Rileys in Uganda

God is with us if we are with them

2012-02-24T15:52:00.001-08:00

I love this speech by Bono.

The work we are doing here inevitably presses some peoples buttons. It challenges some peoples perceptions of what they have always considered to be the truth and reality about the OVC situation over here in Uganda and that can be tough. Some people get angry and vent that anger directly towards us. It can sometimes be a very lonely road to travel, and one which requires a thick skin and at times a courageous and tenacious spirit.

These words of Bono continue to inspire us and to remind us that "God is with us if we are with them". These words give us strength and help us to continue to "fight the good fight of faith" (1 Tim 6 v12a)

Here is a clip from the speech. Please tolerate the opening little song, it will be worth it, so that you can hear Bonos inspirational speech.

Enjoy it and be inspired. "Be the change you want to see in the world" - Gandhi

Maama wange mwagala nnyo

2012-02-24T14:46:00.000-08:00

Here is a fun short film from Childs i foundation. - it is an advert for a wonderful new product called "Trilogy hand wash". Trilogy have chosen Childs i Foundation as their charity of the year and 100% of the profits from this hand cream will go to support the work of CIF here in Uganda. If you like using hand cream and want to treat yourself, you can buy the product either directly from the Boots store in the UK or online here or here, otherwise you can just sit back and enjoy the film!

Here is another beautiful film celebrating mothers and giving you the opportunity to support CIF on Mothers Day. Well done to Ian Warren for making both of these fantastic films.

Training for prospective and adoptive parents

2012-02-23T20:48:00.002-08:00

Ugandans are adopting and Crane (Viva Networks) do an excellent in helping prepare potential and current adoptive parents. Keren is speaking at the next training session and also sharing at the next coffee morning on how to empower your child and yourself on dealing with questions about adoption. If you know of any other potential adopters living in Uganda then please spread the word. Everyone is welcome.

Different country, same challenges

2012-02-15T15:19:00.002-08:00

I watched this video earlier about child traffiking and international adoption in India. I know that when we were adopting our son in 2005, I used to get incensed when people talked about child traffiking and international adoption in the same breath because we knew in our case our son had definitely not been traffiked. I used to get so angry and offended but I was ignorant.

Now that I live in a developing country and work within this arena, I know that sadly, in a lot of cases these injustices do take place.

Here is the video, it is a little dated, and the quality isn't great, BUT it is well worth watching to get educated and informed on this issue. It is heart breaking to hear the testimonies of the birth families in India whos lives who have been impacted by this, but we must remember that Ugandan families lives are being ripped apart and just as much impacted by this TODAY .

The look of love

2012-02-12T19:43:00.000-08:00

When I saw the way he first looked at my husband, I knew that his primary carer had been a man. This observation was another clue in our investigation and helped towards us finding his father. Davin went home two months later!

This all happened 9 months ago and Davin is now thriving with his father. He is happy, healthy and thriving. We are still waiting on the film we made about his resettlement and we will be so excited when it is finished and we are able to share it with you.

What a priviledge it is, to see children being resettled back to their birth families and doing so well.

Often, people believe that single fathers can't look after their children. However, by employing a maid to care for them while they are in work, it is totally possible. We are working with another single father at the moment to resettle his children and we will share his story as soon as these children go home. We would really appreciate your prayers for them all during this time.

Abide Family Center needs YOUR help

2012-02-06T07:48:00.000-08:00

Two very inspiring American women are over in the States at the moment finishing their university degrees but they have left their hearts in the deep red soil of Uganda. Kelsey Nielsen and Megan Parker are determined to get educated and learn the best ways of helping Ugandan families to stay and flourish together. While in America they are also raising funds and public awareness of a pioneering project they will be launching next year called the Abide Family Center.

Kelsey and Megan have seen first hand the realities of institutional care in Uganda and they have also had the revelation that most of these children have birth parents/extended families that they could be resettled with if given the chance and the support to do so. They have been working with the Armani Baby Cottage in Jinga on a project to get some of the children in their care resettled and you can read more about their resettlement project here. You can also read more about the mission of Abide on their blog here

Abide are competing for up to $50,000 award from the Dell Social Innovation Challenge and they need YOUR vote. By spending a few minutes of your time to vote for Abide, this could potentially impact Ugandan families lives forever. Don't leave it to somebody else. Please do it now and contribute towards helping Ugandan families stay together. To vote click here .

Thank you very much for your help in supporting this innovative project and please help spread the word so that others can vote too.

Some interesting links

2012-02-05T16:26:00.000-08:00

Should you or shouldn't you

Ethiopian international adoption

At home or in a home

Ten biggest positive African stories of 2011

International adoption post follow-up

2012-02-05T05:55:00.000-08:00

Thanks to all of the people who have emailed us about our previous post on International adoption. I am working my way through all of emails and am responding to them all. It has generated some interesting discussions and I believe that the post has achieved it's objective of firing a warning to be more cautious, check everything, check again and have a healthy cynicism to the whole process.

That though is the last post we will be writing on International adoption.

Everyone knows the system is faulty and that some take advantage of this fact. There should be no excuses now for not doing the necessary checks and searches before adopting. We have no interest in whistle-blowing on individuals or organisations - that is for somebody else to do. Instead we are concentrating on helping to fix the system and promoting positive community based responses to the issues facing Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC) in Uganda.

Urgent Warning for people attempting to or about to internationally Adopt from Uganda

2012-02-02T22:20:00.000-08:00

If you are trying to adopt, or aboutto adopt from Uganda - TREAD WITH CAUTION.

I will not break any confidences orhighlight specific cases... but we have recently engaged with and met withquite a few families who are going through the adoption process and quitefrankly – it’s a complete mess. In an official capacity I hear and witness ‘nightmare’ scenarios every single day. I prayand hope that the families who have had a bad experience in Uganda are braveenough to blog about what is really taking place on the ground. Please considerit because the truth has to come out.

The government is working extremelyhard to ‘clean’ up the process and put in place robust mechanisms to ensurethat the children being internationally adopted ARE actually available foradoption and the processes are transparent and ethical. However, until thesemeasures are in place I would strongly advise that international adopters TRUSTNOBODY and BELIEVE NOTHING that you are being told (verbally or on paper). The sweetness of the words and promises you hear will snare you in andare venomous, you must be careful.

We suggest that you demand all ofthe background information on the child. Has everything been done to findtheir family or find a domestic solution? When you receive backgroundinformation on a child, scrutinize it and ask questions and don’t stop askingquestions throughout the process. Try and get someone on the ground to verifythe information. If a relinquishing order has been obtained please follow it upand investigate the circumstances surrounding that order. Check to see if thechild is actually living in an institution and how long they have been there. We see lawyers and baby homes ‘plucking’ children from communities to supplythe demographic demand of international adopters and ‘routing’ them throughchildren’s homes. We see the Ugandan families being convinced and even coercedinto allowing their children to be adopted for opportunity reasons. It’sdisgusting.

There are Adoption agencies, lawyersand children’s homes implicit in unethical practices. I’m not going to namethem on here (the list would be too long!) but if you are thinking “oh thatdoesn’t apply to our lawyer or our baby home or our agency” PLEASE think again.

Yes there are good and ethicalpeople involved in international adoption BUT as a mandatory position I thinkit’s healthy to assume the worst and hopefully be proved wrong. Naivetyand lack of awareness will not help when we have the chance to obtain theknowledge and information required to make informed and ethical decisions.

We know there are children who needto be internationally adopted. We are in the process of helping to find afamily for a severely neglected boy who has little or no chance of a domesticsolution. However, these are not the children who are generally being adoptedout of Uganda.

This post may sound harsh. This postmay make you angry. This post may piss you off. This post may even get ignored. But ifyou are adopting from Uganda, or thinking about it, this'll probably be the mostimportant post you’ll read this year.

Mark.

My parents/their Grandparents

2012-01-30T08:08:00.000-08:00

My parents and one of my sisters came to stay with us in December. It was amazing to show them Uganda and to give them a glimpse into our lives here.

Parents, Grandparents, siblings and extended families are so important. We mustn't forget how equally important they are to the children in institutional care here in Uganda. They give us glimpses into our families histories and help us to make sense of our lives and our experiences.

I am blessed to have the amazing family I have. Here is a little film I have made as a tribute to my wonderful parents and my childrens incredible Grandparents. We love you and miss you very much.

2012-01-27T15:02:00.000-08:00

54% of the children from Malika Babies Home are resettled back with their birth family. This video shows how they do it.

The scales of injustice

2012-01-26T17:11:00.000-08:00

Many of the international people who are adopting children from Uganda have blogs documenting the highs and lows of their adoption journeys. They often have their audiences gripped by the dramas that are often involved in their journeys and these blogs often give a fascinating insight into the way that the adoption experience is viewed through their Western perspective.

I first read this particular blog post in the summer of last year, it made me feel many different emotions at the time. I mainly felt sick, angry, ashamed of being Western, and I felt like weeping for this poor child and her family who I felt were being exploited and were being taken advantage of. I emailed the family and we had some dialogue back and fore but it became quickly apparent that we viewed adoption through very differently lenses, so I stopped trying to "win" the "argument" and didn't continue the conversation.

I believe that we are never entitled to the children of families who are in crisis here in Uganda. I believe we should never be taking advantage of vulnerable and poor families here in Uganda and anywhere else in the world for that matter.

Matters of injustice are flowing through the slums and disadvantaged communities here in Uganda, and it is tragically Westerners who are bringing these waves of injustice, and even worse doing it all in the name of "Christ".

God Help Us!

It is said of Belshazzar in the book of Daniel in the Bible, that his life was weighed on the scales of injustice and was found wanting (Daniel 5 v27).

Just because someone might decide to turn a blind eye to the truths of their adoption situation, just because they might block their ears off to the small, still voice inside telling that what they are doing is wrong and that all is not as it seems, just because someone chooses to only share some of the truth of their adoption and not all the truth because that would radically change the feel good story, doesn't mean, that the God of justice, that the God of the downtrodden, that the God of the poor, does not see the actions and know the truth of what is going on............the truth of what I am doing, the truth of what we are ALL doing.

Let's make sure that our lives, when seen through Gods eyes are overflowing with justice and truth and that we spend our lives standing up for the people, both children and adults who have no voice and who are regularly being exploited and taken advantage of by the rich and powerful in their societies.

The Double Whammy

2012-01-18T19:59:00.000-08:00

If you are born with a disability in Uganda AND you end up in institutional care, life can be very tough.

My heart breaks at the thought of the children who are kept out of sight and out of mind in these places.

In one "orphanage" I visit, there is little girl who has been in institutional care for 3 years and I think it is fair to say, that she has not had her needs met.

Obviously, children with disabilities require extra medical attention and if the "orphanage" hasn't the resources or the will power to provide for these childrens needs, then tragically, those needs often go unmet.

I have been given the incredible opporunity to go and visit a little girl with cerebral palsy and to show her some individual love and attention until her adoptive Mum comes over to get her.

If you are the praying kind, then please can you pray for God to really move on the powers that be to complete the process? This little girl REALLY needs to go home.

We regularly hear about Christians who want to open "orphanages" for babies here in Uganda.

Uganda definitely 100% does NOT need anymore orphanages. If a babies home does it's job properly (active social work department, resettlement and domestic adoption programmes, aiming for the child to spend less than 6 months in their care) eg Malika Babies home, than you will find that there are often even vacancies!

SO, if you really want to raise funds, open a home for needy children and send over volunteers to work in them, then please consider opening a home for children with special needs.

As Westerners and as Christians, let's not be part of the problem but part of the solution. Let's see where the need is and try and then help to fill it.

If you are interested in learning more about what life is like for children in Uganda with disabilities and would like to support a fantastic and progressive organisation in Uganda, then please look here

The difference the love of a family makes

2012-01-15T09:27:00.000-08:00

Within a few weeks of us moving to Uganda in August 2010, I was contacted by an American lady who was adopting a little girl from an "orphanage" in Kampala. She wondered if I could visit the little girl, take some photos and give her some much needed individual love and attention until she came to Uganda.

It was a God thing, because literally the day before she emailed me, the lady running the organisation we had moved to Uganda to work with, had made it quick clear that we weren't welcome (within days of us actually arriving in Uganda!), so the timing was perfect.

For the next 4 weeks, I visited this little girl once a week, and sent photos and reports back to her future Mum, about her behaviour, her life in the "orphanage" and most importantly her health. Here are some photographs I took at that time, one of them is particularly heart breaking.

all photos used with permission

Deb and I became great friends and we have kept in contact ever since. We even met up at the end of last year when she came to Kampala for a short visit and it was amazing to see her again.

Anyway, earlier today, she sent me some photos of her daughter on a recent photo shoot and the difference in 15 months is absolutely ASTOUNDING.

This is the difference the love of a family makes.

This isn't the difference that a family from the WEST makes, but this is the difference a FAMILY makes, wherever that family might be.

Post resettlement visit

2012-01-13T19:24:00.000-08:00

This week we went to check on some of the children we resettled last year. It was so encouraging to see how well they are all doing.

Here is a report about two of the children we visited. You can read more about this sister and brother when we resettled them 5 months ago here.

Watching them playing in the clean, open air with their cousins and their neighbours was absolutely beautiful. Somebody had made them a little swing under the shade of a small tree and they had such fun playing on it. My mind was cast back to the "orphanage" that had been "home" to them for 17 months with it's broken swing - what a difference.

We met their new cousin when their aunt came to visit. It really hit me hard, that if we had never traced their family and the children had stayed in the "orphanage", that they would NEVER have got the opportunity to get to know and grow up with their cousin. It's so easy to forget about the amount of peoples lives who are actually impacted and the loss that many of them consequently suffer when their niece/Grand niece/Grandchild gets institutionalized.

In the West we forget sometimes that Ugandan families are SO large. With the average birth rate of 7, this means that there are a LOT of aunts, uncles, cousins, Great aunts and Great uncles etc. I felt that this was an important fact for me to start digesting when I visited this week.

When we are looking at tracking an institutionalized childs extended family down, and working towards resettlement, we must try and remember, that there are actually a SIGNIFICANT amount of potential family members that the child could potentially be resettled with (if for whatever reason it's not possible for them to be resettled with their parent/s).

In the West, I think we tend to be much more exclusive with our nuclear, immediate families. The extended family is still obviously our family ("hello" to all my aunts/uncles and cousins out there:), but they don't seem to have such an important role to play in our lives as they seem to over here in Uganda.

If you are a potential intercountry adoptive parent, this is so important to remember when you are attempting to adopt a child from Uganda. Perhaps a question you could ask, is "has the "orphanage"/adoption agency/lawyer made sure that every living relative of the child has been tracked down and approached for resettlement and support"? If not, then maybe ask - why not?

