Massimo Vacchetti is a priest from Bologna, Italy. He came to Uganda to visit his sister who is volunteering with the italian NGO AVSI in Kampala, and he decided to take along some friends.

During their stay, they visited Meeting Point International’s headquarter, the women in Kireka and Naguru, the Luigi Giussani Schools, and COWA. They met Rose, who shared with them her story and the encounter with Father Giussani (the italian priest, founder of the movement of Communion and Liberation) which is the source of the whole experience of Meeting Point International and AVSI in Uganda.

Rose said: “The real poor person is the one who does not know for whom and for what he/she lives. The only thing I have understood and that I keep on repeating to all the people that come here to cure their bitterness, is that Christ came to affirm human kind. The value of each and every person is infinite. […] I tell what I live. Jesus took me as I am. I am nothing, but He loves me the way I am. I tell people what I have lived”. 

Here is the full article in italian:

Kampala, 21.11.2022

Tempi, an Italian magazine, yesterday published an article about the story of Rose Busingye, the founder of Meeting Point International in regards to the book by David Perillo wrote about her and her journey with the people living in the worst slums of Naguru and Kireka . The book is entitled  “Your names are written in heaven”. Please click the link below for the full story.

“You have infinite value.” The Story of Rose Busingye

by Paola Salanitro,
Kampala, 20.10.2022.

Paola an Italian friend to Irene Muto, a Projects officer at Meeting Point International (MPI) visited us and shared her experience with the Women of MPI in Naguru and Kireka in Uganda. Please click the link below to read full story.

Paola’s encounter with the MPI women

The article is about how she has ‘freed’ women who had lost hope in their lives by educating them about the value of knowing who they are. Please click the link below to access the full article where Rose was featured.

Libro Perillo su Rose Il Foglio 081022

A book about Rose Busingye, our executive director and the women of Meeting Point International was written by an Italian author, David Perillo. An interview by journalist Roberto Zichitella from the italian magazine Famiglia Cristiana was published in their October issue. Please click the link below to access the full interview. Full Interview by Famiglia Christiana 

At the Meeting Point International in Kampala, Rose Busingye has been journeying with thousands of women who fled the civil war for over 3o years by offering them friendship  and psycho social assistance. The story was featured in the L’osservatore Romano. Please click the link below to access the full story in Italian.

Solidarity without borders

A story about Rose Busingye , a Memor Domini and nurse, who sets women with HIV/AIDS free and is helping  people find out the value of knowing who they are in Uganda through Meeting Point International, an organisation she founded. Click the link below to read full article.

Libro-Perillo-su-Rose-Il-Foglio-081022-1.pdf

Meeting Point International, as a founding member of AVSI Foundation celebrates AVSI’s 50th anniversary where they got an opportunity to address His Holiness. Below is an article from AVSI foundation about the address to Pope Francis and His response.

Source : AVSI FOUNDATION

On Saturday September 3rd on the occasion of the Open Hospitals in Syria conference, AVSI was received in audience by Pope Francis.

The words of greeting that Giampaolo Silvestri addressed to the Pontifex

His Holiness,

I would like to thank you on behalf of AVSI, all the friends, supporters, and donors who are represented here, along with our colleagues in the field from the Middle East, Africa, Latin America: thank you for this audience and for the support that the Holy See has provided to the Open Hospitals project in Syria.

When we started thinking about this project in 2016, Syria was at the top of world emergencies: the Syrian people were asking for help right away. At the initiative of Card. Zenari, with the support at the beginning of Cor Unum, then the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, and the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, we tried to respond.

 

Our intervention does not claim to “save” Syrians, but aims to help bring relief to the victims of a conflict and an economic crisis that make life more unsustainable every day.
The awareness that we cannot “save” those in need, that we cannot help everyone, has never been an alibi for giving up intervening in contexts of war or extreme poverty.

AVSI, which is celebrating 50 years this year, has always been interested in looking at reality in all its complexity and contradictions, and is pushed by this to translate its mission into concrete actions, together with different partners and actors.

Since its establishment on the initiative of a few people belonging to “Communion and Liberation,” who have been joined over time by many others from different backgrounds, AVSI has been working for a world where the person can be the protagonist of his/her development and that of his/her community.

Because, as the encyclical letter Fratelli Tutti indicates, building development requires social friendship and universal fraternity. It “calls for an acknowledgement of the worth of every human person, always and everywhere”.
This is the cornerstone of the Open Hospitals project, which has provided almost 80,000 free treatments and aims to take care of 140,000 Syrians by 2024.

There are countless testimonies from the people treated we receive: they mostly say they are grateful. Sometimes they are almost surprised to have found a loving welcome although they were of a different religion, as if the trust that the other can be a resource, not always a threat, has been lost in the country.

Some people, cared for by the project, return and ask to volunteer in hospitals. Like Hani, a young Muslim man who was badly injured and feared he would never walk again. Instead, he was back on his feet thanks to a series of surgeries, was able to start playing with his son again, and to work to support him. Such testimonies document how perceiving oneself welcomed is generative of good: it produces hope, social friendship and fraternity, which are essential for rebuilding a country wounded by war.
The project, made possible thanks to many donations, from the savings of a child – here today – to the millions from businesses and public and private entities, was also well received by local, civil and religious institutions.

