Day 4: Children of War and Psychosocial Group Counseling
Today was a wonderful day. I spent the first part of the morning at the Children of War center and then I headed out to the field with Christine. On the way we stopped to get food for lunch and what did I discover right next door? A coffee shop, one that opened this year. I ordered a cafe latte and I bought a cappuccino for my driver, Joseph, and they were good! Given the condition of Gulu 2 1/2 years ago, it is nothing short of miraculous. It is the only coffee shop in town—probably in all of northern Uganda—and Stacey says the food there is excellent as well. Who would of guessed? I am already planning a trip their tomorrow morning and on Saturday before I head for Kampala.
From there we went way out into the bush to see a cooperative farm. The drive there was interesting since in some places there were enormous potholes filled with water, and if not for four wheel drive we would have become stuck, I'm sure. There were planted fields everywhere: cassava, beans, sim sim, peanuts, and potatoes. The farm had 18 oxen and a steel plow. World Vision had provided the seedlings/seeds and taught them to farm more effectively, and to help out others. I met a woman who had been very needy, and not part of the cooperative. But because they had been taught and encouraged to help out others not directly associated with them, they built a house for her, gave her seedlings/seeds and now she had several acres of cassava planted. She was so thankful to the cooperative farmers and accompanied us on the tour of the various fields. She said that next year she is going to give some seedlings to someone else she knows to help them out. We ran into two former child soldiers on this trip, one of which was in the Children of War Center when I visited in March. One of the things that I wanted to mention in my post yesterday is how agriculture has come alive. Where in 2008 and 2009 the fields were almost all wild, now you see cultivated fields everywhere. I am so encouraged by the number of fields that are growing crops and it is such a stark contrast to previous visits. Then we headed to a primary school where WV has been doing group counseling with children who were suffering depression because of all of the hardship in this region. It was a pilot program. Approximately 150 children participate in weekly small group counseling sessions with trained local people for a period of 16 weeks. The last session was today. The results are pretty remarkable. 110 of the children showed marked improvement, and their attention, behavior, and grades at the school all benefited. In fact, many of them want to continue to the sessions during the next period. Furthermore, WV started a group for depressed parents of the depressed children that meets weekly and I sat in on the last part of it. There were about 30 people, and many of them gave testimonies on how much it had helped them. Several of them were considering suicide. I was impressed and think WV should expand this intervention to parents of children at other schools as well. Tomorrow I spend the day at the Children of War Center.