I took Susan from the "Children in Families" project along with me again to chat to the childrens father and Grandmother. She spoke to them about how they could be self sustainable and how they could support their children and their family more adequately. It is really exciting to be working with Susan and her organization and to witness how this families life will be transformed through her support and advise.

When I was visiting the "orphanage" I got to really know and love these children. When we found their families and started to get to know them and hear about their stories and their struggles, I got to really know and love them TOO. When I visit now, I feel like I am visiting my own extended family.

Getting a child resettled and fighting for a family to be reunited is an incredibly bonding and life changing experience. I feel that I will always have a special connection with this family and the other families we helped "save" from their "orphanage".

If you are the praying kind, then please keep praying for this family, for God to bless them and to keep them.

Thanks for reading and for all your ongoing support and encourgagement.

"The spirit of Resettlement"

2012-01-12T22:55:00.000-08:00

One of the popular verses that Christians use when adopting children from Uganda is Romans 8 v15

"For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba Father"".

We believe as Christians, we need to now begin redressing the balance and start talking about the "Spirit of resettlement".

Resettlement is often about justice, about truth, about the poor and the ignored and the Bible screams out about these issues.

Just because you can't see these words written down in the Bible, it doesn't mean that the desire isn't there weaved gently throughout this ancient book.

These words will whisper in the pages as you turn them, if you will only open your ears and your heart to listen.

Surfing on top of a tsunami

2012-01-11T20:30:00.000-08:00

If you are a regular reader of our blog, you will know that last year, Katie and Iwere working with a “orphanage” here in Uganda, helping to facilitate theresettlement of some of the children in their care. Well, they didn’t actually “willingly” signup for this initiative, but (along with the head social worker at the time) we were involved with this very exciting project. I mean, what would you do, if you found out that most ofthe so called “orphans” in the facility you were working in, actually hadfamilies who might have just been too poor, or in atime of crisis, or who might have just needed some extra support and help? Would you have just walkedaway and pretended that you didn’t see what you saw, or would you have tried and done something about it?

Katie and I couldn’t turn a blind eye to what we hadwitnessed and so the "interesting times" began.

We managed toresettle 5 children out of this particular institution, but we really could haveresettled a lot more, if it all hadn’t gone, just a tiny.bit.wrong!

We had to stop working there at the end oflast August, when it became painfully obvious that we weren’t welcome there anymore. Quite frankly, for me, the whole experience almostdestroyed me and it took me months to recover. If you have been readingour blog for a while and wondered why the blog suddenly went quiet around that time - thiswas one of the reasons why.

Amongst thedevastation however, I still managed to continue to follow up the 5 children we had resettled, but I still grieved the loss of the opportunity to work with the other children and theirfamilies in this particular "orphanage".

A few weeks after we stopped working there, the head social also ended up leaving and not really by choice. Katie and I had been in the earlystages of working with 6 other children and their families towards resettlementand it was REALLY, REALLY hard to walk away. But we just knew our hands were tied and there was nothing else we could do.

Even though all this tookplace over 4 months ago, the social worker who took over the head of department,hasn’t since then progressed any of these cases. As we expected, she showed no interest in continuing the resettlement work or attempting to track down any of the other families of the remaining children,because unfortunately it's not her main focus or her priority.

I visited this particular “orphanage” for 12 months. Some of the things I discovered and unearthedwere quite unbelievable. It really is the stuff movies are made out of and it opened myeyes to the secrets of institutional care.

I will sharing some of these things over the coming months.

If you are the praying kind, we would really appreciate yourprayers for this particular “orphanage” and all other institutions acrossUganda and the developing world. Please pray that God would open the eyes of the people working there to the TRUTH and that the staff would be willing to start looking atresettlement as a viable option. Also, please pray for the management teams and the social work departments (if there is one, if there isn't one, for them to employ one) and for them to have a desire to work with thechilds parents/extended family to help enable the child to go home. Lastly, please also pray for us and all our friends and colleagues who are engaged in this battle. It really is noteasy swimming against the tide. Well actually a better analogy would be, surfing on top of a tsunami!

Funding a future crisis

2012-01-11T02:44:00.000-08:00

Here’s the thing. Fund an Orphanage or sponsor a child in an orphanage and we think we are helping. Now, what if I told you that your money and support is costing the country you are supporting at least 5 times of what you are putting in?

Wow… ok let me explain…

A child who has been brought up in an orphanage is 20% more likely to get into conflict with the law, become an alcoholic, become addicted to drugs, have multiple sexual partners, abscond from parental duties, become a physical or sexually abusive, live on the street and remain unemployed.

Even without the support structures we have in the west the direct cost and knock-on cost to a developing country is huge. When you consider the police, prison, social work and other service costs of dealing with the effects of a post-institutional child some analysts within governments are putting the costs anywhere between $2000 and $14000 PER YEAR.

And your child sponsorship scheme is what? About $400 per year?

I’ve only mentioned the financial cost. What about the emotional, spiritual and psychological cost of picking up the pieces of these broken lives and the others they affect? Now that is a cost none of us should be prepared to pay.

Bottom line, orphanages ruin societies and as major donors we are actually funding a future crisis. God help us.

When the research is complete later this year I’ll post a link.

In the meantime consider where your funding is going and search out those projects that equip and empower communities to look after their own children, or support domestic fostering and adoption schemes. Children need families and society need children in families. Let’s concentrate on making them safe and happy places.

The things they DON'T tell you.

2012-01-09T00:07:00.000-08:00

I believe that most "orphanages" exploit the poor and vulnerable in society. It is important to remember that families in crisis might be using an "orphanage" as a temporary measure, until their situation changes. However, this rarely happens because unfortunately for many families, their situation DOESN'T change dramatically enough for them to be able to pay for school fees, feed their children, etc. Also, many "orphanages" don't employ a social work, let alone a whole team that would be needed for the larger "orphanages" here, so there is nobody who is actively working with these families to help them to change their situations so that they can be reunited and bring up their children.

People here who use "orphanages" often believe that the ngo/organisation will provide their child with access to quality education, regular food, medical services etc - all the things that they as a family/individual can't provide at this particular moment in time. In some of the "orphanges" they do provide this. However, many "orphanages" in reality, give a very low standard of care. Perhaps they spend the money on other things or perhaps they need the situation to constantly look desperate, because otherwise why would Westerners continue to support them? In some, they really don't have the adequate resources to look after that many children and they become overwhelmed with the needs of so many children? In some "orphanages" the children are eating one basic meal a day, with no medical care (even if they have HIV) and they are not being educated at all. But their families obviously won't be told that.

It is really important for us all to remember, that nothing can EVER compensate for the loss of your family, of your history, of your future and of experiencing being a child who is consistently important and special in one/two adults eyes.

These families also AREN'T told about the level of abuse and neglect that take place in many of these "orphanages", and how sometimes there is extreme sexual abuse instigated by both adults and other children resident in the "home". These families aren't told that their child might be chosen in the "window shopping" that many prospective Western adoptive parents do because the money involved in that process is just too much of a temptation for some to resist. The families aren't told that if their child is adopted internationally, that their child will learn to relate to their new culture and might not see themselves as Ugandans in any capacity. They are not told that when their child is older, that they might not ever want to come back to Uganda and that they might not want the responsiblity and expectation of supporting financially a lot of the extended family. They aren't told that they might not ever see their child again and that adoption is a legal and permanent severing of family ties and responsibilites. These families aren't told about the attachment issues that children who spend time in institutional care will have and how they will probably have challenges with trusting people for the rest of their lives. They aren't told how their childs brains won't develop properly and how they might have permanent damage because of the lack of stimulation and nurture. They aren't told about the amount of money that many "orphanages" make from "looking" after their child and actually that their child is seen by many as a business opportunity to be milked.

EQUALLY, prospective overseas parents aren't told that the child they are adopting might not actually be an orphan at all! They aren't told that NO attempts have been made to track down the childs birth family and that the child didn't actually even have a file with any documentation until they/their adoption agency started to show an interest in adopting them. They aren't told that nobody has attempted to work with the childs birth family to encourage and support them towards reunification. Many aren't told if their child has been sexually abused within the "home" or has been living in a climate where sexual abuse has been taking place or that their child has Hepatitis B/HIV (because they haven't given them any medical care) or that the child might actually be at least 2 years older than the age they have been given. The list could go on and on and on.

They are many other things that they DON'T and WON'T tell you. There are many myths that continue to flourish such as, Uganda has 2 million orphans who many Westerners believe are living in orphanages (I know I did!). In reality however, there are very few "real" orphans in orphanages because most are being cared for by their extended families and the numbers of childen in institutional care are at a rough estimate 40,000.

We believe that there is a real need for us all to ask the hard questions and for being honest with ourselves. Are we actually a part of the problem or a part of the solution. We need to read between the lies we are often being sold and realize that things are NOT always as they seem. We need to realize that within the "orphanage" trade, there is as much corruption as there is in other business' here. We need to realize that the majority of "orphanages" here are set up and financed by the churches in the West so we might be actually helping to enable these dishonest people to exploit these children and their families and helping for this sick system to continue.

If I hear of another adoption agency coming to Uganda to scout for children I am going to pull my hair out and scream VERY loudly. Uganda doesn't need another adoption agency to remove children from Uganda, we need support to KEEP children within communities. If you have money DON'T build another orphanage - Uganda doesn't need anymore orphanages. We need to transition them into day care centres, this is what would benefit these communities so much more.

Please, be creative, think outside the box and don't allow an outdated model to continue. If we in the West closed "orphanages" down in the 60's and 70's why the heck are we continuing to export this dangerous model to Uganda and the rest of the developing world? If it wasn't okay for us, it's not okay for them. Ugandans involved in this arena here, don't want the West to build and fund orphanages. They are trying to put the messy worms back into the cans and it's not easy.

The time has come for us all to start speaking the truth and as Dr Stockley recently said in our church - "as LOUDLY as we can". The time has come for the prophetic word to come back to the church and to realize that within the church the devil has sold us all a lie and a lot of us have believed it. God wants children in their families and communities and not in "orphanages - EVEN if their families are poor.

"For among my people are found wicked men: They lie in wait as one who sets snares. They set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so their houses are full of deceit. Therefore they have become great and grown rich. They have grown fat, they are sleek. Yes, they surpass the deeds of the wicked. They do not plead the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they prosper, and the rights of the needy they do not defend." Jer 5 v26-28

We believe that God wants people to help elevate the WHOLE family out of poverty. God wants children in their families of origin (if there are no child protection issues) and not adopted abroad to be used by SOME as some kind of medal of honour. This might sound harsh, but reading some blogs we feel this is a reality. (disclaimer - If you didn't adopt your child for some kind of recognition, or for some "saviour complex" but because you wanted to be a parent again then obviously this comment isn't being aimed at you)

God does NOT make mistakes. If a child is created and grows in one womans womb, the child wasn't actually "destined" to be cared for in another womans arms. God is not a weird, messed up and sick, scientist. If something has gone wrong in the relationship between the birth Mum and her baby, let's do everything we can to HELP them. Look at an example of what our friends are doing in an inspiring and wonderful initative called "Harbour House" in Haiti to prevent this happening.

SO, what are you going to do about it? What is your role in all of this and can you and will you stand up for truth and justice?

What are WE personally going to do about it?

Well, after 1.5 years of living here and having lived through some quite extreme experiences related to our involved in the "orphanage" trade, we now know what we are going to do about it and we are VERY, VERY excited about it.

Over the next couple of weeks we will be sharing our vision and our mandate of what we are going to do in our part in rescuing these children out of institutional care and getting them back into their families and their communities. We can't wait:)

Just to finish off, here are some scriptures about Gods attitude to the poor and his expectations of our treament of the poor.

"For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now I will arise says the Lord" - Psalm 12 v5a

"Execute justice and righteousness, and deliver the plundered out of the hand of the oppressor. Do no wrong and do no violence to the stranger, the fatherless, or the widow" Jer 22 v3

"Woe to those who decree unrighteous decrees, who write misfortune, which they have prescribed to rob the needy of justice and to take what is right from the poor of my people, that widow may be their prey, and that they may rob the fatherless" Isaiah 10 v1-2

"Let justice run down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream" Amos 5 v24

"Whoever has this worlds goods and sees his brother in need and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him?" 1 John 3 v17

You can read more Bible verses about the poor here

Resettlement work in Ghana

2012-01-04T20:40:00.000-08:00

We were really excited and encouraged recently to hear about an excellent organization in Ghana called "Orphan Aid Africa" who are doing both resettlements of children from institutional care and also preventative work by supporting both the children AND their families. You can read more about them on their website here.

Isn't it ironic, don't you think?

2011-12-29T11:16:00.000-08:00

"One of the ironies of much of the worlds orphanages is that most of the children are not orphans"

To read more, please click here.

Where there's a will, there's a way

2011-12-28T17:44:00.000-08:00

We wanted to share with you Childs i foundations new mission statement for 2012. It has been so exciting as we have witnessed this fantastic organization develop and grow. They are fore runners in their field, so they are working in unknown territory. They have personally taught us so much and have really raised the benchmark here in Uganda, proving that abandoned babies and children can be resettled with birth family and can be domestically adopted if the will and impetus is there.

They are a really inspiring organization and have the best interests of both the child AND the family at heart and we think this is key. You know that everything is done as quickly as possible to locate the childs birth family and that every attempt is given for that child to grow up in their family of origin if at all possible. This consequently means that for those families who then adopt from Malika Babies home, that they will be able to categorically tell their child as they grow up that every attempt was taken to resettle them so there are no question marks and suspicions in that area for the child.

If you are feeling inspired and want to get involved with the excellent work they are doing, here are ten possible ways of doing just that.

1) Watch their new mission statement video (see above) and share with your friends and family.

2) Come and meet them in person at their Meet Up on Thursday 12th January at the Golden Fleece Pub in Bank, London at 7pm. For more details email martha@childsifoundation.org

3) Step out and decide to support them on a regular basis, like 93 others around the world who do. It is their lifeline and helps them to be able to plan more efficiently. However, they really need more generous people to set up a regular gift to ensure that they can run their babies home - is that you? If you believe that children belong in families and need parents then please consider setting up a regular gift here

4) Join their Facebook Group and invite your friends to join. Here they share with you about all the families they work with and also give regular updates on the events at Malaika Babies Home.

5) Join their mailing list and receive their regular newsletter.

6) Please think of them next time you are buying a present for a friend or loved one. You can buy a really unique present.

7) Thinking of making a new years resolution to give up smoking or running a marathon to get fit? Why not set up a Just Giving sponsorship page and ask all your friends to donate – that way you will HAVE to do it, and no excuses!

8) They rely on a worldwide community of volunteers to help run their charity. If you have the time and skills please sign up to get involved.