The partnership between different hospitals provides a model to be inspired by: tackling the most critical situations together makes a good flourish that goes beyond the sum of individual efforts.

But we cannot stop. The Syria emergency has been joined by countless other emergencies, challenging the most fragile and those like us who work in development cooperation. They almost create a dispute: who “deserves” more help? Is there a hierarchy to be respected in need? How to be present?
These are questions that we ask ourselves every day and entrust to you, Holy Father, as children who do not want to lose sight of the authentic and original motive of their action.

Thank you.

Giampaolo Silvestri, segretario generale Fondazione AVSI

 

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The Holy Father’s speech

Dear brothers and sisters, welcome!

I offer you a warm greeting, as you meet in these days to advance the praiseworthy initiative of “Open Hospitals” in Syria. I thank Dr. Giampaolo Silvestri, Secretary General of the ASVI Foundation, for his kind words of introduction. I also cordially greet Cardinal Zenari, who has served as Apostolic Nuncio in Syria for fourteen years.

The General Secretary for AVSI foundation wrote an article in relation to the EU-Africa summit held on 17th February in Brussels. The summit was an opportunity for us to seize and share what daily experiences teach us on the subject of a new partnership between Africa and Europe.
The Avvenire then choosing to place it first as an editorial suggests that perhaps AVSI’s 50 years are leaving a mark. MPI being one of the founding members of AVSI is pleased to share this news being a part of the partners striving to achieve similar goals. For more details, please find attached the article in Italian.

Avvenire (click to read full article)

A group of junior high school students, after the summer vacation entitled “Friends for life”, arrives at the Meeting and meets Rose Busingye of Meeting Point International in Kampala. Here’s what they said,

“I don’t want to live in vain.” This passionate phrase of the young Fr Giussani was the provocation that accompanied the journey of the Knights (the Christian experience of middle school kids, ed) throughout this “strange” year spent in the pandemic. Distance learning, meetings via Zoom, attempts at face-to-face shooting, the Promise, holidays … A life never suspended, a proposal never interrupted: a true friendship.”Friends for life” was the title of the Knights’ holidays this year. Undoubtedly the modality is different, but the desire for research and discovery is irreducible: what is friendship, and who is the true friend? This is how we arrived at the Meeting. And on Monday 23, about 250, between children and adults, (plus an equal number connected through the AVSI Facebook channel) met Rose Busingye, who had already helped us with her testimony to live Easter. The songs, the waiting, the arrival of Rose and we begin. Don Marcello and Gloria (heads of the Knights) open the dialogue: “We saw the exhibition” You are a value “, where hundreds of Ugandan women in conditions of poverty, abandonment, illness, tell what has been generated in them and from them, blowing up a beauty that is greater than everything. We met some of them. But where does all this come from? ».«I can tell my story», Rose begins to reply: «I grew up because someone, Fr Giussani, hugged me and told me that my life is worthy. He told me: “You know Rose, even if you were the only human being on earth, God came the same, indeed God came for you, for love of you he went to the cross. He died and rose and will be with you every day until the end of the world”. This was a revolution: God who made heaven and earth came down for me ». And here Rose uses an expression that will recur several times during the meeting: “He” made me dizzy “”.A revolution. “How I thought about my life has changed, how I ate and drank has changed. That man looked at me as an infinite value. My job is, therefore, to shout to everyone that life has an infinite value, regardless of successes and failures ». “And the experience of the limit?” Urges Don Marcello. «The value does not depend on what we do» resumes Rose, «God came down from heaven to be with you every day so that nothing is lost. Fr Giussani said to me: “Go to the mirror, look at your round face and see that in that face there is an Other who is giving it to you now”. It is this Presence that saves the world. And when one is looked at in this way it becomes contagious ». This contagious presence that takes those women (the exhibition begins with the photos of women who have been mistreated, betrayed) who not only start living again, but ask for a school: “Because in this way our children can learn mathematics by discovering their own value”.Rose accepts the challenge and “Luigi Giussani High School” is born, which now has 600 boys, and “the school is like a wave: from women to children and from children to women. In a month we have seen the eyes of the boys change, like that little girl who had attempted suicide four times. She changed her mind about herself when a professor called her by name “.Alberto, eighth grade, can’t sit still and asks: «How did the kids react when they knew they could go to school and study? I ask because … in the common Italian imagination, not everyone has a great desire to go to school … “. Applause from the audience. “Our kids live in huts and don’t have cell phones. During the lockdown, our teachers prepared their homework on paper and went on a motorbike to the boys’ homes, looking for them one by one to give them their homework and then to return to pick them up. When there was the exam, our kids were the first, for this very reason: when you are loved, the brain cells multiply their work! Our kids want to go back to school because where they are loved ».The dialogue continues, the questions of children and adults follow one another: what does it mean to educate? What makes you even happy when a guy says no? How can joy coexist with so much pain? … “It is a problem of knowledge, knowing oneself is really a beautiful thing“. “But how can I find my worth?” finally asks Rebecca, another very young girl. “We all have value,” concludes Rose. «We just need someone who lets us know, who tells you about it, looking at you as an important, precious thing. And when you’ve met him, you can even jump the fire. “Stefano, Monza

