begins.

Sally is now spending her week days in Gulu. Her home in Kampala runs so smoothly that she is only there on the weekend to spend time with her girls and make sure all is okay. She wants to open a centre in Gulu for the girls who are there. She wants them to have a safe place to go in their own community so that they don’t come to Kampala and end up on the street. A church in Gulu has donated some land and an old building that she is refinishing. This centre will be open during the day for girls to visit, to be able to talk and to learn. There will be people there to train them in various skills as well as people to talk to about what is happening or has happened to them. These girls are young but they are so vulnerable. They don’t know what is happening to them, even when they are menstruating, because no-one has spoken to them. Sally wants to support them in any way she can.

One thing she told us is that these girls cannot attend school during their period because they have no supplies and cannot keep clean. There are no latrines for them and so they stay home. This means they miss school each month and fall behind and several just abandon their studies.

Sally told us that one evening, she was thinking about all the problems for the girls on the street and lamenting how terrible it was. “Someone should do something” she thought. She heard a voice that said to her: “What are you doing about it?” and that got her started. Girls seek her out, she is well known all over the country, and she is an inspiration.

Duncan runs the Elohim Centre in Bombo. He feeds 110 children every day, he makes sure they go to school, he cares for the elderly in the community, he runs a dance troupe to offer music therapy to the children who have been abused, and he houses 40 orphans in small shacks. Of his 110 children, 20 are HIV positive: 18 girls and 2 boys. He runs a store in the village to help raise funds for the children. They eat watery porridge every other day as their only meal because they cannot afford more than that. But his children all attend school. That is the most important to him. Last year we brought books for him so that he could continue to tutor the children in the evenings to help them do better in school. Now he has children who are in the top 10 of their grade.

He has an open air kitchen, a pit toilet, a hut with a dirt floor in which he works with the children when it is raining.

When we arrived yesterday, he was not there. The children started to dance for us but suddenly they all started to dance up the path. We turned and there was Duncan. They all sang and danced around him, welcoming him home. He laughed and danced with them back into the circle where they had been performing for us. It was amazing to see.

He is very worried about the girls. His sister, Joanne, is a co-founder of Elohim as well as Moses, a soldier who lives in the barracks just up the hill from Bombo. Joanne works with the girls to talk to them about sexual issues and reproductive health. Many of the girls have been raped by the men in the community. He said that there are even three court cases currently happening but he said: “Even if we win, the girls are still HIV positive now. The damage is done.” But he makes sure these children get their medicine and if they are well fed and continue with their medicine, they can live into their 60s. Nutrition is such an important part of that. He says that the challenge is that on the days when he can only offer the girls watery porridge, they can be bought for a piece of bread or even a candy.

Duncan wants to buy land to build dorms for the girls that can be locked at night to keep them safe. He wants to plant a garden to grow their own food. He hopes to get pigs because they are easy to care for and are a great investment as they reproduce easily and require minimum care. The children could care for them before they go to school.

Karine asked about other NGOs supplying food. He told us that he had tried but that when he went to meet with them, he was told he was too late. The following year he went earlier and was told again that he was too late. He even saw his name on ledgers saying he was getting food when he was actually getting nothing. “We are not recovering from war like the North. We are not recovering from floods like the East. Our children are just as needy but they are not important to the world.” They are certainly important to Duncan and the other adults who volunteer to keep them healthy and safe. And they are important to us who have invested time with them and who have seen their inner beauty. How can anyone think these children are not important?

Compassion: to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there. Sally and Duncan show the world how to be compassionate. How can we serve them in their work? How can we not?

Have a great day.

Erika