9) If you are inspired by Hazel Buck and her Community fundraising team in Sussex and want to set up your very own fundraising committee for Child’s i Foundation please email hazel@childsifoundation.org

10) If you have a digital camera that you don’t need anymore we really really need one! Please contact lucy@childsifoundation.org

Please consider supporting Childs i foundation in whatever way you can and help spread the word that resettlement and domestic adoption in Uganda really isn't a pipedream anymore, it is a reality.

As a world community, we must stop being hoodwinked and being led to believe that "orphanages" are the best solution. Let's start holding organizations we know of/support accountable and challenge them to see, that there is another way. You know the famous saying - "Where there is a will, there is a way".

The hope of glory

2011-12-24T10:18:00.000-08:00

Happy Christmas to you all from Uganda. Thank you to everyone who has supported and encouraged us recently - we really appreciate you all.

May we all know the peace, joy and hope that Jesus brings in an extra special way this Christmas.

"Fear not, for I bring you glad tidings of great joy, which shall be for ALL people" - Luke2v10

"Christ in you, the hope of glory" - Colossians 1v27

Great publication

2011-12-21T12:48:00.000-08:00

Mark and I recently read an excellent document called "From Faith to Action - Strengthening Family and Community Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children in Sub-Saharan Africa".

"The purpose of this publication is to raise awareness of family and community based solutions to the problems faced by orphans and vulnerable children. We hope to move donors, faith-based organizations and other groups away from reliance on orphanages, which are unable to address the scale of the orphan crisis in Africa and often fail to meet childrens developmental and long term needs. At the same time, we recognize that institutional care is sometimes needed as a temporary repsonse or as a last resort for vulnerable childern who have no other means of support".

The publication has one chapter called "Institutional Care: A temporary response". If you interested in children who are languishing in institutional care, in children who are needlessly seperated from their birth families and who are trapped in the system, then this will make interesting reading.

For more information on these important issues, then please click here.

Happy birthday Son

2011-12-20T16:10:00.000-08:00

Our son is now officially a teenager. This is the first time he has ever celebrated a birthday in Uganda and he told us it was his best birthday yet. I was so pleased. He gave a speech after his birthday meal, thanking us for his presents and for his day and it actually brought a tear to my eye.

It's not an easy road being transracially adopted, especially when you are the only black person in your immediate family. In our family, most people assume that our son is adopted and to have that very personal information known by strangers can not be easy to live with. Our son walks on a tight rope, and living here brings up other complexities that we probably wouldn't encounter as a family if we were still living in Wales. But fundamentally we ARE family, as complex as it is sometimes, as messy and complicated as it can be, ultimately, we still belong to each another.

Son, we love you and want people to know that we are very proud of the way that you are dealing with and navigating life here and very importantly of the young man you are becoming. We love you.

Food for thought

2011-12-19T15:38:00.000-08:00

My parents and one of my sisters are visiting us for Christmas, so we have been having a very busy time showing them around various places of interest in Kampala.

On Sunday, we took them down to Gaba Beach so that they could experience the hussle and bussle of the fish being sold, the various market stalls and also to sample the infamous fish (talipia) and chips lunch. Gaba Beach is a very colourful place, full of life and for those of us who love making images - it is a real photographers Paradise.

Before taking any photos, I asked the stall owner/people involved if they minded me taking their photograph and nobody objected. Later as we were walking back to the car, a stall owner, jumped infront of us, held up a camera phone quite close to us and then silently took a photograph of us before running off. I turned to my sister and said, "Wow, that is how it must feel for Ugandans when tourists visit and act in the same way". I was glad that I was on the receiving end of this behaviour because it was so eye opening. He then ran back again and closely followed our daughter trying to photograph her on her own. I told him to stop it and put my hand up infront of her to stop him taking her photograph.

Another stall owner who witnessed the last encounter spoke up and said "Why is okay for you to take photos of us, but we're not allowed to take photos of you?". We then had a really interesting and enlightening conversation as he told us about what "the whites" do when they visit Gaba Beach. They generally don't buy anything, but rudely go around taking photos of people without asking their permission and then just leave. If anybody objects then the Ugandans who have brought them, shout and get angry. I had noticed earlier, when we had browsed one stall but didn't buy anything, that the stall holder seemed quite dismissive of us and then said to the neighbouring stall holder in Luganda, that we wouldn't buy anything off them, so not to bother dealing with us. Also, on another stall, after some friendly banter I was then asked if I was a mulakali ("born again"), and when I said that I was (well kind of), she then said quietly that she was a Catholic. She seemed to shrink away and seemed to lose interest in talking to me. Perhaps they haven't had a very experience with some Christians on mission trips who visit there, and their visits have now worn thin.

I think it is so important to be respectful of people here and not to act arrogantly. I know all to well, how visually interesting life is here for those of us who hail from different parts of the globe, but I don't think that we should feel we have the right to photograph whoever we want, whenever we want, without taking into consideration peoples feelings and respecting their right to say "no". Their lives belong to them. We are given glimpses as we live, walk and work amongst them, but I think it is really important that we are respectful and don't take advantage of them. After all, I am sure that you wouldn't act this way in your neighbourhood, so perhaps we need to ask ourselves - "so why is it okay to act this way here"?

My mum, told him proudly that we are from Wales and that most people from Wales are not rude and wouldn't take photographs in this way (all you fellow Welsh people out there, please take note:)! He then told her, that "whites" all look the same and how is he supposed to differentiate between the Welsh, Americans, the Dutch etc? That he could tell the difference between Somalians, Ugandans, Ethopians etc, but that he couldn't with "the whites".

I really loved our conversation. One thing I am still getting used to, is that generally Ugandans aren't direct and straight and that often you have to read between the lines of what they are saying. They are generally very polite and non confrontational. It was really refreshing to hear this man speak and share so eloquently the double standards that must grate on him. Hopefully it is food for thought.

Addressing poverty, not removing children

2011-12-13T00:04:00.000-08:00

Through a successful campaign we have now proved that Ugandans will and do Adopt - http://www.ugandansadopt.ug/

Ugandan families though areoften overlooked by child care institutions who have a vested interest (usuallyfinancially or gifts in kind) in getting the kids adopted internationally. TheUgandan children’s act states that if ANY money or gifts are given to aprobation officer, children's home or birth family during the adoption processthen it is classed as child trafficking.

All domestic solutions should be sought before children are made available forIntercountry Adoption.... any other process is unethical and against theUgandan's children's act.

As westerners before we adopt it is our duty to ourselves, God and thechild in question to ensure we pursue the ethical and proper processes. One dayour children will possibly (hopefully) ask us for their history.... we need toprove that we did everything possible to find their birth parents and keep themin their communities. We owe it to them.

When a disruption or abandonment takes place it is plain racism to believe that'Ugandans' don't and won't care for the child. Ugandan's love children andwhile they may not be able to take them to Disneylandor feed them MacDonald’s (yuk!) they can provide a great environment for themto grow up in.

Poverty is NOTa reason to remove a child from their birth family - Let's address the povertynot remove the child.

We need to support and encourage Ugandan communities to care for their childrenand not give them up to child care institutions. Institutions may well beattractive as they are often able to offer education, clothing and a good diet(although many don't!) but can never provide a child with the necessarydevelopment, attachment and bonding that can only be gotten from a lovingfamily. We need to preach the message that families and not institutional careis the answer.

In turn child care institutions should be encouraged and even forced to have anexit strategy for every child as they transform themselves into emergencycentre’s and offer daycare and support services - not long term residentialcare. If they did this then they would be able to help and support many more children thanthey ever could in residential care facilities.

Let's help empower communities and vulnerable parents / guardians to look aftertheir own children first; we can do this through economic empowerment, trainingand good social work practices. It's harder, it needs more time andeffort BUT it is the right thing to do.

I am encouraged by the work of VIVA - Families for Children, who offer supportto families in order that reunification is successful. Empowering families togenerate income and provide the necessary family support to families iscritical in any reunification and resettlement. The service, supported by SamaritansPurse, is available to any children’s home who want to resettle children.Please contact Viva for more details. There is also a great interview with Rogers from Families forchildren on the Viva Blog.

It's the most wonderful time of the year

2011-12-10T11:28:00.001-08:00

If anybody is looking at supporting a great charity this Christmas, then please look no further than Childs i foundations, Malika Babies home, here in Kampala. This cheery video should help get you in the mood for Christmas and hopefully inspire you about the amazing work they are doing:)

2011-12-10T11:22:00.001-08:00

Proud to be Welsh

2011-11-22T10:52:00.001-08:00

Our daughters recently celebrated "International Day" at their school. They were given the option of dressing up in their national dress or the colours of their flag. Thankfully I had brought over their Welsh costumes when we moved over here last year, I don't think a Welsh costume would have been that easy to source in Owino market! On the days leading up to the celebration, our youngest daughter was adamant that she wasn't going to wear the Welsh hat because she thought the other children would laugh at her. But when she appeared in the parade , she faced her fear and wore it anyway!

Our oldest daughter was chosen as one of the best dressed in her class, wearing the same costume that I wore at her age.

There are amazingly over 60 different nationalties in their school, although the predominant culture is Ugandan. They had a great day, with lots of different stalls where they celebrated and learnt about all the nations across the world.

ChildSafe Network - Tips for Travelers

2011-11-02T00:01:00.000-07:00

There are an estimated 150 million children living or working on the streets worldwide. All of these children are at risk of being abused and often travelers unwillingly or unknowingly increase their vulnerability.

ChildSafe have come up with seven tips to help travelers better protect children around the world.

I particularly like Tip 2. If they are genuine street kids giving them money will sustain them on the streets and provide little incentive for them to go to one of the street children centres, like Retrak Charity, where they can their immediate needs met and find a long term sustainable solution. If they are not genuine street children then their 'guardians' will take the money from them and send them back begging.

I recently posted a comment as such on a blog who mentioned that they had been giving money/food to street children, my post didn't get published.

If you see a child begging consider the following actions instead:

If the child looks in a dangerous situtaion contact the local authorities
Sign-post children to support organisations, like Retrak, who can help with both immediate and long term solutions
Support organisations working with communities to prevent family seperation
Support local retailers and markets to boost the local econmic sitution

Please check out the ChildSafe website for further details.

ChildSafe Website

Alternative Care in Uganda

2011-11-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Although the blog has been quiet recently it has not been through lack of activities on the ground!

The Alternative Care Framework I have been working on is currently in draft as we speak and engage with key stakeholders in order to get ‘buy-in’ and ensure that the Framework is widely accepted before it becomes government policy.

I have been visiting the Districts to speak with Probation Social Welfare Officers and District Government Officials.

Alternative Care is defined as: the continuum of informal and formal care options for children who are temporarily or permanently without parental care, and includes kinship care, foster care, Kafala, guardianship, domestic and inter-country adoption, and specialized residential care.

We will share more about the Framework in the next few weeks.

Mark

Children are not tourist attractions

2011-10-31T01:25:00.000-07:00

Friends International has launched a much needed and important campaign to highlight the issues with what is becoming known as “orphan tourism”. Although the campaign focuses on Cambodia we have the same challenges in Uganda.

Some time ago a child protection expert asked me if I would allow complete strangers into my home and let them take photos, hold and play with my kids. In addition the photos would then be placed on blogs, Facebook and other social media platforms as photographic ‘souvenirs’. Obviously no parent would like this to happen, so why do we think it is acceptable to do the same for children without current parental care?

One question that often comes up when we talk of stopping ‘orphan tourism’ is how do organizations raise funds to sustain themselves if they have a closed door policy? It’s a good question and the answer will be hard to swallow for many organizations. The fact remains that institutional care is one of the worst forms of care for children and the most expensive, so we don’t want institutions to become sustainable and keep children in long term institutional care…. We want institutions to become short term transitional centres where children’s needs can be quickly assessed and a family-based permanent solution fond.

The campaign addresses some wider issues with institutional care, it's well worth a look.

http://www.thinkchildsafe.org/thinkbeforevisiting/

Still Here!

2011-10-05T03:06:00.000-07:00

Sorry that the blog has been so quiet recently but here is a quick update!

- Mark is really busy working with the Government of Uganda (Ministry of Gender) on an Alternative Care Framework to help de-institutionalize Uganda and provide alternatives to institutionalised care.

- For a number of reasons I have been taking a break but I hope to be blogging regularly again soon.

Thanks everyone for your prayers and support.

Closing the doors of orphanages!

2011-08-29T00:34:00.000-07:00

Georgia: Military Shuts Orphanage, Staining Childcare Reform

The above article (link) recently published outlines some of the issues with migrating from an institutional care system to a community based alternative care system in Georgia. Institutional care has been dramatically reduced in Georgia over the last 5 years as the government embraces alternative care, the results have been startling:

“Those new programs have enabled the ministry to close 22 state-run institutions, slashing the number of minors in state care from 5,000 to just under 900 since 2005. Today just 23 institutions remain open, according to the State Care Agency, the government body that oversees them”

While it is admirable that this is taking place it is also important that any such process includes engagement with the children and counseling services, for both child and family, are provided as well as good social work assessments and follow-up.

Of course one of the biggest challenges we face is that many institutions have no interest in resettling children and providing alternative care such as adoption, fostering etc. In these cases children are reduced to being economic pawns in order to maintain an outdated and dangerous model. Our government(s) need to get tough with these places so that we can collectively better serve vulnerable children.

For those of us who believe that long-term institutional care is wrong then this article offers both hope and a warning. Hope that it can be done but warns us that we must do it properly.

It is great to see a collection of NGO’s and other support organizations coming together to fund such innovative projects.

“Urushadze has worked with international and local children’s rights groups to create a progressive system of alternative housing options for children in state care. The reforms – which enjoy broad support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), international charities like EveryChild and Save the Children, and local partners – include financial aid so parents can afford to raise their children, plus foster care and special group homes for children who cannot go back to their families”

Mark

Update on the little boy

2011-08-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week we went to visit the first little boy we resettled 3 months ago. He looked amazing and his father is doing such a great job of looking after him. He didn't stop smiling the whole time we were there, it was completely spontaneous and to see this filled me with so much joy. I can still remember the months and months of visiting him in the babies home where he always looked so sad and was so shut down. To get any smiles/laughter out of him took so much effort and even then were still very, very rare. Any time he would laugh he would immediately look so ashamed, almost as if he wasn't allowed to feel any joy or happiness, it was heart breaking.

So to now see him so happy and developing so well with his father is amazing. His dad told us that he has now decided to set up a barbers salon and he has started to save and gather the equipment he needs. When I asked him what was preventing him from setting it up soon, he told me he still needed one more chair and a mirror. He just needs a small leg up, so we have decided to help him buy these so that he provide for his son properly. We feel strongly that we don't want to get tied into a financially dependent relationship with any of the families we work with, but some families just need some short term financial help to get them back on their feet.

