WISDOM LIES IN THE MINDS OF THE LISTENERS


“…knowledge acquired from the MPI dialogues and my conversations with Rose reminded me of my value and taught me that I needed to start being the protagonist in my life by…”


by Kisuki Simon Nimrod, DSP Social Worker.

Kampala, 03.05.2022

Life often has hard corners to maneuver but can be simple depending on one’s perspective. This is how Anyiri Sarah, a mother of 3, guardian to 5, summarizes her experiences and responsibilities today. Even without an education, she was the only child among her siblings with considerable success at a young age being the one that held her family together financially. Once she got married and a few years later, her husband impregnated a maid Sarah had employed for the sole purpose of giving said maid an opportunity to sustain her family.

Sarah extreme right with some of her children during a home visit by Simon (front), a social worker.

Once she found out about the pregnancy, she separated from her husband and left with their 3 children in the guise of visiting an aunt. Sarah describes leaving her husband as the most heartbreaking and painful experience she has ever been through not to mention the hardest choice she has ever had to make. Sarah’s Aunt allowed her to stay for as long as she needed. However, due to depression over the end of her marriage, betrayal, worry for her children, and the fear that she may be HIV positive, Sarah looked and felt sick, so much so she could neither stand nor sit on her own. This is when she was rushed to Reach Out for testing and later Mulago for treatment for different infections. Luckily she was HIV-negative.

This is the period during which she was introduced to the Meeting Point International (MPI) Executive Director, Rose Busingye having heard about how big an impact she was making in the lives of many of the women that resided around the Kireka-Acholi quarters. She says at first she thought her husband would come and take them back home, but due to his emphatic refusal to go for HIV testing with her till date, she couldn’t trust him enough to take him back.

Sarah had some little money left after her treatment that she used for rent and started a small retail shop that grew over time. She later joined a savings group where she saved consistently using whatever she could spare from her shop’s profits. However, she was unfortunately robbed and she didn’t get a single coin when it was time to share the money which led to all her plans like restocking her shop and buying out her landlord being cancelled which depressingly meant starting from scratch again.

Life became so hard to the extent that Sarah could not afford any underwear for herself and some days she couldn’t afford a meal for her family. By this time, she had started attending MPI dialogues but was still timid about confiding her problems to Rose. One day she followed Jacky, an MPI social worker at the time, and asked her for some money. Jacky gave her ugx.5000 and advised her to find a source of income because requesting for money isn’t sustainable. This encounter happened after Rose advised them to feel free to go to her with their problems. She gathered her courage and went to meet Rose who she says gladly offered her much needed advice and help. Sarah was at the time also suffering from a terrible skin infection and Rose gave her medicine to apply to her body and kept inquiring about how she was fairing, not to mention surprising her with underwear at a later date!

“Jacky and Rose’s eagerness to help, knowledge acquired from the MPI dialogues and my conversations with Rose reminded me of my value and taught me that I needed to recognize that one way of the ways I can be the protagonist in my life is by using my capabilities to survive in my reality rather than feel sorry for myself.” recalls Sarah. She then used the ugx.5000/= as capital to start up a cassava frying business which is still running very successfully to date. She is very proud of it because the returns have enabled her to sustain her family, made it a little easier to take care of 5 more children in need and contribute for their school requirements since MPI caters for their school fees.

From these lessons, Sarah now testifies and advises fellow MPI women during the community dialogues on how they can be more proactive in their lives. She encourages the mothers to be companions in their children’s lives the same way MPI offers companionship to them. She urges them to take responsibility of finding out if for example the school fees paid by MPI was cleared at the school, how their children are performing in school, make sure they do their homework, etc…and not leave the full responsibility of the child to MPI even if MPI already takes such responsibility.

“Rose’s words to the women are a very strong instrument that will always drive you to something great when fully understood” says Sarah. In one of the personal dialogues she had with Rose, she was advised to always write down her daily expenditure and then see how to narrow it down given the other demands she always has at hand. This taught her to be in control of what’s hers, to leave within her means at whatever financial position she finds herself because that is the only way she will not fail to fulfil her responsibilities.

All this combined with how loved Sarah has felt since the day she was welcomed into Meeting Point International (MPI), has moved her into being responsible for those she encounters. Not only her children but her relatives, MPI members, people in her community or any human being for that matter. She says that Rose’s constant encouragement to remind ourselves to not only be mindful about ourselves and what is ours, but for others as well, is what provoked her heart.

“I do not regret the day I decided to settle here because it has given me the opportunity to keep discovering who I really am.”  Sarah added.

Today, with the support from donors like AVSI Foundation and Support International, among others, MPI is supporting all her 8 children and this gives her some leeway to take care of their other needs. One cannot imagine that the story behind this woman’s life is hers because of how happy she is, and how she conducts herself despite her circumstances. This tells us that we all need to be loved and welcomed without putting anything but humanity under consideration.

