Inspired and Honoured [World Humanitarian Day 2018]

I am proud to say that over the last few weeks I have seen some spectacular work being implemented by some amazing World Vision staff in some of the world’s most disturbed and fragile contexts. These people work and live in some pretty tough circumstances in the communities they serve. Some of these local staff have been living in tents for a year now as they serve displaced people; they eat rice and beans they ride dirt-bikes on rough roads and they have no ‘R&R’. They smile, they laugh, they cry and they celebrate.

Angelina works for World Vision in South Sudan. She is a tall, powerful, yet gently spoken young woman. As a Gender Based Violence (GBV) trainer she organises events and activities to teach people about the dangers of early and forced marriage and other gender challenges facing the community. The first time I meet her she arrives in a cloud of dust, riding a dirt-bike. She immediately drags all the attention, like it or not, to herself, although she doesn’t notice it.

During a discussion with a group of women in the program one points at Angelina and says, “I want my daughter to ride a motor-bike too.” But it’s not just the bike-riding she’s referring to it’s the fact that in Angelina these Mum’s see a strong, independent, educated young woman – that’s what they want for their daughters.

In Uganda I met another woman who is a force to be reckoned with. Stella is responsible for a food distribution program that, on the day we met her, will feed 9,000 people. There are people in every corner, under tents, in the shade, scooping grains, pouring oil and carrying sacks. Motorbikes and hand carts thread their way through people and piles of 50kg bags of wheat. The place might look like chaos, but it is a well-run, organised, machine. Everyone knows what their job is and who is in charge. I ask Stella what happens if at the end of the day they find more people than food: she looks at me as if I have just slapped her and says, “that doesn’t happen. I have calculated it all out, and it is right. We don’t have left overs and we don’t have too little”. I certainly wasn’t going to argue with her.

As I finish my tour of duty through East Africa I meet up with Berhanu and his team in Ethiopia. Berhanu manages the area currently hosting over one million internally displaced people in the southern region of Gedeo. Like many of his team (and other staff around the world) Berhanu lives away from his family to work for World Vision. As I meet with government officials and community leaders in the region I hear them say with a huge smile; “Berhanu, he is one of us. We know him.” I have rarely heard such glowing reports of the work of World Vision has done and is doing, and the personal relationship of our staff as I hear in Dilla. This speaks to the integrity and the hard work of a good man and his team.

I have no doubt that the people World Vision serves are in safe hands when I meet these staff and many like them. It’s been an honour to walk beside them for this short time and to remember them as I go home.

Kochere Area Program

This work is rarely dull! Often a day in the field can be punctuated by moments of joy and pride but as quickly descend to concern and frustration – the challenge is to ride the waves and stay afloat

Yesterday was one of those days that had it all. Our day came to a climax when a security incident at one of our visits had us all beating a hasty retreat. It was a text book evacuation, that went well, but nevertheless at the time added some excitement to the day and resulted in a change of plans.

But, earlier in the day, I had visited with two families that have a child who has been the recipient of (Australian) child sponsorship for the last 15 years. This is one of the immense privileges of my work - meeting inspirational people in some of the most unlikely, fragile contexts.

As we pulled up to the roadside house a small scramble of children erupted – we were obviously expected as calls of “you, you” went up around the vehicle and signalled Tamirat to come out to greet us and to usher us into his house.

Tamirat and his family, (wife and eight children) have lived in this area all their lives, but it was only after World Vision visited and offered to enrol Simret into the child sponsorship program that life began to change. Originally a share farmer in the valley, Tamirat tells me with pride that he now owns three plots of land. He has built his house on one and the other two are planted out with potato, banana, apple and coffee and he owns some livestock.

He is one of the farmers that has been selected by the government to be trained at the Dilla University in agriculture techniques and the production of high yield variety potatoes. (As we speak a small group of men arrive to buy seed from him – they must wait!) Out the back of the house Tamirat has built a barn where he keeps produce, but also where he has started his own seed bank. “Now”, he says, “regardless of the harvest, I will always have seed”.

Mrs Tamirat has received training in sanitation and hygiene, and family planning.