A short film was made of the search for this little boys family and his subsequent resettlement which is now in the finishing stages of editing, so when it is finished we will post the video on here.

We would really appreciate your prayers that the fathers new business will be a success and for the new carer who will be looking after him when his dad is in work. Thank you.

Abide Family Center

2011-08-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

We wanted to share about an exciting work that is being set up here in Uganda by two American woman, Kelsey Nielsen and Megan Parker called The Abide Family Center. We are so encouraged and inspired by them. You can read more about their vision and their ground breaking work on their website and at their blog.

Abide Promo Video from Abide Family Center on Vimeo.

One year anniversary

2011-08-16T08:40:00.000-07:00

It’s been 12 months since we moved to Uganda, and what a journey!

It’s been a rollercoaster of epic proportions and we wouldn’t have managed it without the love, support and prayers of our family and friends. So THANK YOU!

This is us a year ago as we were dropped off at Heathrow Airport in London by Kerens father, sister Esther and brother-in-law George.

Here are a few highlights of the last year.

We joined a fantastic church called KIC (Kampala International Church) –where we have been made to feel very welcome and are developing some lovely friendships. Keren has joined the worship team and I have been on the speaking rota adding my own brand of Welsh self deprecating humour to the mix!

Keren has been working with an institution to resettle the children in their care. She’s done an amazing job and already 5 children have gone home to their birth families and are doing really well.

I undertook some commercial work for Pinnacle on behalf of the US State Department as an Investigator. It was without doubt the most excitement and fun I have ever had while working. Now I am working on an amazing project looking at developing a country wide alternative care strategy for children in institutional care – exactly the reason we initially came to Uganda.

Keren has been developing her photography skills and has been the official photographer for Mishmash, the monthly mini arts festival and has also photographed the National Ugandan Dance Company. She photographs all the resettlement work she has been doing too and gives copies of the portraits to the families which always goes down well. She temporarily stepped in as the camera person for Childs i foundation while they waited for their new media volunteer to arrive which she really enjoyed.

We have all learnt about the transient nature of some relationships here because there is so much coming and going within the expat community. Our oldest daughter has been the most affected by this however and has been grieving the loss of one of her closest friends from school who moved back to the Lebanon at the end of the summer term.

Our oldest daughter also overcame her fear of water and has started learning how to swim really well. Our youngest daughter has amazed us all in really taking to school and she can’t wait to go back.

Our son has learnt that being a Cardiff City supporter ‘transcends’ wherever you live and he is now having the chance of living out his teenage years in his birth country, something we always felt strongly about.

We have been discovering some wonderful events and places such as Mishmash, the ARA flea market, Jinja and the national theatre productions. Although, we are still getting used to having much less choice in every area of life than we were used to in the UK. This can however have it’s advantages and disadvantages.

We believe, now more than ever, that families are the best place for children and that all institutions are damaging to a childs development. We've learnt some of the dirty secrets that are kept between the four walls of orphanages and the level of corruption that lurks in the shadows of them, just far enough so that donors and visitors can’t see them. Very few institutions have the best interests of child at heart and children are often used as commodities. It’s sickening and drives us on motivating us to try to get them into families asap.

We moved here completely independently, but we have watched how God has provided for us and kept us through thick and thin. Even though we have taken a hit in our lifestyle in one sense, we have also realized we are enriched in other areas as we feel that we are exactly where God wants us to be.

There is so much more we could write about... the car crashes, the frustrations, pet cemetery, the lack of power, the food we miss, missing 5-a-side football (Ugandans really can’t play!), parks, country walks, the coast and decent beer! And most of all missing our families and friends.

But we will keep on keeping on, always keeping our eyes on the prize and hoping that God will be able to continue to use us however difficult and challenging life can be.

Thanks for your prayers and your encouragement. When we get chance we will get an up-to-date photo to show how we have all aged due to the stress:)

Here’s to the next year!

Update on Intercountry adoption

2011-08-15T15:35:00.000-07:00

When we started this blog, we always intended to stay away from any discussions about inter-country adoption (IA), it really was not our focus and we wanted to share what Uganda was doing within the resettlement and domestic adoption fields instead. However, as the months went on, we realized that we couldn't ignore it any longer. IA was impacting our work so much here, that we felt we had to start reporting on what we were seeing in a hope that it would educate people about the realities on the ground. IA can be a bit of a monster. It carries so much power, money and resources. People who are trying to work within the challenging fields of resettlement and domestic adoption often can't compete with it.

After what we have experienced over the last year we now realize that IA can not sit along side resettlement/domestic adoption. They are not comrades, they are rivals. There is a conflict of interest and one will always cancel out the other.

Yes, there are a sector of children in institutional care here who could benefit from IA especially severely disabled children, but you don't see many people lining up for those children. If IA could be limited to certain demographics and was implemented and followed to the rule then yes perhaps there could be a future in it. But this isn't the reality. Unfortunately like every other country which has opened and subsequently closed to IA because of corruption, the same demographics are always demanded. The demand always creates the supply.

We get emails off people going or been through the IA process. However, perhaps it is very difficult for some of these people to be impartial if their child is already "home" and they have bonded with them. It complicates things.

We have nothing to gain by speaking honestly and openly about IA. We have no hidden agenda. We live here full time, we work with institutions and we are privy on a regular basis to the horrors that some of these children live. We have sleepless nights thinking of ways to get more children into families and quicker. And most importantly we have also adopted from Uganda, so technically we are "one of you".

Anyway, this is a typical response we send to the very many emails we get.

Firstly, of course, I cannot comment on every IA adoption from Uganda. I know a few IA adoptions where the best interest of the child WAS to be adopted out of Uganda and those children are now flourishing. I know about the process they went through and all seemed ok.

Sadly though, through our jobs, we have been allowed to see the murky, dangerous and unethical world of IA. The dirty secrets in institutions are kept just of of view from visitors and donors. Working as independent consultants in this field for more-or-less the last year has established in us a mistrust of most institutions, lawyers and adoption agencies.

Our experience is that most institutions are rooted in deceit, forgery and/or malpractice. It sounds harsh but having gotten 'wind' of many of the adoptions from Uganda I would say that many have some kind of issue.

Even guardianship orders are in themselves a loophole. The 'children act' clearly states that anyone (Ugandan or otherwise) must foster a child for 3 years before being allowed to adopt. Guardianship orders are not a part of the children's act but a by-law that permits a legal guardian to be appointed to a child. This was initially to ensure that the guardian can manage the land issues of the child. This is being used to grant guardianship to international adopters and then the final adoption takes place abroad. Legally that child, unless the Ugandan courts are told, is still under a guardianship order and not adopted.

I'm not saying that the current law is right but lawyers, institutions and agencies are taking HUGE advantage of a loophole which is leaving the Ugandan government pulling their hair out.

Before you stop reading.... I don't blame the adoptive parents for that... it's the agencies, lawyers and institutions who are to blame and taking advantage. Perhaps adoptive parents are being naive as they know little of the actual law and things that go on 'behind closed doors'.

The 'on the ground' problems with IA are:

1) Institutions now have waiting lists of international families waiting for particular demographics of children. Many institutions scout slums looking for children to supply the demand. One particular lawyer has been reprimanded for this and so now employs an agency to do this work for him.

2) Institutions are faced with a dilemma... do proper birth family searches, look for an 'in-country' solution which are costly and take resources and effort OR look at an International adoption which will mean that at some stage they will be paid in cash or in kind. Most choose the latter and therefore little effort is made to track the birth family. We have seen so many cases where this has happened

3) Why do institutions only start doing searches for birth family when there are international adopters showing interest and not when the child is first found? It's because they are following a process that will ultimately lead to a IA. Adverts in the paper do not work. In fact they have NEVER worked, everyone here knows that. The best way to track birth family is by using radio and TV as soon as the child is found. Very few institutions are using these mediums even though the evidence is that it is highly effective.

4) There are Ugandan families who want to adopt and lists are sitting collecting dust on most institutions admin desks. We have evidence that these are ignored and overlooked in some institutions in favour of international adopters.

5) The law states no money should be paid to an institution for an adoption, neither should gifts be left for the staff or the children as any of these scenarios could be deemed as child trafficking. Almost all IA result in 'facilitation fees' or gifts being left. Some examples we have are where lawyers, agencies or even adoptive parents pay or provide gifts. One agency even offered one institution $3000 per child..... totally ignoring the law.

6) Very few international adopters keep the Probation and Social Welfare Officer in Uganda updated with the progress of the children they have adopted which is a legal requirement in the guardianship orders that are issued.

7) Often vital information is withheld about a child to the adoptive parents either by the agency or by the institution. One example we heard about was when children in one institution had been sexual abused but the institution did not reveal this information to the parents who were adopting from the home. Some of these parents had young birth children. Something so serious and so grave being unbelievably withheld.

Finally we have seen houses bought and school fees paid to families by lawyers in order that those families release and sign the children into an institutions care. Obviously this is not mentioned in court or at the Embassy investigations.

We know this post might upset a lot of people, however, we believe speaking the truth is more important than being popular. For all of the above reasons, I really don't think I would recommend it at the moment. There is a great deal of work to be done before the right ethics and checks and balances can be implemented.

If you want to learn more about this issue, we would highly recommend you read these two blog posts by an inspiring young American woman who has helped start a fantastic work here. You can read the articles here and here.

Adoption training for people living in Uganda

2011-08-12T15:23:00.000-07:00

"Families for children" are an organisation here in Kampala, who organise regular trainings and support groups for pre and post adoptive parents. They are also getting involved more and more in the exciting work of resettling children from institutional care back into extended family or Ugandan foster families.

Here is a video of one of their training sessions shot last November but just put online. If you look closely you may be able to spot me!

The next "Families for Children" training session/coffee morning will be on Saturday 17th September from 8.30am-11.30am and I will be facilitating it for the very first time. The session will be based on the "W.I.S.E U.P" training, which helps to empower parents and their children on how to handle difficult questions about their adoption.

For more information or if you want to attend please contact Rogers Mbuziira
on 0414 271744 or 0772 191847

Roundabouts

2011-08-12T03:58:00.000-07:00

One of the many things Mark has taught me in our marriage is to give way to the right at roundabouts! I always used to wonder why some people used to get very cross with me in the UK, beeping their horns and shaking their fists! But when Mark taught me the roundabout rule, life became much easier for me!

Roundabouts are something else in Kampala however! Nobody gives way to the right, so I have had to rapidly unlearn this skill and return to my old habits. Roundabouts here just seem to be an extension of the road - roads that just happen to be circular rather than straight! It's everybody for themselves, you have to get onto them as quickly as possible and people rarely keep to the right lane. You even sometimes see boda drivers going around them the wrong way! You are sometimes actually directed around them the wrong way by the traffic police - they really are quite bizarre. I just hold onto the steering wheel as tightly as I can, hope for the best and usually laugh in amazement as I drive around them.

I apologize for the usual photograph to illustrate my point, but Mark has told me I mustn't photograph anymore whilst I am driving the car - what a spoilsport eh?!

Making that Call!

2011-08-10T22:09:00.000-07:00

When you live in Uganda there is a certain ‘call’ you’ll probably have to eventually make. It’s not a call you ever want to make and it’s not a call you ever want to receive, but nonetheless, the call will one day be made. I had to make that call on Saturday. The call was to tell Keren I'd been in an accident.

At approximately 7.30pm last Saturday there was an almighty bang as a ‘boda boda’ (motorcycle taxi) crashed into the side of the car I was driving. The force of the impact catapulted the bodas passenger over our car and onto the other side of the road. The boda rider went tumbling over the car and landed in front of us.

My son was in the car and was of course very frightened. I got out of the car and immediately tried to make sense of what had happened. The boda driver was on the floor and his passenger was trying, unsuccessfully, to remove himself from some trees he had landed in. I realized very quickly that he was very badly hurt. He had a really deep, wide cut near his shoulder and I could see his bone.

The closest to me was the boda driver so I went to see if he was ok. He got up and started trying to recover his bike. It was obvious he had a broken leg and had damaged his arm. His bike was in an awful state but he was still trying to make a ‘get-away’. I tried to stop him and I then noticed that he had been drinking.

In Africa, when these things occur, they immediately attract a crowd. A crowd of 30 or 40 people gathered around, some were yelling at me, some pushing me, some screaming at the boda rider and some stealing things from our car. Someone even stole money and the watch from the boda passenger who was now delirious and staggering around.

As the scene unfolded the boda driver along with his machine of destruction managed to slip away, probably with the help of some other boda riders. He was in the wrong, drunk and probably didn’t have insurance or a valid license so he wasn’t about to stick around for the police to arrive.

I helped the injured passenger as I tried to get people away from the scene. People were still putting their hands through the broken window of the car trying to steal from the bags of shopping that I had just bought. I flagged down a car and asked them to take the injured guy to the nearby hospital but they refused.

Thankfully the police turned up and despite the bad reputation they often have here, I must be honest and say they were very professional and fair. The crowd backed off and I took the injured man to hospital in the damaged car. There was glass everywhere and pieces of broken steel sticking out of various parts of the car. At the hospital the injured man was seen straight away. Apparently he slipped briefly into a coma but I didn’t see him again until the following morning.

At the hospital I was extremely grateful to see our Pastor, John Willison who had turned up after my emergency call to him. John was very helpful and supportive as I then had to negotiate through the complicated and unknown police proceedings.

Eventually I went to the police station to make a statement. The police accepted and signed my statement and they also made their own report saying that they didn’t believe I was in any way at fault for the accident. They did however want to keep the car to inspect it. Apparently, this happens quite a lot when they take the car to Nagaru, but you hear horror stories about what happens to the car on route and when it reaches its final destination. I didn't feel comfortable about it, as I was concerned that they might make up something regarding the car and try to pin the blame on me. John and I argued with the police until late in the evening but eventually we had to leave without the car, but with the promise that we would be allowed to recover the car early the next day.

I didn’t sleep well Saturday night but thanked God that I had not allowed our oldest daughter to come with me that night as she would have been sitting at the exact point of impact where the motorcycle hit the car. It is probably one of the best decisions I have ever made.

The next morning I went to the police station and although I had been promised I could take the car I was disappointed that the police seemed to have changed their mind and their overall tone. The injured man had made a statement and although he had not claimed it was my fault, the police now seemed to want to potentially prosecute me. They tried to get me to sign a form stating their intention to prosecute but I refused to sign it. They informed me that I should leave and return with a lawyer. I had to leave anyway because an hour later I was due to be speaking in church!

Before the service I shared with a few people what had happened and they kindly prayed that it would work out ok. When I spoke, I also told the congregation what had happened and asked if they could pray for a swift resolution. God was obviously listening.

After Church I returned to the police station with a change of tactics. I didn’t take a lawyer with me and I was prepared, as advised by my friend Klaus (a European who has been living here for decades), to sit and wait until a resolution was found. So I sat and I waited, and I waited.