31.08.2021

Source: Communion and Liberation

The Courage to Say “I”

20·25 august 2021 | 42nd edition | Fiera di Rimini

The title of the meeting is “The courage to say ‘I’.” It is a quote from the “Diary” by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. In these difficult and troubled times, where there is an ongoing debate on the scientific, economic, social certainty and seemingly acquired lifestyles, we believe it is crucial to focus attention on the freedom of man and on his vocation to build a more humane world.

Many are experiencing the current situation as asphyxiating and suffocating: a growing sense of loss is affecting the entire world. The consistence of reality seems to struggle in a new wave of social decline, of economic and political uncertainty, which the pandemic has boosted: the way you relate with people, with the various activities and daily circumstances, is increasingly weakened. Apathy and boredom alternate with fear and anger and the zest for life seems destined to succumb.

The risks of a cultural and social homology relativizing the uniqueness of a person in the face of the challenges of life are visible to everyone.

But what specifically is this “I”? Is it an illusion? Is it a bundle of “different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity and are in a perpetual flux and movement” as the philosopher David Hume wrote? Or–as the Latin etymology of the word “persona” seems to suggest–a theatrical mask? Or is it an obstacle for whoever can perceive in it a factor of disturbance and destruction of the natural order of the world?

We have the sharing experience of relationship (foundational, generative, affective, with the other) as what allows the “I” to recognize itself, to be aware it exists and to search for a meaning for itself and for the world. And where does this “I” find the courage to move and to act, to expose itself, to prevent it from undergoing the circumstances of life and of this time of ours? And what kind of courage are we talking about?

And what is the relationship between the “I” and ourselves, between an individual and one’s community, between the person and society? Can the desire to live fully and to deepen our own relations still make the “I” of each one of us vibrate?

The ongoing appeals to follow new and more restrictive public health regulations are not enough to overcome anxiety and the lack of hope for the future. In order to face the pandemic and the many other challenges that life sets before us, society needs to wake up from the slumber and fear in which it has fallen back again months afterwards: the contribution of every individual, of every “I” that will be responsible, taking care of what is good for oneself and for the community as a whole.

In fact, we have discovered ourselves fragile, vulnerable, we have come to realize we need each other. This is why we believe we can start again only together, understanding the value and the significance (also of interdependence) of human relationships; this is why dialogue is the essential condition for any possible rebuilding.

At the meantime comes the need for something that continuously awakes that “I” we all have inside: It is the permanent dimension of education that we all need, to understand what is happening and to start living humanely. In fact, a crisis like the one we are going through is forcing our “I” to go back to the essential questions; if we want to start again, they mustn’t be censured.

This is why we wish to encounter the witness of people who, by not censuring their own “I”, don’t stop asking questions and who can communicate their experience and the way in which they face reality in the various areas where human life unfolds, in politics, scientific research, economics, education, art, healthcare, anywhere.

The Meeting offers itself to the world as a moment of encounter and confrontation for everybody, in an effort to better understand one’s self and the present situation, sharing that hope inside one’s heart, inside one’s eyes and inside one’s life, a life that is made more humane by the men and women involved, the people who have the courage to say “I”. Rimini Meeting 2021 poster 42^nd edition.

A school head teacher’s passion to reach learners with self-study materials is bringing hope and encouragement to the students in his school. #Mr. #Michael Kawuki wants to ensure that his students don’t lose the rhythm of schooling.

He gets on his motorcycle by 7:00 am each day, with the carrier loaded with learning materials and a list of students and their home addresses ready to deliver their materials.

We asked Michael how he feels about COVID-19 and he said “Of course I am concerned about the pandemic; my students need to keep busy so that they know that we think about their future.” Michael does all this because he loves his profession – he calls it a vocation.

The past weeks have been busy for Michael as he coordinates his teachers to compile lessons for students and gets on his daily routine with the distribution journey so that he’ back home before the curfew. One thousand learners Luigi Giussani high school in Kampala are supported by AVSI in the Distance Support Program.

AVSI is proud of committed teachers like Michael and several others in the schools we support and elsewhere because we know that this is one of the ways we will continue to ensure #quality #education for learners. Meeting Point International

Mauro Giacomazzi vividly remembers a time when he was observing an English class for the senior 1 students at the Luigi Giussani High School in Kampala, Uganda.

The students were struggling to understand the difference between common nouns and proper nouns for weeks, and so the teacher made the executive decision to take them outside and use nature as a teaching tool.

When they were all gathered outside, the teacher asked the students to identify common nouns that they could see.

“Their answers were ‘blackboard,’ ‘pen,’ ‘desk,’ paper’,” Giacomazzi said. But when asked again to identify these common nouns in nature, they could not do it.

