Each time I am prompted to write about a random act of kindness I have done for someone, I instantly remember the weekend around 3rd October 2016.
A child, a young girl, clearly mentally ill is reported to have wandered away from the major mental health care facility in Uganda – Butabika National Mental Referral Hospital – which is located in Luzira, about 4 to 5 kilometers from Bugolobi in Kampala.
She likely wandered away and walked all the distance, ending up in the Bugolobi Market. According to reports, she arrived at the market Friday or Saturday, and has been wandering in the market and sleeping rough.
As I rushed from my Alinga Farms’ shop, going back to my car, I noticed this young girl half-naked laying flat on her stomach and on hot dirty tarmac. Since I was walking fairly quickly, I passed her, then I realised that I needed to stop and pay attention to this young person just laying there.
Continue reading the rest of the story here …
For some reason, yesterday, trending on my blog is a post that I authered nearly 10 years ago in 2014, titled: “Cry Uganda’s children, African extended family broken down, which I have up-dated and republished.
Which got me thinking, often while debating and advocating for human rights in Uganda the focus seems to be on freedom of speech and active political participation.
We often seemingly forget the rights of the most vulnerable and who are less able to defend their own rights, the children. Connie’s comments remain even the more valid today. In 2014 Connie wrote:
“New Vision (Kampala) 22 AUGUST 2010, Uganda: Granny Held Over Torturing Five-Year-Old, by Frederick Kiwanuka: Kampala — THE Police in Nakaseke district on Tuesday arrested a 60-year-old woman for starving and confining her five-year-old granddaughter.
Fede Namubiru, a resident of Buteera village in Kasangombe sub-county, was arrested after residents found the severely malnourished child in a small hut, where she was tied to a rope. The child, identified as Sisia Nabbubi, had lost her mental abilities and had sores all over her body.”
There are so many more and everyday – I get to read at least five cases of child abuse. Uncles are defiling children. Grandfathers are impregnating their granddaughters. Children are being kidnapped, killed and sacrificed. Everybody is after a quick buck. Nobody really is their “brother’s keeper” anymore.
The whole social set up has gone to the dogs. The days when it took a village to raise a child ended when we (our generation – Gen X) were just joining university and our mothers were happy to be housewives. Those days are long gone.
Now it’s everybody for himself and God for us all! Like you clearly put it, we need to “Cry for Uganda’s children!”
We need to sit down and think about what went wrong along the way.
- What happened to the old community support systems?
- Where did we go wrong?
- How can we re-build systems that can support working mothers and children?
- How many people can afford CCTV cameras if many cannot afford to even pay a meal for the kids in UPE schools?
Even with the cameras installed in our homes, the likelihood that by the time you get home to save the child, he’d have been subjected to torture and if you are lucky would still be alive.
I strongly believe that we need to go back to the drawing board – see where we went wrong and how we can make the situation better.
And for God’s sake, this should not be a “Gavumenti etuyambe!” This should start with us!”
Which begs the question, which 2026 political aspirant has done the most in facilitating children’s rights in their respective community and how so?
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