In the end I decided to take the initiative and break the stalemate. I told the police and the injured guy that I was unwilling to leave my car but suggested that as a goodwill gesture, I was prepared to pay towards the injured mans hospital bill, as long as everyone signed a statement handwritten by me, stating that the money was no acknowledgement or acceptance of liability, but as a Christian gesture to somebody in need. After some jostling and discussions everyone agreed to sign. I gave the injured guy a donation towards his hospital bill and he returned to the hospital for some more x-rays. I prayed for him that he would make a speedy recovery in time for his wedding this weekend. At the same time as this was happening, the police drafted in an inspector who made a note of the damage on the car. They then released me AND the car. So its case closed unless the guilty ‘boda boda’ driver can be caught, but that is extremely unlikely.

This car has been loaned to us for the summer while its owner is in the UK, so can you imagine how bad we felt? Keren phoned the emergency contact that we had been left. The gentleman she spoke to was very calm and didn't seem surprised (I think people are used to the accidents bodas cause here) and he gave her the number of the garage that they always use . She was also informed her that the car was only insured 3rd party, our hearts sunk and we braced ourselves for a hefty bill.

The garage gave an absolutely excellent service, they came to pick the car up, saving Keren the job of having to drive a damaged car to the other side of town.

Returning the car two days later back to our door, good as new! What a fantastic and efficient service.

The cost was 406,000 shillings, just over £100 which, as you can see from the damage, was an unbelievably good price! We were so relieved. Who needs another hefty bill, when you have got the looming school fees coming up in September of $5000 (and that's just for one term!).

I would just like to share how faithful God was and how He answered prayers very quickly when we really needed him to step in. It’s not a situation that I would wish on anyone and I hope it’s the only time that I ever have to make or receive THAT call.

A brother and sister go home

2011-08-10T06:40:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we resettled two more children, a brother and sister that had been institutionalized for 17 months. Due to an incident over the weekend (which I will leave Mark will tell you about), it meant that I was not able to purchase the mattresses, mosquito net and bedding needed to complete the families resettlement kit as originally planned. So John and I went to the market on route to the childrens home to buy them. I always joke with the market traders here and I tell them that they must think of me as a Ugandan and that I want to pay the Ugandan price, not the mzungu (Westerner) price, which is usually inflated. They usually laugh telling me that there is only ONE price, but we both know that's not true! I usually start off by halfing the price they give me and then we negioatate from there. Here are the mattresses that we finally bought.

I was really pleased that the babies home allowed the children to take their own personal blankets back home with them, as long as I replaced them. Some experts say that it is a good idea to take the bedding from the childrens beds (unwashed) when they are being resettled/adopted and that it's a really effective tool for helping the children transition from one environment to another. It is argued that this gives the children something familiar to have in their new environment and it is supposed to be quite comforting for them. The senses are a very powerful thing and I know how smells can actually evoke familiar/comforting memories for me. I shared this theory with some of the staff at the babies home before leaving and of course they laughed at me! But hey I'm getting used to that now. I'm bringing love and laughter everywhere I go here! So I also bought two news blankets in the market to replace them. I also bought a mosquito net and overall I can say I paid about 60% of the original asking price! So it was a good success.

We then drove near to where the childrens are getting resettled and where John had previously ordered the "double decker" (bunk bed) We were meant to pay the remaining balance but we found the carpenter still working on the bed, so we decided to take the children back home first, while he put the finishing touches to the bunk bed.

It was lovely when we got to the house and as we watched as the father excitedly walked down the road to greet us, with his tradesmark crisp white shirt on with the collars standing firmly up! You could really sense the joy in both the father and the Grandmother that the day had finally arrived when the children were coming home for good.

We shared the resettlement kit, things that we had donated, plus some shoes, sheets and extra clothes that the babies home had also contributed. The little boy unfortunately had a bad cold, so we gave the Grandmother the medicine and the instructions on how to take the medicine. I'm no nurse, but I think we just about managed!

Before we left to return home, we went back to see the LC (local chairman) to tell him that the children had now been resettled and he agreed to also keep an eye on them too. He was very complimentary of the Grandmother and said what a "loving lady" she was, which she is:)

We have already arranged to go back in two weeks time to see how the children are settling in and how they are reintergrating back into the family. I am so happy for them all.

Witchdoctors and toupees

2011-08-06T13:46:00.000-07:00

Something really strange happened the other day. We discovered this unusual item at the back of our house.

From a distance, I thought it was a ginger toupee. Perhaps the wind had brought it into our compound I reasoned, but then I remembered that we don't get a lot of wind in Kampala. Then I thought perhaps a mischievous bird had swiped it off somebodies head, but then I remembered you don't actually get that many ginger Ugandans! On closer inspection however, I discovered it was a decapitated chicken.

This incident unsettled the lady who has recently started to clean our house. She told me that these are the kind of chickens used in animal sacrifice and witchcraft and she kept shaking her head worrying that maybe somebody was out to get us! Why pick on the redheads, that's a bit unfair. I thought that I should be safer than sorry and I started praying strongly around the walls of our compound for Gods protection on our family and home.

You hear a lot about witch doctors and curses here and I know that some of the work we are doing here could be making some people uncomfortable, so I didn't want to take any risks. I was 50/50 on the possibility of foul play (no pun intended) and it was fertile ground for conspiracy theories!

I phoned our next door neighbour and asked her to come over to give a 2nd opinion. We both stared at the chicken with the very good head of hair and then we chatted for a while. She then remembered that another one of our neighbours had recently slaughtered a chicken fitting the exact same description. She told me that the previous day she had actually found chickens legs in her front garden too and the fog began to clear.

So we came to the conclusion that one of the neighbourhood cats had been playing games and causing a bit of a stir! Just because we are in Africa we shouldn't automatically assume that everything has sinister undertones and links with witchcraft. It could just simply be, a local cat with a penchant for ginger chickens.

The second resettlement visit

2011-08-04T09:34:00.000-07:00

This week we took the brother and sister that we are resettling next week, back to their village for another visit. I really enjoyed spending time there and lots of people came up to welcome us, they were so friendly. One local elderly gentleman who used to be a civil servant had a great knowledge of geography and it was lovely that he actually knew where Wales was! He also had a great knowledge of the Royal Family and when I told him my father, like him, was also called David, he started calling me his daughter:) It was lovely.

It's been such a priviledge watching the relationships in this family develop and flourish and I am so excited about being involved in the process as they prepare to go home. Today the children also spent some time with other members of their family, their aunt and great grandmother. They have only seen their great grandmother once since they were institutionalized 17 months ago and it was wonderful seeing the family spanning four generations all together. The great grandmother couldn't speak any english but I could pick out a few of the words she was saying and she was thanking me for helping to bring the children back home.

So the countdown it on, for two more children to be reunited and to return home, that will then make 5:)

Helping or harming vulnerable children in Uganda? - A call for collaboration!

2011-07-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

We see a great deal of Westerners coming to Uganda to work with vulnerable children. It’s fantastic that people are so willing to give their time, money and skills to help some of the world’s poorest communities. I (Mark) met a lovely couple from New Zealand this week who were working on a wonderful community support initiative to enable communities to better care for their vulnerable children. There are so many great organisations and people that we meet every week which really inspire us to continue to work towards our goal – seeing children leave damaging institutions and join loving Ugandan families. We do however get frustrated sometimes when others come with their own solutions and agendas without considering who else is working in the same field. They often don’t consider what the legal requirements are for starting a work in Uganda and they rarely follow the proper processes.

The Ugandan government has some excellent initiatives and strategies for dealing with and improving conditions for OVC’s (Orphaned and Vulnerable Children). I am constantly amazed and delighted at the determination of the government to address some of the issues surrounding OVC’s. These strategies are however often undermined when Westerners start working with OVC’s and communities without realising that they could actually be harming a wider initiative, and in some cases, damaging the very children they are trying to help.

For example, there is a detention centre for children and youths just outside Kampala. A number of NGOs, FBOs (faith based organisations) and other people regularly visit the centre to help out. However, as there is no collaboration between these different organisations and individuals it sometimes leads to disaster. One organisation working at the centre set-up a medical card system in order to record the medical history, details and current/previous medication for each child. It was a great initiative and was working well. Another NGO however, at a later date, brought a nurse and introduced a different medical record card system, with their own logo printed on. This totally undermined what the first organisation had put in place and has now thrown the medical record system into disarray, potentially putting the health of the children at risk.

Another organisation recently came to Uganda to help vulnerable children. They have totally ignored due process and government initiatives and they are starting another ‘orphanage’. They are going through the registration process but in the meantime they are already looking after children totally bypassing the government initiative to move away from residential care and the legal processes and requirements for caring for children. However, if their application is rejected and they have to close down they will no doubt blame the government.

Organisations in Uganda not only need to register with the NGO board BUT also gain authorisation from the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development (MGLSD) if they are caring for children. There should be no short-cuts.

Over the last year in Uganda we have diligently watched, listened and learned. We have got involved in particular projects we believed in and started to understand the gaps there are for working with OVC’s. While we have often been frustrated and made mistakes that is probably the one thing that we got right. We are now embarking on some exciting initiatives, even at a national level, knowing that the experience and knowledge we have gained will enable us to make a positive contribution in support of the governments initiates to ‘de-institutionalise’ Uganda.

I encourage anyone to do some thorough due diligence on the organisations they are (or plan to be) working with and supporting in Uganda. MGLSD in Uganda is completely assessable and would be delighted if people discussed how their organisation can supplement what the government is trying to achieve before starting a new work here. The government has some excellent plans at national and district level to deal with OVCs, some of which are outlined on their official website.

http://www.mglsd.go.ug/ovc/

We MUST all work together in a collaborative manner at all levels otherwise our efforts will be duplicated and often wasted.

A great example of working together is the Street Children NGO Coalition (SCNC). This informal coalition allows organisations to get together and share information and resources. They meet once a month and recently, as a collective, they were able to make a big impact on the ‘Day of the African Child’. They organised various events, had a one hour prime time slot on a national radio station dedicated to discussions on street children and petitioned the government to act faster to help street children. If you are working with street children in any capacity in Uganda please get in touch and I will let you know when and where the next meeting will take place.

With the Internet and easy access to government in Uganda there really is no excuse for working in isolation or duplicating efforts. Collectively we can make a far bigger difference.

The third resettlement

2011-07-28T06:46:00.000-07:00

We are excited to share that we resettled another little girl back with her family this week. Here she is a few weeks ago (in the red dress) on a pre-resettlement visit with 5 of her 6 sisters! It was amazing to meet her sisters and to see so many similarities between them all. I can see that she is going to be very loved.

This little girl had been admitted to the babies home at a few weeks old after her mother died. The father has since remarried a lovely lady and they were both open to the little girl being resettled back with them all. When we first met him and started talking to him about resettlement, we knew we were very fortunate that he had a very supportive wife who was fully engaged and encouraging about the possibility of a resettlement. When the head social worker asked her how she viewed this little girl she said with a smile "she is my daughter" and I really felt she meant it. It was lovely.

Unfortunately, there have been numerous cases here where step mothers have been incredibly cruel to their step children and have inflicted horrific injuries to the children in their care. This can mean that most people here tarnish step mothers with the same brush and they can think that they are all capable of treating their step children in such a cruel manner. However, this lady shatters all these stereotypes and she has proved in her care for her other step-daughters that she is a loving and caring parent.

Although all the families we blog about have given their permission for us to share about their resettlements, we have to be careful to respect their privacy and not to share too much information about their stories.

We hope that the limited information that we share here however, will begin to change the myths that have been written in stone, that all these are "thrown away/ unwanted/abused/orphans" because that demographic of child is often in the minority not the majority.

I hope we as a world community can all get better informed about the realities of the children living in institutional care here in Uganda. I hope we can all be open to hearing and believing what the actual truth really is not and not just what suits our own personal agendas and what we have always believed is the truth.

We will visit this family again in a couple of weeks to see how she is settling in.

If you are the praying kind, we would appreciate your prayers for a smooth transition for all the children being resettled, for any needs of the families to be met and for our work to be able to continue. Thank you:)

Check up

2011-07-27T00:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went back to check on how the little boy we resettled last week was doing and the change in him was astonishing! He was so calm and quiet and was obviously developing a really good attachment to his mother. I saw a real change in his mother too and she seemed so much more at peace and much more confident. Maybe it's because she has her son back now. It was so encouraging to see the differences in them both. I asked her if she had had any initial problems with him settling in but the only challenge she had had was that he didn't like the porridge! We will continue to check up on them both, but I have a really good feeling about them. It was lovely to encourage her and tell her what a great mother she was and what a great job she is doing. Sometimes all we need is for somebody to believe in us and give us a chance.

We took one of the mamas and the administrator of the babies home with us too and they were amazed by the difference in the little boy. Resettlement is truely possible for a lot of the children in institutional care. A lot of these families aren't the monsters they are often made out to be and actually from my experience so far, they are quite the opposite.

There is sometimes a crisis and the "orphanage" is usually the only place that offers help. I would love to see support centres in the communities here where families could access the help and support needed to get them through the crisis so that they can keep their children, rather than having to relinquish their children to access the help and support they need!

What a great day and a real encouragement to us all. Resettlement is possible.

Another resettlement

2011-07-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

About 6 weeks ago, I began helping the head social worker in one of the babies homes I visit regularly to look at exit plans for the resident children in their care. I began by taking up-to-date photographs of all the resident children to attach to their files, then Katie and I started reading through the files for clues on how to locate the childrens birth families.

It has been an amazing learning experience for me and I feel that I have begun to have a better understanding of why some of these children end up in institutional care. We have now begun working with just over 50% of the childrens birth families looking at the best ways to resettle the children back into their families or looking at an alternative exit plan for them. We are confident that as we spend more time on the remaining files we will be able to work with even more birth families.

This week, one of the little boys in the home was resettled with his mother. This has been a relatively straight forward resettlement, because unknown to the head social worker, the mother had been regularly visiting her son ever since she brought him to the home to be looked after. Unfortunately, this information wasn't fed back to the head social worker and the mothers information hadn't been added to his file. The process has now been tightened up and lessons have been learnt from this incident.

Recently, we visited the mothers LC (Local Council) Chairman to inform him that the little boy was going to be resettled back with his mother in his geographical area of responsiblity. We think it's important to work within and respect the structures and rules of Ugandan society. The LC Chairman agreed to check on them and offer support where needed.

This week the babies home gave some clothes and tolietries for him to go home with and we also contributed some extra essentials that they would need to start them off. Here is the mother with her son just before we took them home.

We have arranged to go and visit them again next week to see how they are doing.

This mother wanted her son back, she wanted to care for him and bring him up and as she walked us back to the car she couldn't stop smiling and saying "thank you".