For Giacomozzi, this is a prime example of how the Ugandan education system can fail students.

“They did not understand the concept. They just knew that if there were common nouns, this was the list of things to say,” he said. “And this has a number of implications on teaching…because primary school teachers are teaching to the exam.”

This problem of teachers teaching to the exam, rather than actually educating students, is found throughout Uganda. And Giacomozzi and his team at the Luigi Giussani Institute of Higher Education (LGIHE), are trying to address crucial educational deficiencies of quality, school management, accountability and teaching efficiency within Uganda’s context. Through their work with local schools, and their own Luigi Giussani High School, LGIHE had been working to create innovative pedagogies that advance how teachers in Uganda actually teach their students.

“In Uganda, the teachers have lost the dignity of their profession. When you talk to them, they tell you ‘I am not working, I am just teaching’,” Giacomazzi said. “This is because teaching in Uganda has become mere…transcription of information from the notebook of the teacher’s notebook to the blackboard, and from the blackboard to the notebook of the students. So if you reduce education to this, it is not a fulfilling job.”

By understanding that the teachers in Uganda need to rediscover the meaning of education and their role in it, LGIHE created the Reclaiming National Exams to Widen Achievements in Learning (RENEWAL) in Ugandan Secondary Schools.

This [Partnership-funded] project aims to change the Ugandan national education system because “we believe that with a different kind of examination, teachers will be compelled to introduce a deeper understanding. and higher thinking pedagogical process for the students to pass.”

The long-term project works with teachers and school leadership in about 15 schools, including their own High School, to build student-teacher relationships, to understand the development and maturity of students, and to create student-focused and student-led teaching methodologies.

Gladys, a senior 6 student at Luigi Giussani High School, says that these teaching methodologies have been life-changing for her. She joined the school six years ago, after attending a government school for her primary education.

“Initially, I had no goal in life. Now I want to be a teacher,” she said, having been inspired by her own teachers here at the brightly colored school. The place was built by over 2000 mothers from the Acholi Quarter in Kampala who did not believe the local schools were providing an adequate education for their children.

“In my previous school, the teachers looked at you like an animal or a commercial asset because you have to pay them,” she continued. “The moment you made a mistake, you were beaten. They didn’t take the initiative to correct you.”

It was the simplest things that affected Gladys, like her new teachers knowing her name or even asking her how she was doing. She said that these things made the biggest difference in helping her see her value in this world.

“Teaching is not only about what a teacher writes on the blackboard, but about wanting their students to understand the meaning of life,” she said. “This way the student can face the realities before them with an open heart and a curious mind.”

Author: Ashley Rowland

A Ugandan nurse who founded an organization for impoverished women and children with HIV/AIDS will receive the 2019 Ford Family Notre Dame Award for International Development and Solidarity this month at the University of Notre Dame.

Rose Busingye is president of Meeting Point International, a Kampala-based nongovernmental organization that provides medical care, schooling, and other services that help patients increase their self-sufficiency and develop social networks.

MPI’s mission emphasizes emotional as well as physical healing. In particular, Busingye focuses on helping patients recognize their inherent dignity and worth in a society where they are often shunned because of their medical diagnosis.

“Rose recognizes that she needs to treat the inside as well as the outside of the person,” said Rev. Robert Dowd, CSC, director of the Ford Program in Human Development Studies and Solidarity. “She’s not a heart surgeon, but she helps heal hearts.”

Busingye will receive the award from the Ford Program, part of the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, on Sept. 12 at the Hesburgh Center auditorium. The ceremony will be followed by an armchair discussion with Busingye on “The Value of a Life: AIDS, Outcasts, and the Search for Dignity in Uganda,” hosted by Faculty Fellow Clemens Sedmak, a professor of social ethics at the Keough School of Global Affairs.

Rose, he said, “makes it a point to see a person as someone with something to give to the world. She makes sure that everybody understands that these women are amazing people and so much more than patients suffering from a chronic condition.”

The Ford Family award is given annually in recognition of substantial contributions to human development through research, practice, public service, or philanthropy.

According to Dowd, Busingye embodies the Ford Program’s research and teaching focus on integral human development, a holistic model of human flourishing rooted in Catholic social thought that emphasizes the importance of being connected to others.

“Rose is doing the kind of work that promotes integral human development and those of us seeking to do the same have much to learn from her efforts,” he added. “She accompanies women in ways that free them up and helps them to make the most of their God-given potential.”

Busingye, who is also a midwife, started in MPI in 1993 after meeting HIV-positive women in the slums of Kampala who refused to take antiretroviral medications that could slow the progress of their disease. They believed their lives were meaningless; Busingye sought to convince them otherwise by telling the women they were loved and by creating a de facto family for them within MPI.

She explained on MPI’s website the philosophy behind her work: “The greatest need of a human being is the need of belonging….MPI creates simple environments where each person can find it easier to belong and experience love.”