Simreet, sitting below an Australian calendar featuring a koala and kangaroo that she received from her sponsor, tells me that she has just completed year 9 at school and can’t wait to start her last year of school in a few weeks’ time. She shows me a Christmas card, and reads to me the personalized message she received from her sponsor. She has a large wooden box in the corner of the room full of school supplies, text books, and uniform all supplied by the sponsorship funds and ready to go.

Tamirat tells us that, “This training changed not only my life but also those around me. I helped them to increase their potato yields as well”. Not content to see his children at school, Timrat decided that he too would go back to school, having had to leave after year six, and he has just matriculated from year ten.

There is no denying that the Kochere AP, with the funds from Australian sponsors, has transformed the life of this family, but it’s much bigger than that. At the height of the program 3,800 children were sponsored in this community and as a result received similar interventions to Simreet. But the impact is much wider than that – the community today has school and health buildings; clean, safe water piped into community water points; food in the market, seed in the reserves. And if the family I met are anything to go by, the children are healthy are happy.

Life might be simple, but this is where ‘life in all its fullness’ starts.

Paying it Forward

It was almost 15 years ago when World Vision Ethiopia, supported by Australian Sponsors, commenced Child Sponsorship activities in Kochere. Among the first, of what would be 4,000 children sponsored in this Area Program, was a young boy of 5 whose mother had died giving birth to his sister.

Over the years that have followed one generous Australian’s monthly pledge has supported ‘Wubshet’ through ten years of school. He has received school supplies, including text books, stationary and uniform, and this year, just a few months ago Wubshet passed his year 10 examinations and successfully completed his schooling. It is a very proud Dad (‘Haile’) who explains that Wubshet is not home, he is in Addis Ababa because he has just passed the entrance exams and been accepted into the Police force.

I’ve interrupted Haile and his (second) wife as they drive a pair of oxen to plough a new field that will be sown with barley. But, they are more than happy to stop for a few minutes and sit in the grass to tell me their story.

When World Vision came calling in 2004 Haile had not long ago buried his wife. He had four children under five and a small wooden shack in the valley. An offer to support his son and for him to receive training in agriculture seemed “like an answer to prayer from a great God”.

As part of the Area Program Haile received training in agriculture techniques, including potato and apple production and small business management. Over the years he has become so successful that he was invited by the government to be part of a farming trial of high yield variety potato. Part of the trial included him training others in the new techniques. Today he has a potato seed reserve bank that he manages and sells to the community. From the income he has made over the years he has moved to a new property, built a house and produce store, and planted out a large property with apple and banana trees, potatoes and coffee. Haile’s eyes light up though when he shows me his treasure, what he calls ‘holy land fruit’ – it turns out to be figs.

But he seems most excited when he tells me that for many years his children only had two meals a day, at the most. But now, his wife and their 12 children eat three meals a day and they drink clean, safe water from a community system supplied through Australian child sponsors funds.
Today, the ‘answer to prayer’ has provided him with hope that his son will be ok, he has a job, and it has changed his family’s life. But the impact of child sponsorship support has not stopped there.

Due to conflict in this region there are over 200,000 people displaced by tribal conflict in Haile’s district. Most of them are housed in schools, churches, local government properties and sports grounds throughout the district, but one family of ten, has found a safe home with Haile’s family. He has helped them to build a small wood house on his farm and he is sharing his food and resources with them, and they are helping him with his farming.

As he points out the small house in the shade of banana and coffee trees he tells us that ‘God has blessed him, and he must share that blessing with others’.

Comparative Guilt

Tonight, as I sit in the quiet of a basic but beautifully spacious resort embedded in a jungle of coffee plants, monkeys are chasing each other through the dark green canopy above and playing in the fast-flowing creek that winds its way through the jungle. This is an oasis, a beautiful retreat from my day - but one that makes me feel terribly guilty. While I appreciate it and know the security reasons why I am here, how can I not compare?

About fifteen minutes away from me, in the Dilla Town, Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) camp there will be about seventy people sleeping in a 5 x 3 meter canvas tent, a space about the same size as my room. At the other side of the football pitch sized compound there is a concrete warehouse with a tin roof, about 30 x 10 meters, that is home to about 1,450 people.