We have to stop thinking that all of these childrens birth families don't want them. Sometimes, the families just need some support, some encouragement and someone to believe in them that they can do this. I love resettlement and we have now helped resettle a second child out of institutional care and back into his 'God intended' birth family.

We've got the Power (not!)

2011-07-23T22:16:00.000-07:00

"Dear customer, we regret to inform you that UETCL [Uganda Electricity Transmission Company Limited] has informed us of a generation shortfall of 50MW per day and 120MW peak resulting into both day and night emergency load- shedding." This was a text message sent out by Umeme, Ugandas sole electricity power supplier and then the power cuts began!

Since the text message we have been experiencing some really long power cuts (12 hours at a time). Most evenings we are without power which means that it is been virtually impossible to update the blog and it also means we have been having some VERY early nights! We have had to become very wise with the power when we have access to it and if it comes back on when we are at home, we have to immediately charge our mobile phones, put the washing machine on and charge our laptop etc.

The reason for these power cuts is because the Ugandan government owes a great deal of money to the three power generators - 200 billion ugx ($76.9million) and so they have been shut down. You can read more about it here.

Depending on where you live in Kampala (if you live near a hospital/a quarry/an important industry) or sometimes even who your neighbours, can determine how badly affected you will be. We don't live near any of these, so we are in the "badly affected" category! I have thought about how people in the UK would react to these level of power cuts, and there would be uproar. Everyone has access to electricity in their homes in the UK, however here, it is not a given and many people live their lives without access to or a dependency on electricity. There are many people who live here who aren't affected by these power cuts at all because they have never had access to electricity. We probably seem like lightweights compared to them, but once you have experienced electricity, it is difficult to go back!

When the electricity comes back on the girls sing the "Halleujah Chorus" from Handels Messiah, it is hilarious! We do feel immense feelings of joy when the power comes back on. If we were living in the UK I wonder what the girls would have to do to experience such similar high levels of euphoria?
We appreciate and respect electricity so much more now.

The Adoption Campaign continues

2011-07-15T07:22:00.003-07:00

Recently, Barbara Aber one of the social workers at Malika Babies home was interviewed on NTV about their current adoption campaign. Barbara was a natural and explained the concept of adoption brilliantly. Here is the interview.

If you are living in Uganda and want more information on adopting from Malika Babies home, you can look at their website here, email adoption@childsifoundation.org or phone 0791 777319.

2011-07-15T07:22:00.001-07:00

Launch of Ugandan adoption media campaign

2011-07-13T00:12:00.000-07:00

Childs i foundation have recently launched a very exciting media campaign in Uganda to promote domestic fostering and adoption to the local community.

Here are the huge billboards that are advertising the campaign around Kampala.

The advertising campaign has also started on Ugandan television. These are very exciting times. Here are previews of the tv adverts.

The preparation visit for returning home

2011-07-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

I had a great day today. We took the brother and sister back to their village to spend some time with their Father and Grandmother in preparation for their imminent return home. Here are the children just before we left.

We drove to the fathers house first and then we all took a short walk to the Grandmothers home.

This family is so full of love for their children, it's so lovely to see. I had a dream last night about how much this Grandmother loves her Grandchildren and you can see it in her face everytime she is in their company. She is absolutely radiant. It was lovely to see different neighbours, friends and extended family coming in to chat to the family and they all expressed interest in helping to support the children to reintergrate into the community.

Their father is building a lovely relationship with them too and he is so gentle and loving with them.

John the Head social worker and one of the mamas who also came, took the Grandmother and the children along to the local school to meet the Head and they booked a place for the little girl to start next term. It's wonderful that there was space in the school because some of her cousins attend that school too.

Just as we were about to leave, some locals heard that we were there with the children and they excitedly came to see them. John showed them the photos of when the,children were first taken into the "orphanage" 15 months ago. It is like a miracle for them all. It is like these children have come back from the dead. The community thought they had been lost to the system for ever, so it really is a happy ending to what was once a tragic situation.

John explained to the children right from the beginning of the day what we were doing and as we drove home he explained again, that their Grandmother would visit them again very soon in the babies home and then they would be going home forever.

As I drove back into Kampala I thought about the day, about the joy and excitement shown in this community that these children had been found and were coming home. Of the community spirit and support that was in the heart of this village, of the importance of family and the need of a sense of belonging, of how amazing it was to see so many family members who looked like these children.

Today I felt like I was living in the heart beat of God. I am convinced that this is his heart, to get these children home.

Interview with the Assistant Commisioner for Children in Uganda

2011-07-12T07:51:00.000-07:00

James Kaboggoza the Assistant Commissioner for Children in Uganda was recently interviewed by Childs i foundation about the need of a family for the children trapped in institutional care. He spoke about Childs i foundations adoption campaign and asked Ugandans to consider adoption as a way of expanding their families. Here is the interview.

2011-07-05T07:28:00.000-07:00

It is so exciting and heart warming witnessing a family being reunited. Ever since this Grandmother has been reunited with her children, she has been visiting them regularly in the lead up to them being resettled. Due to the public transport cost, it is very difficult for both the Grandmother and father to visit regularly, so it is usually the Grandmother who comes. It was lovely today to see how excited the children were when she walked in and they ran up happily to see her.

It is wonderful to witness how their relationship is being restored and I noticed a huge difference between them all since their first meeting a few weeks ago. I gave the Grandmother copies of the photographs I took of them on her first visit and I will also give her copies of the photographs I took today.

Next week we will take the children for a day trip to spend time with her and their father in anticipation of their imminent return home. Then they will be going back to where they belong - I can't wait:)

A gifted dressmaker

2011-07-03T00:37:00.000-07:00

Jennie and her family moved to Kampala on the same day as us even flying on the same BA flight, but we only met a few months ago. Since then we have become really good friends. Jennie has discovered a great dressmaker here called Queen Esther who regularly makes beautiful clothes for her. She kindly got Queen Esther to made our youngest daughter a dress out of one of her husbands shirts that she liberated and you can see our daughter modelling it below!

Another friend of ours here was recently telling me how she wished she could find a dressmaker in Kampala to teach her teenage daughters how to cut and sew because they are really interested in dressmaking, so I took them along to meet Queen Esther and her assistant.

It went really well and the girls will start having sewing lessons with Queen Esther twice a week throughout their summer holidays. What a great opportunity for them to learn directly off a really talented dressmaker. Also by offering to pay her in advance, it now means that Esther has a lump sum towards helping her to purchase the business a second sewing machine, something she has longed for quite some time. I'm really looking forward to seeing the designs the girls come up and with their final creations.

Panel Hearing

2011-07-01T08:51:00.000-07:00

When we were living in Wales, UK and we adopted our son from Uganda we had to undergo a very indepth, detailed home study with our social worker. Many different aspects were looked at, our marriage, our relationships with our extended families, our childhood, our finances, the challenges of adoption etc. These took place over 10-12 different sessions.

I have heard that there is sometimes a fear amongst people who work with children here, that people might have the wrong motives for wanting to adopt a child from a babies home. That they might even have ill intentions like child trafficking or child sacrifice and it can make some people very fearful of introducing adoption to the wider public. However, if you do an indepth and comprehensive home study with the family concerned, this can often help weed out people with potential criminal intentions and give the social workers and panel members a clearer picture of who is genuine or not .

Malika Babies home have introduced the concept of indepth home studies with the families they work with here. These end in a panel hearing where 4-6 experienced people look at the contents of your home study, talk to you and decide whether to approve you to finally adopt or not.

I recently filmed one of their panel hearings and you can see the video below (edited by Emanuela Lorenzone). It was wonderful to see the emotion of the couple as they finally got the "yes" they so desperately wanted. Enjoy:)

Mishmash June

2011-06-26T05:12:00.000-07:00

We really look forward to going to Mishmash on the last Sunday of every month. As the word begins to get around however, it's no longer Kampalas best kept secret and every month more and more people turn up to enjoy the inspiring art, music, dance, crafts and food.

I was Mishmashs documentary photographer again for the day and a selection of the images I took can be seen below.

This month the Uganda National Contemporary Ballet performed for the first time. This dance company was founded two years ago and their director/choreographer and one of the troups dancers is a very interesting French lady called Valerie Miquel. Accompanied by the percussion leader from Percussion Discussion Africa they have created a blend of contemporary, classical jazz, traditional and hip hop dance. They were all excellent drummers and very strong dancers and humour was scattered throughout their routines which helped make a lovely connection with the audience.

This months live music was truly wonderful. Joel Sebunjo and his band Sundiata wove together beautiful melodies and rhythms and bringing a really positive vibe to the garden setting in Naguru. Joel Sebunjo is one of Ugandas most respected and successful folk/world musicians and he is often referred to as the Ugandan Youssou N'dour and rightly so. I would recommend everyone to experience this band if they have the opportunity.

This month the main artists represented in the gallery were photographers and digital artists which included Ronex Ahimbisibwe and Joel Nsadha. Alongside the Ugandan artists were the three winners - Nicola Swan, Charlotte Watson and Meltem Yasar from the Mishmash photography competition. Here is a photograph of Meltem Yasar with some of her images.

My favourite photographer was definitely Joel Nsadha (see image above). When you get used to experiencing a very bright and colourful Uganda, Joel introduces you to a world where Uganda is often seen in black and white. The results are startling, evocative and very atmospheric. It was also great that we were able to buy postcards of his black and white photographs at Mishmash, what a great idea. I have noticed that there are a few photographers who have turned their images into postcards here in Kampala and it is something that we are considering doing as well to raise awareness of the work we are doing here.

Bruno Sserunkuma exhibited his ceramic creations (see below). He says about his work "The surface of my pots is articulated in a manner that I consider being analogous to music. Colour is used to establish rhythms that develop over the surface. The painted patterns and lines are used to punctuate the movements, sometimes harmoniously and at other times discordantly". His ceramics seemed very popular with the many guests.

As always, the children were well catered for and they had the opportunity (at a cost) to paint their own pirctures and to have their faces painted.

Abalmi Catering are the third catering company that have provided the food for Mishmash so far since its inception and in our opinion that have by far been the best. Their menu was simple meaning you got your food very quickly, it was reasonably priced and very, very delicious. We really hope they are there next month. The photo below is my food, well not all of it, because I had a desert too - baked American cheesecake but I didn't get chance to photograph that, I was too busy eating it!

All in all we had a wonderful day again. Thanks Adam and Genevive for all your hard work organizing Mishmash and to everyone who exhibited and performed - you made a lot of people very happy.

The next Mishmash is on Sunday 31st July.

Miss it, miss out.

For little hearts to heal

2011-06-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

The "orphanage" that Davin used to live in have agreed for Katie and I to help search for other birth family members of the children resident in their care. We both feel very passionate about this and are very excited and hopeful of helping to locate more family members. Last week we started going through the childrens files and were quite amazed by the amount of information contained in some of them. We feel hopeful that we will be able to track some other families down and that Davin won't be an isolated case.

When we were resettling Davin, the head social worker took another file of a brother and sister who are resident in the "orphanage" along with us because he knew from the details in the file that they were from the same area. We were really surprised when the police officer dealing with Davins case, recognized the photographs of the children immediately and told us a story that amazed us.

Apparently the children had been in the care of their mother but were taken off her because of concerns about their safety. When their father and paternal Grandmother heard about this, they quickly went to the police station and begged to be allowed to take custody of the children, but the police officer dealing with the case angrily told them that the children were now going to go into an "orphanage" and refused to tell them which one. This all happened 15 months ago. Can you imagine the agony they must have gone through over the last 15 months?

I think sometimes it is really difficult looking at situations here with a Western mindset because it's difficult to imagine how this could ever happen. But unfortunately, it seems that people in power here can sometimes play "God" and the average person often feels powerless to do anything about it. Also, when money might be tight, it makes it difficult to go searching around all the different orphanages in Uganda for your Grandchildren when there are literally thousands of them here. What if you don't own a car, what if you can't take time off work to search them or you will be sacked, what if you don't have access to a mobile or airtime to phone around them?

When we turned up last week in their village and found the Grandmother, she was absolutely overwhelmed. She started shouting to her neighbours in Luganda, "They've found the babies, they've found the babies". Here is a photo I took of her at the time, kneeling down with one of the childrens aunties as they looked at an uptodate photograph of them.

Then two days ago, the childrens father visited the "orphanage" to see his children for the first time in 15 months and then he visited again today bringing along the childrens Grandmother.

It was such a wonderful day. It was so obvious how much they loved these children and how determined they are for the children to be resettled back with them. Over the next few weeks they are going to start visiting the children regularly, building up a bond and attachment with them and working towards a plan for the children to return home soon.

I spent quite a lot of time with these two children in the early days and witnessed countless Western visitors wanting to adopt the little boy who always had a smile on his face. I would always tell them that he had a sibling and that would usually quickly turn them off the idea. Thank goodness nobody adopted them.

I was so excited for the children today and by witnessing the amazing love that was being poured all over them. I knelt down and kept saying "This is your Jajja and this is your Dada. This is your Jajja and this is your Dada" and they just couldn't stop smiling.

If you are the praying kind, please can you pray that the bonding process is really successful between all of them and that little hurt hearts heal. It's a traumatic experience being in an "orphanage" and separated from your family for so long. Please also pray for the father to get a job so that he can provide for his family.

One of the biggest lessons I have learnt over the last few months is that not all children in "orphanages" are orphans, that they weren't all abused and unwanted. There are many examples of miscarriages of justice going on in the "orphanage" business and unfortunately, business is what it often is. If only "orphanges" started tracing these childrens families and finding birth parents/extended family members who were given the chance to look after them and love them, then the landscape of insitutional care would look very different here.

How can you say that these childrens families don't want them, if nobody is even looking for them or giving them the chance?

Another domestic adoption

2011-06-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

Recently I filmed another child leaving Malika Babies home after being domestically adopted here in Kampala. It was so obvious how overjoyed and in love the adoptive mother was with her new son and I really enjoyed the opportunity of being able to video it. We hope you enjoy the film.

An exiled Bluebird

2011-06-20T12:15:00.000-07:00

As regular readers will know, I (Mark) am a football fanatic.

Most Saturdays and other match days are spent huddled around the laptop trying to watch Cardiff City FC on various live streams. If the streams fail, then we always manage to listen to live commentary on Cardiff City World. After being a season ticket holder for the last 20 years or so, being so remote is hard. It’s not just the matches that I miss, but meeting my brother and friends in the pub before the games, sharing what’s going on in our lives and generally putting the world to right before heading to the stadium to watch our beloved ‘bluebirds’. That experience can never be replicated when you are 4000 miles away.