Today, MPI serves approximately 2,000 women and more than 1,000 children, offering services including counseling, health and hygiene courses, adult literacy classes, and microcredit loans. It also runs an orphanage and operates a bead-making enterprise that helps women earn money to support their families.

Dowd noted that many of the women assisted by MPI have experienced emotional or physical abuse, including rape. Some are from northern Uganda and were brutalized by the Lord’s Resistance Army, a guerilla movement that terrorized the region for more than 20 years starting in the mid-1980s.

Many of those women are ostracized not only because they are HIV positive because they are from the north and were forced by the LRA to serve as soldiers or sex slaves, he said.

Many of the women are angry, resentful, and lonely. One of Busingye’s strategies for helping them deal with their emotions is by simply listening to them: “By listening to them, she helps them to recognize that they are valued and that they have value,” he said.

Previous Ford Family award recipients have been well-known within the field of international development, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus, Acumen CEO Jacqueline Novogratz; and Partners in Health.

By comparison, Busingye’s efforts have received relatively little attention.

“In giving this award to her, we’re trying to raise the awareness of important work that often goes unrecognized,” Dowd said. “Some of the best work going on in the world is where it’s not being recognized, where there’s not a lot of PR for it, where it’s not being backed by millions of dollars, and we want to highlight that work.”

In addition to helping people reflect on the importance of listening, Dowd added that the Ford Program hopes giving the award to Busingye will spark new questions for future research within the Keough School and its constituent units.

The Ford Family award is named in honor of University Trustee Emeritus Doug Ford ’66 and his wife Kathy, whose generosity helped establish the Ford Program.

The award presentation will be held at 5 p.m. in the Hesburgh Center Auditorium. The event is open to the public and will be followed by a reception.

Source: Kellog Institute

The new life of Gladys and her father; a lunch with Anifa, a Muslim, in the heart of the slum, the holiday with the university students, from the music of Arnold and Marvin to the fear of the spirits of Ochaka… The four-day story in and around Kampala.
Ignacio Carbajosa 

30.9.2019

I arrived in Kampala for the Clu holidays in Uganda with three Spanish friends: Juan, Javi, and Paula. On Thursday morning, we went to see the women that nurse Rose Busingye welcomes at the International Meeting Point. As usual, after a couple of hours of dancing, I improvised a small assembly with them. When I met them, I asked them questions that I had at heart, knowing that their experience is rich. This time, in the wake of the Fraternity Exercises, I asked them what nourishes their joy, even today, years after meeting Rose, who welcomed and treated them (they are suffering from AIDS). The first thing that struck us is that Rose continues to be present in their lives just as she was on the first day. They refer, in a simple way, to a paternity that is ever-present. They also share the same awareness that Rose has: that there is One who is making her in every instant.

Then we went to lunch at Gladys’ house, a high-school senior, who participates in the life of the Clu (which includes students from the last two years of high school). Last year, we had also gone to this same house, a two by three meter shack, located in the slum. Glady’s dad was not there last time, but remained so struck by the fact that we had been their guests, that, since then, he has named the humble house “the new Jerusalem”.

Gladys tells us that, since that day, her dad has not been the same, and that many serious problems in his life have disappeared. He works as a guardian at the Luigi Giussani Primary School. At lunch, he told us of his change, of the grace received and of his faith. It was moving, in that humble place, to hear him say: “I don’t miss anything“. We also witnessed a beautiful dialogue between father and daughter: “You still doubt my change, because you think it’s my work”, he says: “But I’m quiet because it’s something that the Lord has done“.

Also at the lunch are Sara, her Muslim friend Anifa and Achiro Grace, who, having finished high school, had a son and, in the last two years, has distanced herself and then been brought back closer, more than once, to the community. But it is clear that she has been marked by what she has met in the movement. Anifa prepared the lunch. It was striking to hear her talk about her meeting with CL as a preference for her life and how cooking for us filled her with joy. It didn’t seem as though she had any problem with the fact that she is Muslim and we are Christians: it is evident that the encounter with us is a treasure for her life.

The next day we left for Hoima, the location of the holiday. We traveled by bus for five hours with about fifty students (among them, two Muslim girls: a university girl and Anifa’s daughter). Once arrived, an introduction was given by Marvin, one of the boys of Kampala. This was followed by some African dancing.

During dinner, I talked to Vicky, who is one of the older students, who will graduate at the end of this year. They are the first to graduate. Until now, I hadn’t heard anyone speak of confusion and fear of finishing university, the fear of losing a certain way of being with friends, the School of Community, the Exercises, the holidays… I tried to help her look at what has happened in her life: “If what you found here is only a nice companionship, then you’re right to fear the future. But if instead, what you have found is of a divine nature, then fear becomes a question to the Mystery of how He will bring everyone’s life to fulfillment”.

In the evening, Mary Claire, Marvin’s sister, presented the film the Miracle of Marcelino. Some had seen it and, impressed, they proposed it to everyone else. The simplicity of the film, Marcelino’s gaze towards everything and the concreteness of his relationship with Jesus, will leave footprints in the following days, also because many of the boys have lost their mothers, just like the film’s protagonist.