A Token Representing Our Tears

“Ndi muntu, sili kabila”, meaning “I am not my tribe, I am a human being”, is how Acen Karamela Kasule, one of the oldest members of Meeting Point International responded when asked why she was the first person to contribute to the Ukraine cause once the idea to collect funds to support the war victims was suggested. The beauty in this statement is that many a time, we are more inclined to help people with whom we have personal relationships or similarities like ethnicity, religion, etc…, yet we ought to be moved by the compassion that should ideally come from recognizing that a fellow human being’s infinitely great value is in jeopardy.

Atimango Josephine (right) sharing what moved her to contribute to the Ukraine cause & Achan Agnes, social worker (left) during the handover of the contribution to Nuncio Luigi Bianco.

Who are we not to help or contribute something however small to those who are suffering, to offer them the companionship we have been shown by MPI and donors we may never meet. Watching the news about Ukraine makes me cry because those too are my children, they belong with me and the memories it brings up reminds me very vividly of how painful what those people are going through must be .We need to unite with the people in the war through prayer because we cannot live as if we are different and should love one another as human beings.  There’s nothing like this one is black or white, we are all one. And this is why we are sending our support. It may not be able to feed them but it is a sign of our tears to show that we are with them in these trying times.  If Ukraine or Russia was like in Mbarara (a Ugandan district), we would ask Rose to take us so that we can help however we can but we can’t due to the distance. said Karamela.

Karamela Kasule, like many of the Meeting Point International (MPI) women were victims of the LRA guerrilla war in Northern Uganda when they experienced first-hand the horrors that come with war and it is how they ended up relocating to the slums of Kampala. Watching/ listening to news of the Ukraine war brings back very painful memories for many of them.

Sometimes we watched as the rebels raped mothers in front of their children, cut off people’s body parts, buried people alive, among other inhumane acts that would make us so traumatised we lost hope and started doubting God’s existence. said Akello Florence, a 50-year-old member of MPI.

Today, I have learnt so much from MPI and from community school and I have the awareness that what we have contributed is nothing, but we want to help the victims with more than words of prayer and hope that this small token may remind even one person that God still exists. The money, above all, represents our voices and the cries of our hearts from the pain of what’s happening to humanity. I am requesting those who are fuelling the war to ask themselves “what is a human being?” because it should be only God that makes the decision to take away one’s life. We are praying that they recognise that what has already happened is bad enough and that God created us all with his love, not human love and they are eliminating this love forcefully. I call upon all of us and not just the war victims to prepare ourselves and our hearts, to ask ourselves, how I can clean my heart and make my life better? Am I worthy of God’s love? So that our hearts are filled with God’s love and when death comes, we are not scared because we know that we have a value and are filled with God’s love. continued Akello Florence.

It is very painful what is happening in Ukraine because those people are our brothers and sisters but also because it reminds us of the horrors of war we experienced and pray that God saves them like he did us. My heart is with MPI because I am grateful for the education on how to live with people and now am learning that when another human gets a problem, it is also my problem as well. We have to come together, unity is Golden, giving advice to someone is golden. In the past, different countries came together to help us during the war because their hearts moved for us, right now, they are also in our hearts and in my house hold, we include them in our prayers. May God bless and multiply the little we have given so that it can make a difference. said Anek Florence.

The people responsible for the war should remember the value of a human being. Covid-19 killed us in very large and we don’t need any more deaths. This money we have collected could take care of our struggling families because I personally take care of 4 orphans, however I understand the terror war can bring to people and I pray that this small contribution helps them so that they don’t lose faith in humanity and God. said Atimango Josephine, a 56-year-old mother.

Watching the news about Ukraine reminds me of my difficult childhood and watching children go without food bring tears to my eyes. My father passed away when my twin and I were 7 months old and after a few months, my father’s family chased my mother out of their clan.  My mother, having no stable source of income suffered terribly with us trying to find food for us and we would sometimes go a day without any meals. I feel so much pain because I know what it is like to be a hungry child but now that I have children of my own, I can only imagine the pain the mothers must be going through helplessly watching their kids starve all because of a war brought about by fellow human beings. When we started to contribute, I gave whatever I had in my pocket and keep praying to God that the people can unite so that the war can stop. contributed Nyangoma Mackline.

One after another, over 300 women of Meeting Point moved by the pain being experienced by the people in Ukraine and Russia managed to contribute Ugx. 3,000,000/=, approximately EUR.833/= which was forwarded through his excellence the Papal Nuncio, Luigi Bianco who was welcomed with music and dance by the MPI women on May 12th, 2022. He was thankful to the women and commended them on their solidarity for human kind.

Rose Busingye (extreme right) welcoming the Nuncio (extreme left) to Meeting Point International.

MPI women have however expressed this solidarity before after hearing of the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. The women of Meeting Point International like now were moved to action. For weeks, they crushed truck-loads of stones in the nearby Kireka quarry and contributed about $1,000. “It may only be a drop in the ocean, but our donation proves that the human heart is international, and without our unity the human race would become withered like a plant without nourishment” said Rose Busingye, MPI Director.

by Mariam Asiimwe.