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Ugandan Children Find a Place to Call
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Emmy Anguyo
never had the chance to say goodbye to his mother. She died four
years ago of AIDS in Uganda. "I wanted very
much to at least take a glance at her last breath, when she was dying,”
Emmys says. “But I was here
in the United States on tour with the Children of Uganda." Her death left
Emmy an orphan, as his father had died in 1992.
Sixteen-year-old
Gyavira Kasule has no memory of either of his parents. Both died of AIDS
when he was just an infant. Emmy and Gyavira
are from Uganda, a country where AIDS is the leading cause of death,
killing more than 300 people a day. They are just
two of an estimated 1.7 million AIDS-related orphans in Uganda, which has
the largest number of AIDS orphans of any country in the
world. Emmy, 20 years
old now, has a simple response when asked about the impact of AIDS in
his homeland: "It left me parentless," he says. Despite their
personal tragedies, Emmy and Gyavira count themselves as among the lucky
ones in Uganda. Both are optimistic about their future and grateful for
the fact they were able to live in one of Uganda's Daughters of Charity
Orphanages. A Place to Call
Home Gyavira lived in
an orphanage from about the age of three. "It was great
because I had the chance to get an education, to have shelter and medicine
and food and to be around other children - to play with them," Gyavira
says.
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"In the
orphanage, it was great to know I had a path to my future. Every day I
woke up and had something to eat, had someone to show me love and to be
friends with."
It's a sentiment
shared by Emmy.
"Living in the
orphanage was a privilege, as very many people in Uganda don't have anyone
to take care of them. When you are in an orphanage, you have someone to
take care of you, you have clothing, shelter. You feel comforted and have
friends who are similar to me," says Emmy.
The person who
provided them the most comfort during their years in the orphanage was a
nun named Sister Rose Muyinza, who founded the Daughters of Charity
orphanages in 1972, with the aim of caring for children who lost their
parents to war, AIDS and other diseases.
It was through
his father that Emmy landed in the Daughters of Charity
orphanage.
"My dad used to
work for the primary school at the orphanage in the capital, Kampala. He
was sick and asked for leave to go home to the northern part of Uganda as
he couldn't manage to work anymore, because he was too weak," Emmy
says.
"Sister Rose
asked my father to leave me with her. I think she liked me."
Emmy was then
five years old.
"At first, when
I was young I didn't think about him dying. I just thought he was sick. I
thought he would come back at anytime. But after a few years, they came
and told us that my father had died. I cried very much. Sister Rose
comforted me and told me think of your mom."
But for Emmy,
Sister Rose became his mother.
Gyavira grew up
calling his grandmother "mom.”
His grandmother
took him and his siblings in after their parents died. Gyavira thinks
he was about eight months old at the time. They lived in a village in the
AIDS-ravaged Rakai district, southwest of the capital,
Kampala.
"It was a poor
rural area," Gyavira says.
"My grandmother
didn't have a job. She had a little garden. She would get up in the
morning and go to her garden and grow some food for us to eat. She didn't
have anything to do except go to her garden and grow food."
Gyavira's
grandmother could not afford to pay for his education. It was the deciding
factor that led her to approach the orphanage and ask for Gyavira to be
taken in. She had earlier asked for his siblings to also be cared for in
the same orphanage.
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Uganda
Children's |
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Since
1995, Sister Rose's work in Uganda has been supported by a United
States based nonprofit organization, the Uganda Children's Charity Foundation
(UCCF). The
foundation assists in the operation of two orphanages and also
supports children living with HIV-positive widowed mothers. In all,
it cares for about 700 children. The UCCF also sponsors the
education of Ugandan children abroad with a US scholarship program.
As part of its fundraising activities, it produces an award winning
dance troupe, called Children of Uganda, to not only raise funds,
but also increase awareness of AIDS. |
"It was hard for
her, but she had to do it," he says. "Because she saw there was no
alternative, she couldn't afford the school fees. The orphanage then paid
for my school fees."
Preparing for
the Future
Gyavira has been
living in the United States for the past four years. At the age of 12, he
was chosen by the Uganda Children's Charity Foundation to take part in
their study scholarship program - a move that's allowed him to study at
the Bishop Lynch High School in Dallas, Texas.
He started
school in Dallas in the sixth grade and will stay until he's completed
college. A strong performance in math has prompted him to consider a
career in engineering.
Gyavira says
school in the United States has presented him with a great
opportunity.
"The schools
here have computers and textbooks and the education is much higher here.
Schools here are so much better because they have all they need. They have
textbooks. They have books. The teachers are able to talk to the students.
In Uganda, you maybe have one book and a pencil and little chance to talk
to the teacher after class."
Nonetheless,
even in Uganda, Gyavira says he was lucky to be among those receiving an
education.
"AIDS has caused
a lot of children to be homeless in Uganda, "he says. "You see them living
on the streets. They walk around with nothing to do. Many women are left
alone without husbands and with no jobs. They can't pay school fees for
their children."
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Emmy too has
high hopes from his academic pursuits.
Thanks to Emmy's
sponsor, he's now studying at the El Centro Community College in Dallas
and wants to study business law, majoring in
accounting.
"I very much want
to deal with accounting and with managing the funds of companies. I also
want to bring justice in terms of business in business law. I believe I
have the ability to talk and feel confident that I will be able to
represent people."Emmy says he's blessed - particularly because of the
generosity of UCCF.
"UCCF does a
great job in caring for children back in Uganda. They not only give
clothing, food and shelter, but also friendship and love - which is not
common for most of the orphans in my country," he says.
For both, there
is no question about their future. When they finish studying in the US
they want to return to Uganda to give something back to their
homeland.