On Saturday morning we left for an excursion to Lake Albert. We celebrated mass on a hill overlooking the lake. We ate and then listened to the presentation of the biography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, which Gladys had read and proposed to everyone. Then, a game together.

Back in Hoima, the evening awaited us, the main “dish” of those days: a trail of songs by very famous contemporary songwriters (Sinéad O’Connor, Pink, James Arthur, Lady Gaga, Passenger and others). Arnold and Marvin are on guitar, sometimes accompanied by Juan and other voices, such as that of Gladys, Prim, Priscilla… The thread that unites the chosen pieces is that of the heart of every man: the cry of meaning, desire, the expectation of something great, the dynamic of preference… A slide is projected for each song, with a short text, and for each one, one of the boys recounts, giving examples from his life, what the song conveys to him. It’s something exceptional.

At the end of the evening, I asked what happened during the show. An experience, I add, cannot be reduced to saying “what a lovely evening” or “how good they were”. It’s not even enough to say that those songs express the nature of our hearts. The evening is an expression of the presence of the risen Christ who, by entering the lives of these children, allows them to understand the dynamics of their hearts, better than the rock stars who wrote those songs.

In these days, the thing that filled my mind was the way in which, this summer, we talked about the experience. That is, the possibility, of being able to recognize Christ as a real factor in life. On Sunday, with Rose, I held the assembly. I was particularly struck by what Ochaka recounted. He had accompanied Alberto, the day before the trip, to ask the local tribe for permission for us to stop for lunch and celebrate mass. Last year, there had been problems, because they were asking for money saying that, if we did not pay, the spirits of the mountain would have sought revenge by stoning the intruders. I was struck by how Ochaka realized that the encounter with Christ freed him from fear of the spirits. Even today, it’s not something to be taken for granted in African culture. And not only there.

Source: Communion and Liberation

Rose Busingye was in Florence, Italy for the event At the Origin of gratuitousness, in which she was handed keys to the city. This is an extract of the speech she made at the event which occurred on 1/12/18;

What is at stake is man! Always, when it comes to a human being, we must start with themselves. In the beginning, I thought this was selfishness, but it is true that we cannot give what we do not have. Who am I and who is this man I have to take care of? It is not enough to do an investigation on existence, even an instinctive reaction is not enough because it does not make it out of the Confusion that characterizes our days, does not bring out the “I”, its face. The analysis is never enough. Apparently, man can seem to be nothing in front of his problems, illness, poverty and even death.

Let me quote a great Italian poet, Giacomo Leopardi:

«Niuna cosa maggiormente dimostra la grandezza e la potenza dell’umano intelletto, né l’alte‘zza e nobilta dell’uomo, che il poter l’uomo conoscere e interamente comprendere e fortemente sentire la sua piccolezza. Quando egli, considerando la pluralita de’ mondi, si sente essere infinitesima parte di un globo ch’e minima parte d’uno degli infiniti sistemi che compongono il mondo, e in questa considerazione stupisce della sua piccolezza, e profondamente sentendola e intentamente riguardandola, si confonde quasi col nulla, e perde quasi se stesso nel pensiero della immensita delle cose, e si trova come smarrito nella vastita incomprensibile dell’esistenza; allora con questo atto e con questo pensiero egli da Ia maggior prova possibile della sua nobilta, della forza e della immensa capacita della sua mente, la quale rinchiusa in si piccolo e menomo essere, e potuta pervenire a conoscere e intender cose tanto superiori alla natura di lui, e puo ‘abbracciare e contener col pensiero questa immensita medesima della esistenza e delle cose».

“Niente mostra di piu la grandezza, il potere dell’intelletto umano, I’altezza e la nobilta dell’uomo, della capacita che egli ha di percepire e capire la sua piccolezza; quando considera la pluralita dei mondi, sente se stesso come parte infinitesimale del globo, percependo questo profondamente confonde se stesso con il nulla e quasi perde se stesso nel pensiero dell’immensita delle cose, si trova quasi perso nell’incomprensibile vastita dell’esistenza.”

“Nothing more demonstrates the greatness and power of the human intellect, nor the highness and nobility of man, that man can know and fully understand and strongly feel its smallness. When he considers the plurality of the worlds he feels himself to be infinitesimal part of a globe that is minimal part of one of the infinite systems that make up the world, and in this consideration amazes of its smallness, and deeply feeling it and intently considering it, it is almost confused with nothing, and almost loses itself in thought of the immensity of things, and finds itself lost in the incomprehensible vastness of existence; then with this act and with this thought he gives as much proof as possible of his nobility, of the strength and immense capacity of his mind, which is locked up in a small and small way to be able to come to know and understand things so much superior to his nature, and can embrace and contain with thought this immensity of existence and of things “.

“Nothing shows more the greatness, the power of the human intellect, the height and nobility of man, of the capacity he has to perceive and understand his smallness; when considering the plurality of gods worlds, feels itself as an infinitesimal part of the globe, perceiving this deeply he confuses himself with nothingness and almost loses himself in the thought of the immensity of things, yes he finds almost lost in the incomprehensible vastness of existence.”

