Mission's Sunday at St Aldates Church, Oxford is next Sunday 7th November and we'll be welcoming Bishop Zac Niringiye of Kampala speaking at our 10.30am and 8.15pm services and our own Simon Ponsonby at the 6pm.
As the evenings draw longer we are now dreaming of warm Kampala Summer days.
Summer 2010 was our first trip where we blessed Watoto with infrastructure in one of their world-class orphan villages and grew relationships with the orphaned children and those who care for them - whether adoptive parents, teachers, hosts and those in Watoto church who make serious commitments to the families in the villages.
And it was such a privilege to know them and be so welcomed by them.
Ever since we returned our children have been nagging us to go back - they would leap at the chance to live in Kampala - noisy, smoky, busy...and beautiful.
This next trip we intend to lead 2 streams of mission over the fortnight at the end of August:
1. To serve the mothers and children of Watoto; and
2. To serve projects in the CRANE network - one of Viva's network of projects based in Kampala.
The Viva projects missional objectives are still forming and will be determined by local projects, yet we know we go prepared to do whatever the God requires of us in building "child friendly communities" - whether a slum clean-up, building infrastructure to keep children safe or serving Summer camps.
I hope you'll either feel led to:
- pray - for the formation of the right team with the right motivations for the right outcomes
- pay - perhaps you'd want to partner us, be right there with us by donating to the cause or our costs. You can support either stream of our mission trip by selecting the specific JustGiving page top right (Or click on the names here to give to VIVA or WATOTO)
- participate - if you're a member of St Aldates, Oxford, believe God has been placing mission on your heart and feel this is the right thing for you we'd be overjoyed if you'd consider coming with us to bless the children of Kampala.
Here are some statistics from information I received from Viva:
60.8% of Uganda’s population is under the age of 18 with 2.3% of the population being total orphans. 78.4% of the country’s population is under the age of 30.
13.7% of children are under the care of someone over the age of 60.
7% of the population live with disabilities.
Whilst Universal Primary Education has seen enrolment increase to 90.4% for girls and 93% for boys, retention remains low at 42% for girls and 53% for boys. This means that a huge proportion of the population is exposed to the risks that come with inadequate adult care, with deprivation of education, and with the negative consequences of a young population (1).
It can be estimated that there are at least 250,000 children at risk in Kampala. The urban environment of Kampala is not a safe place for children. Over the past few years Uganda has seen an increase in reported cases of child abuse, which is particularly reflected by increased media coverage. Information from police records, health units, NGO files and media reports indicate that over 50% of the reported sexual abuse cases are of children between the ages 0-10 years. Both child domestic violence and child sexual abuse are rampant.
A study by Raising Voices and Save the Children (2) states that in one area 60% of girls and 13% of
boys aged 10-17 described sexual abuse.
71% of children interviewed in another area had suffered psychological harm and 67% had suffered physical harm. Only 5% of the children had never been sexually abused.
Findings show that most of the sexually abused children (57%) do not report to anybody.
Out of those who report cases of sexual abuse, only 2% said they report to the Police or the Local Counsellors (LCs) (the first level of political structure).
While 33% of the respondents did not report because of fearing threats from the offenders, 11% said they do not report to police or LCs because they do not get adequate help from those authorities.
Sources:
(1) SOWC 2009
(2) 2005 Raising Voices and Save the Children in Uganda “Violence Against Children’