While I sit here, breathing in freshly roasted (single origin) coffee and watching a young woman prepare it in the manner of the unique Ethiopian coffee ceremony, I am reflecting on my day and waiting for my dinner to be prepared and served for me. But the images and sounds of my second stop, a food distribution centre, play on continuous loop in my head. 9,000 people lined up, had their credentials inspected and stamped, carried their supplies out into the heat of the day, placed their mark on a verification record and lugged their months’ worth of rations (15kg of wheat, 1.5kg of beans, 0.45kg of vegetable oil per person) back to cook on a wood fire wherever they found a space to call home.

How can I not compare? How can I not feel guilty for my privilege? A privilege born, not from anything I deserve, but as a result of being born in a lucky country.

Just over an hour ago I was sitting in the dirt and smoke of the canvas tent talking to Etenesh Beyene, a forty-two-year-old mum with eight children. She and her family are among 40,000 people living in the Dilla Town IDP camp, and these are among the one million people displaced by the Gedeo - West Guji tribal conflict that is now almost 5 months old.

Etenesh, her husband and children left their home on April 10 this year when their neighbours house was set on fire and after their possessions, including their years’ harvest, (800 kg of coffee and 800 kg peas) was destroyed. They walked for four days, hiding at times in jungle and aqueducts to avoid raiding parties. Some of their friends were killed along the way, their money was stolen and their remaining possessions destroyed.

It’s been five months now for Etenesh and her kids, a baby only 8 months and the oldest 15 years. With the rest of the group she is living with, she and her husband have set up a place for the kids and they share all they have including their rations. In the far corner of the tent a wood fire is burning, filling the small space with smoke and cooking the beans ready for dinner. When asked about the future Etenesh says: “Now I don’t have any hope. How can I return? But, if peace is restored I will go back”.

Teenagers Lead the Way to Peace: We Create Smiles

At first meeting Lilian’s wide, dark eyes betray a wariness, perhaps even a (well deserved) suspicion. With three other teenage girls she is sitting on the floor threading beads into brightly coloured sheets that will be transformed into brightly coloured bags and bangles.

The three teenagers are amongst thirty other South Sudanese teenage boys and girls who form the leadership of the World Vision trained Peace Clubs. They represent young people from across the five villages that form one of the refugee settlements in West Nile, Uganda. As the teenagers come together to talk to the visitors about their lives and activities I watch a wonderful (and yet not completely unexpected) metamorphosis occur. I’ve seen this happen before, in other places, and here again, and before my eyes, Lilian is transformed from a shy, suspicious child into a passionate, articulate and energised young woman.

Like many other children, Lilian has made the long and dangerous journey from her home across the border in South Sudan to Uganda, and like too many others she has done it unaccompanied by parents. With her father killed in the conflict and her mother unable to flee – Lilian joined with neighbours to bring her two younger siblings to safety.

When Lilian was approached by World Vision and heard about the Peace Clubs she jumped at the chance to be involved. With seven other teenagers she attended a three-day workshop on Empowering Children as Peace Builders (ECPB) which teaches young people about how to be advocates of peace in their own social and community structures. Following the training each teenager was challenged to go back to their village and recruit and train thirty other teenagers and to form them into Peace Clubs that designed and promoted their own peace initiatives.

And so today across the settlement teenagers meet to play football, to debate, to dance and to present dramas. Lilian tells us that, “We organize football matches between different zones in the camp and before playing starts, we tell the spectators that the aim of the match is to promote peace and no fights are allowed on the pitch”.

These young people tell us that they want to promote peace and build trust between young people of all tribes so that when they go home the same thing doesn’t happen again. "Back home in South Sudan", Lilian says "there are so many [about 64] different tribes – tribalism is the problem. Here in Uganda we don’t want tribalism, we don’t want fighting because of tribe."

She adds that they frequently stage community based plays whose main theme is peace. “We engage the community members during interlude and show them why peace is important to us. But also, we engage in community work as members of the peace clubs and we help the elderly and disabled. For example, when you help a person from a different tribe, it leaves a different impression about your personality and in the end we create smiles on people’s faces.”

From Eagle’s Wings to Tear Gas (A Day in the life of an Aid Worker)

Who ever said life in this business is boring? In my years as a humanitarian worker I have had some strange days, some exciting, frustrating, amazing and sad days, but today I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

The (working) day started with the privilege of speaking at the office devotions. As I have moved around the refugee settlements here in West Nile, Northern Uganda I have spotted a constant presence gliding serenely in the skies above. The eagles use the thermals to glide silently and majestically across the landscape, unhindered by any geographic, ethnic or cultural segregations designed by humanity.