What is the nature of the human person? And what makes him happy?

I began to work enthusiastically, willing to help, if possible also to heal everyone that I met. I work with HIV/AIDS patients, their orphans and their families in poor neighborhoods of the city of Kampala, the capital of Uganda. I equipped myself with all the knowledge I could and the tools I had at layout. I thought this was enough but what seemed obvious was not; for example, the cards to mark when taking TB (Tuberculosis) drugs or the retroviral drugs came to compile very well, but the tablets ended up in the trash! The same for food: it was sold to buy alcohol or other things. The boys I sent to school preferred to stay in the streets rummaging through the garbage to find things to sell. Those who said they were my friends, even worse, made me suffer more, so much so that, to a certain point I wanted to escape on a deserted island with some animals but without men. Every day I saw people dying or people who disappointed me, but what I had studied and designed it was not like that. I went into crisis!

My teacher “fished me”, educated me and taught me what I was missing: who is man and who I am. Man is a relationship through which he screams of being someone. Don Giussani has revealed to me who I am and the man who I have to take care of! He established the content and method of my work: to communicate to everyone the greatness, the value and the dignity of every single person.

In this way, we started the Meeting Point International. First, it was called Meeting Point Kampala, but then we wanted to call it “International” to show that the heart of man is international, and the same for everyone and that each person must be watched in its entirety. We are involved in an adventure with HIV/AIDS patients, orphans, the poor, the mad etc, and we want to make them understand that they are not defined by the situation in which they live, but that they are greater than whatever their condition is.

Our work is based on education at all levels, because we consider education as the privileged way of discovering oneself. The method we use helps us not to solve the situation, but to go beyond and, as Fr. Giussani teaches, to look for correspondence between the reality and self-awareness, allowing the discovery of the unitary hypothesis that explains everything.

Why this method?

I began to live and work when someone told me “you are mine.” Don Giussani had not known me; it was evident that I was nothing, but I felt wanted and desired. It was as if his gaze told me, “I want to be with you, you have an infinite value”.

From this gaze everything was born, I discovered that I was not defined by my limits and my faults. From this gaze, I began to sense a meaning for my life. It is as if a light had enlightened everything, I discovered the truth of my existence and from here began an attraction, a tenderness for my life and that of others.

I began to live and work when I was able to respond concretely to the question “who am I”, this question has been answered in precise faces that have a name and a surname; so I became free. Paradoxically I became free belonging, that is, having a link. When you are free you can finally face the whole reality without fearing it, you can face everything because you know who you are! And whoever is free does not demand any more from others because he/she already has everything.

I felt free, great and the protagonist of reality because Fr. Giussani revealed to me who I am (example; meeting with Don Giussani, he said that if I were the only man on earth, God would have come all the same. Then he immediately stopped and said “No! He came for you because God does not come on earth for a group of men, before God every man is unique as an only child! He came for you, died for you, so that your nothingness is not lost “). Then a friend, Pope Benedict, in “Deus Caritas est” spoke of the love of God as a “divine madness“.

This has messed up my life, what I thought of myself and others, of eating and drinking, of the sleeping and waking up, crying or laughing; everything has gained a density, a value that you cannot imagine. Don Giussani, revealed to me that God has done for me more than what was necessary, that he gave Himself to me, a gift of total self.

Charity in its essence is this! God comes out of himself, divine madness! You act in a certain way because inside your humanity there is this origin that vibrates in your bowels. If there isn’t this charity in the instant, none of us here present or out of here can exist. He is given to us because we are happy and fulfilled.

What is coming up in my work is the truth of the value of the person. In this way, I can offer a clear and identified friendship to which everyone can belong. The “I” that is aware of belonging to this friendship becomes a protagonist, the lord of the reality not because he owns it, but because he discovers that the One making the reality is also making him.

This is why I chose as a symbol of MPI the picture of Matisse’s Icarus: I wanted that everyone could look at the red heart. The small dot which seems nothing, yet instead gives meaning to the whole painting! A man who looks like nothing, with all his problems, miserableness, poverty, death to him every day, is great. My “I” is a dot, a grain, (Don Giussani called me a black dot!) a breath that fails to be herself without belonging. Without belonging, the “I” grabs here and there. It clings to what happens, but this over time, leaves bitterness around in the mouth, as Carron says.

I saw the others happen again to me. For example, Lucy, one woman who suffered all sorts of violence, her body and physique had been disfigured by the rebels. She found herself when I told her, “you’re not the horror that happened to you, you’re an infinite value that comes from God who makes you be and who loves you!” Today she says that the only pain she has is of those she killed but can’t go to kneel down before them to apologize.

We use everything, music, and dances of every culture, trips together to valleys and hills, Lakes and rivers, football etc. We work in groups, to introduce people to the meaning of everything that surrounds them and this leads to a wonderful burst of discovery that becomes an educational chain.

This shows that it’s not enough to do projects, but its necessary the presence of a person who loves and that helps to give the true meaning to the standards and the indicators. Otherwise one suffocates while trying to measure or track progress in the projects.