This season ended with huge disappointment as Cardiff managed to play themselves out of automatic promotion and get beaten (again!) in the Championship play-offs. As if that wasn’t disappointing enough, we then had to endure our closest rivals Swansea, getting promoted through the play-offs. What really hurts is that they deserved it more than we did.

Just as I was trying to forget about football for a while I managed to ‘bump’ into a Swansea supporter here in Kampala. We exchanged the usual football banter and obviously Swansea fans think they are chocolate now they’ve been promoted.

Anyway, Cardiff have appointed a new manager who seems highly capable, passionate and energetic. It will be an exciting time as the new manager builds a squad capable of hopefully winning automatic promotion next season.

I reminded my new friend from Swansea of the famous Psalm ‘weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning’, so perhaps we will have the last laugh next season when we go one better and win automatic promotion. Until then I just have to keep my head down to avoid anymore Swansea fans in Uganda........but that shouldn’t be too difficult:)

Fathers Day

2011-06-19T08:53:00.000-07:00

62 different countries across the world are celebrating Fathers Day today, including the UK. Seven of these countries are in Africa - Ethiopia, Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Uganda celebrates Fathers Day on June 21st.

We especially want to honour our fathers today, my father David Prosser and Marks father Graham Riley and obviously my husband and the father of my children Mark Riley.

Here is a photograph of my father taken last Christmas. I remember being woken up by the scraping sound of a shovel hitting the ground. It was really early, I think around 5am but this is very typical of my father, the early bird gets the worm. My father has a thing about clearing the snow before the cars compact it into the ground making it hazadous for everyone to drive on. He is really thoughtful like that. By the time the rest of the household had woken up he had cleared the long drive and had started on the road outside his house too.

My father is one of the kindest, gentlest and most selfless men you will ever meet. He is totally dependable, he has never let me down and he always does what he says he will do. Thank you for everything you have done and for everything you are Dad. Happy Fathers day. I'm sorry that I can't be there to say it in person but I hope you had a lovely day. Love you.

It's funny how you assimilate, without even knowing it, some of your fathers ways. An enduring childhood memory I have of my (Marks) father was that we would always be the last people off the beach during the summer time. While most families would pack their stuff and drive back to their home etc my father would leave us shivering while he wandered around the beach picking up all the rubbish. He could never leave a beach or park with rubbish on. Well obviously some of that rubbed off on me. I can't even imagine my fathers reaction when he visits Kampala with the amount of rubbish that is thrown on the ground. A few weeks ago I was on a 'boda boda' following a mini-bus taxi and a passenger threw out some empty yogurt pots. I stopped the 'boda', reached down and picked them up. I told my 'boda' driver to overtake the taxi and as he did I threw the yogurt pots through the empty window and onto the passengers lap who had thrown them out. As I did it I had the image of my father on those deserted beaches with a black bag picking up rubbish. So happy fathers day 'Dad'... and thanks for turning me into a one-man garbage collector

In Uganda, generally the child care is left to the women. You don't see many Ugandan men being demonstrative with their children and showing them a lot of physical affection. Mark always raises smiles and causes a stir when he walks around with our youngest daughter on his shoulders.

I feel so blessed that Mark is the father to my daughters. He is so affectionate and loving with them, and that will really help them as they grow older and start dating. He has now set the benchmark and so out daughters will have high expections of a future partner and rightly so. He reads to our oldest daughter most nights and they snuggle up as they catch up on the latest adventures of the "Famous Five". The children love spending time with him and get really excited when they hear him coming back from work.

Mark has exposed our son to the joys and sorrows of supporting Cardiff City FC and what a gift that is to our son. He is showing him by example that you should support your local team however much they disappoint you and let you down. That being loyal means you stick with your team and support them even when they don't hold their end of the bargain and through his exposure to Cardiff City he has been teaching him about being an advocate and a voice for the under dog!

Happy Fathers Day darling and thank you for being an amazing father to our three children.

Here are a few of my favourite quotes about fathers.

"I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a fathers protections" -Freud
"Every father should remember that one day his son will follow his example instead of his advice"
"My father gave the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me" - Jim Valvano
"The greatest thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother" - Anjaneth Garcia Untalan

Radio DJ speaks out in support of fostering and adoption

2011-06-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

Jackie Lumbasi a DJ from Capital Radio in Kampala was recently interviewed about the progressive and exciting work Malika Babies Home are doing with regards to domestic fostering and adoption. Jackie provides a positive and much needed voice in the media here to help promote fostering and adoption within the Ugandan community.

If you are living in Uganda and are interested in talking to somebody from Malika Babies Home about fostering and adoption please don't hesitate in getting in touch with somebody either here or by phoning 0791 777319.

International Day of the African Child

2011-06-16T00:01:00.000-07:00

Today is "International Day of the African Child". It was first introduced in 1991 by the Organisation of African Unity (now the African Union) and has been celebrated on June 16th ever since. The day honours the children who were shot and who lost their lives in the Soweto Uprising on June 16th 1976. An estimated 20,000 children took place in the demonstations that day and tragically approximately 176 children were killed. The children were protesting the inferior quality of their education and the right to be taught in their own language. They were standing up for justice that day and showed the world their incredible bravery.

This years theme is is focusing on the estimated 30 million street children who exist worldwide. While the definition of a "street child" is much debated, UNICEF has suggested that the term applies to children who

Live in urban areas
Have family ties that are weak or non-existent;
Are forced to develop survival strategies;
Rely on the street as their main place of stay and for whom the street has replaced the family as a place for socialisation
Face specific major risks

Photo by Bob Jones

Street children are among the most vulnerable children in the world and they are often subject to violence, abuse and exploitation. Street children have been chosen as the focus this year because they are hoping to spread awareness of the dangers that these children face, promote the taking of urgent steps to protect them and to determine strategies for providing effective child protection and care.

We still haven't got used to seeing children living on the streets here in Kampala, it is shocking and heart breaking. There are however some great organizations working with street children in Uganda, Retrak being one of them and they are giving much needed hope to these children and offering a way out of their situations.

A really interesting photography project took place last year with Ugandan street children and you can read more about it here.

Mark has recently agreed to become the Chair of the Street Children NGO Coalition so will be spending today at a national event where there are a number of activities going on to raise awareness of the lives of street children here in Uganda and to encourage positive change.

Calling their bluff

2011-06-15T03:03:00.000-07:00

For 8 lonely months it sat pretty much ignored outside our house. Over ripe avocados would periodically explode on the corrugated iron roof as they fell from the tree next door and leaves would gather around it's legs as they fell from the surrounding trees. But apart from that, we didn't really give it another thought.

You see when we bought it, we got royally ripped off! We were desperate, we had nobody else touting for the business and we were new in town - what more can I say? Mark had relented to our oldest daughters pleas for one and now that it was living in our compound.without a home, we knew we had to get organized.

When the rabbit hutch arrived back in October, our jaws literally dropped to the floor. It was the size of a penthouse without the attention to detail and it was totally over the top in my opinion. In recent times we had talked about putting chickens in it, but after our track record at "Pet Cemetry" we decided we should leave the Ugandan chicken population alone!

Anyway, our oldest daughter came home recently and told us that her friend in school had also bought some rabbits but had nowhere to look after them. I remembered our lonely, forgotten hutch and mentioned it to her friends mother and bingo, she was interested:)

When she arrived last Saturday, I did warn her that the hutch was big, but I don't think she anticipated just HOW big and she discovered it wouldn't fit inside her pickup! After phoning around and doing some fierce negioating on the phone, a second pick up arrived an hour later. The driver had brought along two helpers with him but when they arrived they told her she would have to pay extra for them to load the hutch on and back off the pick up. She began to get angry and upset that it wasn't all part of the orginal price quoted and why were they basically trying to exploit her. I tried to use humour to get them to pick the hutch up, asked them if they were babies or men, questioned that maybe they weren't strong enough to do it etc, the usual things that you say when you are in a situation like this, nothing like laughter to diffuse a situation!

However when the laughing stopped, it started getting serious again. The hutch buyer told them she would give them 25% of what they were demanding but that was her final offer. They just looked straight through her and ignored her offer. She then told them to just leave and that she would just find somebody else and that is when things started to get interesting. They wouldn't leave and she wouldn't pay them anymore, so I suddenly had a stand off situation in my compound! Nobody was willing to budge. We were supposed to be going to the new farmers market that has just started in town and I didn't want to spend the whole day like this so I knew that I had to try a different tactic. I whispered to her to just follow me.

I said in a loud, bold voice "Come on, you get the one end and I'll get the other". As we stooped to pick up each end of the hutch, the deadlock was immediately broken. Suddenly the men got very embarrassed and they said "no, no, no madam, we can't allow you to do that" and they all scrambled to quickly help. So in the end the five of us ended up carrying the hutch onto the back of their pick up. The things you have to do eh, but calling their bluff definitely worked:) Here they are just before they drove off.

I had told the lady the price we had paid for it and told her she could give us what she wanted. As she drove off I counted up the money she had given me and I was so grateful that she had given us exactly the same amount of money that we had originally paid for it, how very kind and generous of her. It's amazing how the simplist of things here can be made so complicated, but these kind of situations give us great material for sharing stories of our lives here in Uganda!

We are all made in the image of God

2011-06-08T23:54:00.000-07:00

One of the things that annoy Mark and I here, is when we meet some Westerners in "orphanages" who when discussing the standards and level of care, say things like "but I have seen worse", "the children seem so happy", "these places are so full of joy"! To be honest, these comments aren't usually made by people coming for short term visits, but have been made by Westerners who have been living here longer term or who have been visiting for many years. They have now become numb to what they are seeing and they have come to accept the way that these children are living. It's almost as if its okay for little black kids to live like this, but can you imagine the absolute outcry if thousands and thousands of white kids were being made to live like this. Really, we need to wake up and smell the coffee.

painting by Anna Ozemoya

I hope and pray that Mark and I NEVER come to accept the way that institutionalized children are living here. I hope and pray that we always feel an urgency to get these children out of these places and back into families. I hope and pray that we always feel a righteous anger at the injustice of this whole system.

I feel that we in the West must also recognize that maybe we play a part in this system. If you or your church is involved in building another orphanage in Uganda, please, please don't, Uganda doesn't need anymore. If you have a heart to help vulnerable children, then please consider supporting existing organizations on the ground over here who are doing a great work, and who are always needing more support to develop more programmes. eg Malika Babies Home and Retrak are two that we would recommend.

Malika Babies Home resettled 24 babies last year, 75% of those were within their birth families and 25% were fosterered to adopt within Uganda. They have produced a very strong model that is working and is very effective. With more funding they could possibly be able to consider opening similar works in other parts of the country. Retrak work with street boys at the moment and are doing a wonderful job. They helped 185 street children find the love and protection of a family last year, they also helped 36 former street children to find jobs and move away from living on the streets. However, there is no organization in Uganda who work with street girls. Retrak are very experienced and do an excellent job, perhaps if they had more support they might consider opening a work for street girls, which is definitely needed here. Street girls are very vulnerable to be trafficked into the sex trade and exploited in a myriad of ways and our heart always breaks when we see them on the street and know that nobody is catering to their particular needs.

All children are made in the image of God. All children irrespective of their skin colour or where they happened to be born need to be loved and need to be raised within a family and community setting. Let's say "Yes to families and No to institutions" and do our small part in raising awareness and being a voice for these children. There can be so many political, financial and self seeking reasons for keeping this system going, but it is wrecking families, damaging childrens lives and destroying communities.

Tops on

2011-06-08T13:08:00.000-07:00

It was my Mums 70th birthday a few months ago and I really wanted to get her something special to mark the occasion. I wanted to get her something unique and that was specifically created in Uganda to celebrate her special day, so I decided to get a painting comissioned for her.

I told the artist that I wanted him to paint my mother and father in the centre of the picture with their four daughters stood by their sides, two on one side and two on the other. I thought because we are all grown up now, I told him he might as well paint us all the same size and I also told him that I wanted him to paint it in a typical African style. I wanted him to use a certain beautiful blue paint as the background that I have seen used in other paintings like this but then I left the rest up to him. I knew that somebody was flying back to the UK and could safely transport it back in their suitcase for me, so I strictly told him it had to be completed by a certain date so that my Mum would get it in time for her birthday.

Anyway my Mums birthday came and went and he unfortunately missed the deadline. Eventually he turned up at our gate a few weeks later. He was really apologetic and explained that it had been really difficult for him to get the specific blue paint that I had requested, but now that he had, he had finally completed the painting.

He slowly unraveled the canvas and gently laid it out on the ground in front of me and I held my breath in anticipation. But for once I was absolutely speechless. I literally couldn't speak. We stood there in an awkward silence and in my mind I ws thinking "Speak, speak, say something, anything" just to break the stoney silence.

Yes, he had painted it in a traditional African style, tick, BUT my three sisters and I had no.tops.on. We were completely topless and he had painted us with these ridiculously pointy breasts! With my jaw on the ground, I started panicking slightly and started babbling "I can't possibly give this to my mother. She will never be able to put this on her wall, I just can't. I can't " I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I had visions of my lovely father who is so polite and sweet scurrying past the wall where my Mum had decided to put the painting in pride of place and shielding his eyes from it. Can you imagine, my lovely Dad who couldn't even stay in the same room as me when I used to breastfeed my daughters, how could he have possibly coped with having a painting of his four daughters topless on his living room wall?

When I told this to the artist, he said no problem, he would just paint tops back on us all but I said no, no, no, if he didn't mind please could he just paint another one. I was very specific with him this time, reminding him, the most important thing he needed to remember, was tops on!

Anyway, here is a photo of the lovely artist with the second version of my Mums painting, which I hasten to add, my Mum absolutely loves:)

Transformation

2011-06-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

Three weeks to the day that we took "the little boy" Davin home to his father, we returned today to see how he was settling in and the transformation in him was truly remarkable.

Davin was now beginning to talk whereas previously he had been silent and one of the words he can now say is "Papa":) He was smiling a lot more and was obviously very, very attached to his father and to Harriet the neighbour who is helping to care for him when Davins father is in work. He was a lot more inquisitive and interested in the world around him and it was lovely to watch him talking a pen in and out of the shirt pocket of John the social worker. He really is beginning to blossom.

I was really pleased that Davin didn't want me to hold him. Perhaps I represented the baby home to him and for obvious reasons he doesn't want to return there but I would catch him staring at me sometimes. More importantly, now that he has got an attachment to two adults who so obviously LOVE him he doesn't need me. It's just what I hoped for, he is finally being loved and adored all the time and he knows it.

Emanuela came to film again, and I can't wait for the film to be finally edited so that I can share the whole story with you all. Here is Katie and I with Davin and his father and we were beyond happy.

Please remember that not all children in "orphanages" are orphans and not all children in "orphanages" are unwanted. For some children there has been a miscarriage of justice and they just need determined people to find out what actually happened to their families and then do everything in their power to reunite them.

