Skip to main content

International Women's day


This morning with International Women's day coming up in a month, I am reminded of a story from just a few weeks ago.

One afternoon as we were walking through Lira town, going to check on some seed suppliers for our Cents for Seeds project, two young girls approached us in the street. We were with Julius, who is definitely a celebrity in his village given his Olympic status, but also because of the incredible hard work that he puts in to bringing development to his people. These two girls, both called Grace, looked no older than 16 to me. They approached us and told Julius that they knew him, and that they lived in his village, Awake. It was almost 5pm, and the sun was beginning to set. Julius knew that they had a long journey ahead of them. He offered for them to stay the night in his home in Lira, so that they could rest and commence their journey the next morning.

They followed us around the market place, where we noticed that one of the girls was pregnant. Julius told us that the other girl already had two kids, and that this one who was currently pregnant had no husband. She also was wearing no shoes. The next morning, Eloise packed her spare pare of thongs in a plastic bag, and we made our way over to Julius' house for our morning training. Eloise intended to give Grace her shoes, however when we arrived, we were told that the girls had left last night and they had not stayed after all.

When we enquired as to why the girls left so suddenly, we were told that Grace, the young woman who was pregnant, had had some type of fit as soon as she arrived at the house. The boys told us that she was posessed by a demon and that she fell to the ground and started shaking. We asked a few more questions and established that her eyes were rolling in the back of her head, and once the fit was over, she was delirous and not making any sense. Her friend was laughing at her and telling her to get up and stop being silly.

Whilst the boys were adamant that she was posessed, Eloise and I were both quietly putting the pieces together in our heads; either this girl had epilepsy, severe malaria, or something even worse. She had left the house that evening in embarrassment and fear, and by the time we arrived the next morning we had no way of contacting her, as we didn't even know where she was. I couldn't get her out of my head for the rest of the trip - a young girl, with no husband, expecting a baby, and with some sort of serious medical condition yet no access to proper medical care. I felt helpless, I felt overwhelmed. Part of me wanted to get in the car and drive into the village until we found her, but I knew that that was unrealistic. We didn't even have a photo of her, but her face is still burned in my memory.

I had to accept that that is the way things are over here. People live like this. Women can die like this... and it's for this reason that on International Women's Day on March the 8th, we will be raising as much money as possible to change the fate of young women like Grace.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Update from our Sister organisation: Achon Uganda Children's Fund

Progress on the Kristina Clinic  Achon Uganda Children's Fund Board Member- Jim Fee with the Community Board members for the Kristina Clinic  An update from Jim: Julius and I returned home on Sept. 21 st from an eventful and successful trip to Uganda. We departed on September 10 th and spent 10 days in Northern Uganda. I am writing to provide you trip highlights. From Sept. 14 th through the 19 th we alternated days in Lira and Julius’ village Awake which is 42 miles NNE. Recent heavy rains prior to and while we were in Northern Uganda made the road from Lira to the village very difficult to navigate so the normal 1½ hour trip became a 2+ hour journey each way.  The road to Awake   Kristina Clinic construction in Awake village is progressing very well since our May clinic visit. Under the leadership of construction manager Patrick Ebyau and Julius’ brother Jimmy Okullo the living quarters are virtually complete save windows, doors, paint...
Post a Comment
Read more

Kristina Health Centre Update

  Since October 1st 2012, the Kristina Health Centre (KHC) has been up and running and treating patients in Awake Village. In October there were 386 patients treated, and 329 in the following month of November. Prior to the opening of KHC, patients were required to travel in the best case, 5km and more likely 70km on foot for treatment when they were ill. The most common illness treated was malaria, followed by cold and flu, and pneumonia.  Monica's Story Last week, Monica, a four year old girl with fever, chills, sweating and restless was carried by her mother approximately three miles from their hut in Ogor village to KHC. Upon arrival, Monica was registered and then waited on the bench inside the Out Patient Department  room with her mother until her name was called. She was carried into a consultation room and examined by a senior clinical officer, Emmanuel Achar who recommended a blood test as he suspected she had contracted malaria. A drop of...
2 comments
Read more

KONY 2012: Our Response

After the dust has seemingly settled on the overnight media frenzy that was "Kony 2012" we thought it a good moment to contribute to the mass of online information on the subject. Our aim in this post is to simply inform and empower those who have been moved by what they have seen in recent weeks, to be able to make wise choices about their response. Hopefully we can contribute to the conversation in a way that does not further dilute the real issues. There have been many criticisms of the Invisible Children campaign and video, from those who have chosen to unpick IC's financials, to those who have personally attacked the maker of the film Jason Russell. After the sad events of the weekend concerning Jason, we offer our best wishes and support as he recovers from what has clearly been an extremely draining and difficult period. I personally felt so overwhelmed and stressed by the huge media response that Love Mercy experienced two weeks ago, yet this was compara...
2 comments
Read more