These magnificent creatures of calm, strength and grace reminded me of one of my favourite verses in the Bible: “They that wait on God will renew their strength, they will mount up on wings as eagles, they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint, teach us God to wait.” (Isaiah 40:31)
Using the eagle as a metaphor I encouraged the team to make time to wait on God: for strength, for wisdom and for renewal. In a place and at a time where we seek to be agents of transformation and channels of hope for a people who are vulnerable and in desperate need - we need to take time to wait, to be renewed and strengthened so that we are of sustained benefit to those we serve.

The rest of the day of meetings, discussions and report writing was ending with an early dinner at a local restaurant across the road from a sports ground where a local celebrity was holding a concert. Disco lights were flashing, giant screens broadcast the singers and the subwoofers were thumping as we ordered our Indian curries.

Apparently, that was the cue for the peace to depart – all of a sudden concert goers were running as the dull thump of tear gas canisters was heard. First, the response director (Jennifer) Daria and I smelt it then our eyes begun to burn and stream and our skin felt like it was burning as a wave of tear gas hit us in the (outdoor) sheltered restaurant. We were safe from the chaos, but not the gas. I know this will sound bizarre, but despite the discomfort we couldn’t stop laughing even as our eyes burned. This was the ‘safest’ place we had, and were travelling to and yet it was here that we were being tear gassed? Really?

All of us have lived in and visited places considered much more volatile and insecure – but this was a first for all three of us. And just for the record, Indian curries are not enhanced by the smell and taste of tear gas.

The wave of gas carried by the cooling breeze of the evening passed as did the chaos – we finished our meals and retreated to our gas free accommodations. And that was the end of our last day in West Nile, Uganda – a day we will not soon forget.

Fostering Unaccompanied Refugee Children in Uganda

They were at school (in South Sudan) when they heard the gun fire. Quickly the teachers shepherded the kids into a room and kept them close until they thought it safe to let the kids go home. But, when Rose (13) and her two brothers (9 and 7) got home there was no sign of their parents. Not knowing what else to do Rose took her brothers back to their school where their teacher took care of them.

It’s a much longer story, but eventually they found themselves in the West Nile Region of Uganda in a refugee settlement where their teacher took care of them for as long as he could, before he left them to find his family in DR Congo. For a little while, before World Vision’s child protection worker discovered them alone, Rose took care of her brothers as well as she could.

World Vision manages a foster family program here in West Nile and, following vetting, training and counselling, unaccompanied children are placed with other refugee families. And so it was that a young man, Isaac, and his new wife took on the care of three young children. Refugees themselves, Isaac and his wife had only recently been registered and assigned a plot of rocky land.

Today, as we sit together on hand made chairs under the shade of a tree in a clean, immaculately swept plot of land there are four mud brick and straw buildings, one of them a ‘gazebo’, and the original tent that Isaac and his wife were provided. In 12 months, Isaac, who knew nothing about making furniture, let alone building houses has created a little private oasis in this green desert. Back home in South Sudan, he says, ‘I knew nothing about this [building], but when you arrive in this place you have to make a life, you have to live.’

Rose and her brothers attend the school in the settlement and enjoy playing with their friends at the World Vision managed Child Friendly Space (CFS) in the evenings and where Rose is enrolled in the accelerated learning program. As Isaac and his wife expect their first baby any day now, Rose helps out at home with the cooking and the cleaning, while her brothers have helped Isaac build furniture.

While many in Isaac’s position, having witnessed violence and experienced unfair displacement may choose to allow circumstances to overwhelm and paralyse them, Isaac has chosen not only to survive but to thrive in this new reality - for this period. He doesn’t imagine that circumstances will allow him to return home anytime soon, so rather than become a victim he has started his own business, a small grocery shop on the road, which, he says, ‘is doing really well’. The profits from this business have helped him build his home.

But not content to claim space and safety for himself and his wife he chooses to share his life and offer hope to three young children who, despite a number of investigations, have no idea whether their parents are alive or dead.

[World Vision has arranged placements for over 1,000 unaccompanied children in the West Nile Refugees settlements.]