Please support and encourage any organizations in developing countries who are swimming against the tide and attempting to do resettle these children back within their families and communities. It really is possible and the more that people support organisations who are doing this, the more that children can be resettled with their birth families.

2011-05-27T22:24:00.000-07:00

I had a great day today. First of all I went to pick up the car we have been loaned for a few months, so we are now permanently mobile. Kampala you'd better watch out!

I then spent the morning with Emanuela the media volunteer in Childs i foundation. We viewed the rushes of the little boys resettlement, and I was really happy with the footage (thanks Emanuela you did a great job). We have now decided that there is enough material to make a 15 minute documentary - I am so pleased. We are going to do one more shoot when we return to visit the little boy and his family in the next few weeks and then we will be able to do a final edit. I am really excited about this film, because I am hoping that it will challenge some of the myths surrounding children in "orphanages", tracing, resettlement and it will also look at the role that intercountry adoption sometimes plays. Hopefully it will also motivate other "orphanages" to realize that resettlement with birth family is possible.

In the afternoon when I was driving home the weather suddenly changed. It's incredible how intentional the rain is here. The streets become deserted and Kampala turns into a ghost town. Driving along some roads I was really praying that the little car I was in didn't get swept away with the torrents!

The photograph below is of one of the streets close to the childrens school which turns into a river everytime it rains. The fact that there is no proper drainage system here and most of the roads are mud really doesn't help when the Heavens open like this.

I took this photo while I was driving, I just couldn't resist. And yes I can drive and photograph at the same time, I am a woman after all:)

Own the gap

2011-05-26T02:53:00.000-07:00

Last week we were loaned a car for three days and because Mark was busy I had the car all to myself. I hadn't driven for 9 months and I was so excited to get behind the wheel again. I have been closely watching the way people drive here all this time, trying to pick up tips, learning the rules of the road (there are no rules!) but only from the view of a spectator. Like a lot of things in life you don't actually learn how to do it until you are doing it yourself. I knew I needed attitude and I knew I needed to be fierce, I knew I had to "own the gap" as our friend Gareth Killa says and this really helped me. Everytime there was the smallest gap I would pull out of the junction repeating to myself "own the gap, own the gap", and this really helped me gain confidence.

There is no room for being polite here, you have to drive forcefully or you won't get anywhere. I found my eyes scanning across the road repeatedly. Anything can happen here, anything and anyone can come from anywhere, so you have to be on alert all the time.

On my second day of driving I was stopped by the traffic police. She asked me to produce my driving license which I didn't have on me, so she told me I had to pay 40,000 shillings. I was so shocked I automatically went "nnnnooooooo" and she sternly said "Don't say no to me"! I then had to explain I wasn't actually saying no to her, but that it was an expression of frustration. I told her I would drive back home to get my license and bring it back to her, but she refused.  To cut a long story short, I then spend the next 20 minutes trying to wriggle out of this fine. It was a little humiliating to be honest, having to grovel like this, but I didn't have 40,000 shillings to waste like this.

The traffic police officer then said to me "What are you going to give me". I was a bit mad at this point so I rummaged around in my bag, found a banana and offered it to her - "I don't eat bananas" she responded. So I offered her a bottle of water "I don't drink water". So I got a roll of toliet paper out of my bag "Put your toilet roll away" she barked. My friend told her"we don't pay bribes" and then she turned a bit nastier "that's in your heart not mine" she hissed. We were on our way to an important meeting and the time was disappearing, so I told her that I was doing NGO work, that I wasn't getting paid so I didn't have the money to pay her. I told her that I was trying to get children out of "orphanages" and resettled back with their families. She then slightly softened for a few seconds, then pointed and commanded me to "GO!".  I drove off exhausted and angy that I had to go through this stupid exchange - what a waste of time and energy.

I am white, I am a woman and unfortunately some traffic police here will see me as an easy target to exhort money from. It gives you a good taste of what a lot of black men experience regularly over in the West when they are driving though and I can tell you it's not nice.  I have since found out that in the weeks leading up to the Ugandan schools starting a new term, that a lot more motorists are stopped. It's an easy way of trying to find the school fees you so desperately need for your children.

What have I since learnt? You legally have 24 hours to show your license, so don't fall for that one. Don't make eye contact with the traffic police. Suddenly find something very interesting to look at in the oppposite mirror but if they do flag you down, pretend you haven't seen them and quickly accelerate. Carry photocopies of your license and all driving documents on you at all times. The most important one - avoid being stopped at ALL costs.

We are being loaned a car for 3 months on Friday (thank you God, it's such an answer to prayer), so expect more stories from the roads. but hopefully stories which don't involve the traffic police:)

Fantastic news!

2011-05-20T07:37:00.000-07:00

Sorry we have been very quiet, we are all still alive:) Mark has been very busy doing some commerical work and I have busy working on a resettlement of a very special little boy:)

For those of you who have been following our blog for a while, will know about this lovely little boy that I fell in love with last October. You can read more about him on one of my previous visits here. He was the saddest little boy I had ever met and I desperately wanted him out of the institution and back with his family. I had just naively assumed they would have resettled him by the time I visited the following week (I had a lot to learn) and I was absolutely devastated to see him still there when I returned a week later.

Anyway, this story is a really incredible one and I can't wait to share it with you all properly over the next couple of weeks. Having visited him regularly for 6 months and having fallen in love with him, thinking that there wasn't a chance for him to be resettled, we did actually start considering adopting him.

When I was finally allowed access to his file and after reading it, EVERYTHING changed. His birth mothers name was in the file and enough significant information to decide there was still a chance for us to find his birth family. We actually only needed to go out "to the field" twice because we gained all the information we needed to then work with the family on resettling him.

Within 9 weeks after initially reading the file he went home.

I can't begin to tell you what an incredible priviledge it was for me to work with the head social worker and with Katie my friend on getting this little boy home. To have his father thank me deeply with tears in his eyes was a really profound experience and a real honour.

I never gave up on him, athough many had tried to dissuade me along the way and I had promised him that I would do everything I could to get him out of there. On Tuesday as I carried him out of the "orphanage" it felt like a real victory for him and his family and that justice had been done.

This is what it is all about.

Please know that a lot of these children have family they could be resettled with. They just need advocates who are willing to do the proper birth family searches and then organizations who are listening, encouraging and supporting those families and communities to get the child reintergrated again.

Emanuela from Childs i foundation kindly came with us to capture it all on film and as soon as we have edited it I will upload it for you all to see.

Here is a photo of the father with his son, isn't it just wonderful?

We have chatted with this particular baby home about continuing to work with them and trying to resettle more of the children in their care. I really hope we are able to do this because this is what our work is all about - getting children out of institutions and back with their families.

Politics

2011-05-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday we had a text from the British High Commission warning us that the opposition leader Besigye would be flying back to Uganda the following day and for us to remain vigilant. Besigye had been in Kenya receiving medical treatment after being violently arrested and injured during the recent "Walk to Work" demonstrations.

We had to go into the city centre to the bank, so I rang a taxi driver who is based in town to see if it was peaceful. He said it was, so he came to pick us up. On the drive into town, it was announced on the radio that Besigye had been prevented from boarding his Kenyan Airlines flight back to Uganda. Many conflicting reports then began to emerge over the following 24 hours. One was that Kenyan security had said that Besigye presented a "security risk" so that he shouldn't be allowed to board. Another was that Daniel Arap Moi the former Kenyan President who was on the same flight and due to be at Musevenis signing in ceremony, didn't want to be on the same flight as Besigye. Yet another theory was that Kenyan airlines were told that Ugandan state security would not allow the flight to land if Besigye was on board.

Besigye said "This is an example of the ongoing frustrating concerns and violations of the Ugandan government. It is the right of every Ugandan to be able to return home at anytime. The government does not respect the rule of the law". Whatever the real reason actually was, the fact was, Besigye was denied access to the flight and so some Ugandans reacted angrily to this.

photo by Reuters

By the time we came out of Garden Cityshopping centre 3.5 hours later, there had been gunfire and teargas and a lot of traders in the centre of the city had closed their shops. We hadn't heard anything while we were in the shopping centre and we were completely oblivious to it all. The only sign that something was wrong was when the lady in the bank tried phoning Kenya to get authorisation on my transaction and the phone lines had been cut off. She said "it's because of Besigye and his flight. The government are treating us like children". She then had to use my mobile to make the call to Nairobi. We have been seeing this happening quite a lot recently since the demonstrations began in April. Phone lines being cut off, certain sites on the internet being blocked, photo journalists and camera operators having their equipment confiscated and the media being threatened. As we drove home, the streets were deserted and for a change we got home really quickly.

On Thursday morning we heard that Besigye had finally been allowed to board his flight and that he was going to be landing in Uganda at 9.30am. It was also a national holiday on Thursday because it was Musevenis swearing in ceremony, a big event in Ugandas political calendar. It did seem to be a bit of coincidence that Besigye was arriving on the same day as this very important event for Museveni.

The journey from Entebee airport into Kampala is 25 miles (40km) and usually takes around an hour. Due to the crowds of people who came out to watch Besigye and the chaos which subsequently broke out, the journey took Besigye about 11 hours! Unfortunately, there was an outbreak of violence again and police were seen beating people standing on the roadside, photojournalists were assaulted for capturing the violence, live ammunition was fired into the air and blue teargas and water canons with blue and pink coloured water were used on the bystanders.

photo by Reuters

The Monitor newspaper spoke to Besigye on route and he said that he felt strong because he was with his people who were demonstrating for their rights. At his later speech at 8pm in Nnsambya he called for a continuation of the walk to work protests next Monday and concluded by saying "the world now knows who the exact leader of Uganda is". Unfortunately, Besigye is saying that the walks will continue until the government decides to bring down the high food and fuel prices, but this is an impossible task, these are issues that are affecting countries worldwide.

Musevenis swearing in ceremony was overshadowed by all the violence and by Besigyes return. I wonder what his guest of honour Robert Mugabe thought of it all!

Museveni has said that in an effort to curb riots he now wants a new law to deny bail for 6 months to anyone arrested whilst protesting! Besigye will now be appearing in court on June 15th for inciting violence. It seems obvious what the outcome of that court hearing will be.

photo by Getty Images

More films

2011-05-13T22:22:00.000-07:00

Here are two of the films that I recently worked on for Childs i foundation. I was the camera operator and Emanuela Lorenzone was the editor. The first film shows Christina, another single adopter and her daughter who was recently adopted from Malika Babies home.

The second film shows the 1st year birthday celebrations of Childs i foundation. This NGO has amazingly resettled 24 children within their first year of existence. 75% of those children were resettled back with their birth family/extended family and the remaining children were adopted domestically.

Childs i foundation is proving that where there is a will, the resources and a social work department, that rettlement is absolutely possible here in Uganda.

It is our dream that ALL institutions in Uganda employ social workers, do adequate birth family searches and encourage and support the birth families to bring their children up. Childs i foundation inspire us. Congratulations to you on your first birthday and for all the amazing work that you do:)

Ugandan Adoption Stories - George and Desire

2011-05-10T01:29:00.000-07:00

Ugandan Adoption Stories - Lydia and Oscar

2011-05-09T04:19:00.000-07:00

The two films I am posting today and tomorrow have been made by Childs i foundation here in Uganda. The first one is a short film about a single Ugandan adopter who adopted a little deaf boy called Oscar.

Guess what everyone is having for Christmas this year?

2011-05-08T00:33:00.000-07:00

How could I resist such as stylish and tasteful gift for you all?:)

Domestic adoption in Uganda

2011-05-06T06:16:00.000-07:00

Today, Childs i foundation launched their new website for their adoption campaign encouraging Ugandans to adopt. If you are a Ugandan national or an ex pat family living in Uganda for at least 3 years and want more information then please look here

photo by Childs i foundation

It is our heart to see abandoned babies and the tens of thousands of children currently living in institutional care resettled with their birth families/extended familes, or being given the chance of being domestically adopted. It is really exciting to see a new generation of Ugandans who are embracing adoption, it really can work and Childs i foundation are proving it. If you interested in finding out more, you can contact Childs i foundation here.

Filming

2011-05-04T07:30:00.000-07:00

Many, many moons ago I went to film school. Recently, I was able to resurrect my training by helping out Childs i foundation as their temporary media volunteer while they waited for the replacement volunteer to arrive from the UK.

Over the last month I have filmed a Ugandan family coming to take their adopted baby home, Joeys 1st birthday party (one of the first children to be adopted), an adoption panel hearing where they looked at three prospective adoptive families and finally their 1st year anniversary celebration party.

photo by Emanuela Lorenzone

I have really enjoyed the experience because I love making images and creating stories and obviously the subject matter is very close to my heart - getting children back into families. As soon as the four films have been edited I will post them on here for you all to see.

Poverty Neutral Revolution!

2011-05-04T01:46:00.000-07:00

We are delighted to be working with The BIS Group, who you may remember came for a visit in February, on the highly innovative "Poverty Neutral" Programme.

I (Mark) worked with BIS for a number of years in Wales on various projects before moving to Uganda and am really pleased that we are going to be working together on such an exciting poverty reduction initiative.

BIS is a highly respected Welsh-based organisation that was established nearly 40 years ago.

BIS works with clients across the whole of the UK and Ireland and are passionate about providing quality single source services and savings for clients, many of whom are long term customers.

BIS is a cost reduction company providing Industrial Supplies and Consumable Products, but they also focus on saving clients money through simplifying the purchasing process and reducing both product and process costs.

The BIS Energy-Fit company saves clients money through the installation of energy-saving measures and they then encourage them to invest a percentage of those energy savings into Poverty Neutral. Every penny counts because 100% of all funding goes to providing frontline aid.

The Poverty Neutral concept is brilliant - A ‘poverty offset scheme’ that provides the opportunity for businesses to ‘poverty offset’ their profits / savings by providing sustainable support to vulnerable children in Uganda.

Our job for Poverty Neutral is to find organisations and projects that are really making a positive difference here in Uganda. As a part of the process we will undertake ‘due diligence’ in order to ensure that the projects are sustainable and the organisations are continually improving. We will monitor and document the projects and provide feedback through various social media on the progress and impact of each project.

Eventually Poverty Neutral will have a portal where supporting organisations can log-on, share information and even collaborate together creating a ‘Poverty Neutral’ corporate community.

BIS have been long term supporters of various projects in Uganda and have visited a number of times over the years. They have a real heart and interest in supporting vulnerable children. I know that God will continue to bless BIS as they undertake this amazing and innovative venture.

If you would like to be a part of the ‘Poverty Neutral Revolution’ then please feel free to contact either ourselves or Mike Harris (Managing Director) at BIS.

Tel:           +447971224466
eMail:       mikeh@bis-group.co.uk
Website:   http://www.bis-group.co.uk/