Note: Not reviewed by the author.

Meeting Point International (MPI) is currently implementing a project entitled “Improve the quality of life of the people, mainly women and youths of the slums and suburban areas of Kampala, Uganda.”

The funds of this project were received from Solidarity Charitable Trust and are being used to strengthen two cultural centers in Kampala’s slums of Naguru and Kireka. MPI will also build another center at its headquarters in Kitintale. In this way, adults of MPI, their children and the children of the Welcoming House will have a safe environment where their awareness on the importance of education and culture will be facilitated as well as the development of their personality and self-awareness. Beneficiaries of the project are the clients of MPI which includes; 1027 vulnerable children including 56 Orphans living in Welcoming House and 2190 Adults of which 950 are taking anti-retroviral drugs.

Adult Literacy sessions will be organized for adults so that they can learn how to express themselves properly and freely in the community; the youth groups like New Hope Dance Project Uganda will use these centers especially in Kireka and Naguru for activities like fitness sessions and dancing. Other youths will also access the library to do homework and reading. Various other activities will be organized such as training of the members of the saving groups; the adults and youth will participate in outreach activities such as trips to help them discover each other in a context of beauty and relaxation which is different from the daily conditions in the slums. There will be weekly workshops for example music, dance, and drama, in which adults and youth talk about their lives, express their feelings and need to be together.

This is the second year (2018) in which Luigi Giussani High School and Meeting Point International have been funded by Real Madrid Foundation through Cesal, for a sports program at the school premises, where the 185 students between the ages of 13-17 years have had football training sessions and throughout the whole the whole year. The students have been practicing dribbling, shooting, goal keeping, throwing in, positioning, ball controlling, passing, attacking and defending with the sports coaches.

The program has been an opportunity to improve life skills of the students through learning how to play the fair game along with all its rules, accepting defeat after a loss in the football game and being aware of one’s limitation in such a way that one can work ways to improve it both individually and collectively in the team.

The students eventually applied their skills when they played a number of games against their teachers as well as themselves. They also played football on the sports day which occurred in March.

The Ugandan Nurse Rose Busingye, whom for years has been serving HIV infected women and children in one of the poorest countries in the world, Saturday 1/12/18 received the keys to the City of Florence, Italy by the Assessore Sara Funaro during the  conference “At the Origin of gratuity” Organized by Voltonet, Compagnia delle Opere Sociali, Misericordia Firenze with the support of Cesvot , Fondazione CR Firenze. The Event was attended by Cardinal Giuseppe Betori.

Source: La NAZIONE

Other sources of this information include;

• CONTRORADIO
• TOSCANA

Teddy Bongomin and Sharon Akidi of the Meeting Point International in Kampala

An AVSI booth at the forum on the most important cooperation in Europe and a table where to build necklaces. So two women from the slum of Kireka have “woven international relations” with the story of their lives. And showing what is dignity.

Maria Laura Conte 08/06/2018

” What a powerful energy “: perhaps this is the most frequent comment expressed by those who met in Brussels in recent days Teddy Bongomin and Sharon Akidi , respectively 45 and 20 years, two of the women of the Meeting Point International of Kampala , which on 5 and 6 June were hosted by the European Development Days, the forum for the most important cooperation in Europe , this year dedicated to women empowerment , the defense and promotion of women.

AVSI and MPI have won together the selection to have available a stand where they can tell the participants (experts, analysts, think tanks, officials, heads of state including princesses and queens) in what kind of development aid they believe and it is worth investing more resources. Especially when it comes to women.

And the proposal made to the EU has routed the competition: focusing the stand on the experience of the MPI, the Ugandan reality initiated by Rose Busingye , and then to invite two witnesses of the multi-sectoral program that with the support of AvsI is here proposed to thousands of women that as vulnerable, as they are defined in cooperation, they become protagonists of their life.

It is difficult to describe in writing the attractive force of the lady and girl of the slum Kireka (for Sharon was the first trip ever made by air): wonder, restlessness, perhaps even envy for their freedom they painted on the faces of those who listened to them or were close to them to make a colorful necklace. At the stand there was in fact a sort of small workshop with everything necessary to offer those who wished to learn how to build their own jewelry. Paper pearls (otherwise doubly appreciated by the environmentalist context because they are environmentally sustainable) have been snapped up.

For days, Teddy and Sharon made themselves available to anyone who interviewed them. They answered questions of all kinds, retracing their personal story from the beginning, with patience, as if every time it was the first, with special attention to anyone who faced, from the top official to the volunteer on duty . And while they were talking in such disarmed ways, without realizing it, they were weaving networks of international relations and conveying a precise idea of ​​what empower means , to value-emancipate a woman.

They started from the description of the situation of fragility they were in: for Teddy the illness, the beatings of the husband, the abandonment by the relatives, the loss of his house and his property; for Sharon, she escaped from her village as a child because of the war, the life of being displaced, without food, care and clothes. Until the meeting for both with those who accompanied them to a change of pace, through health care, education, savings groups, the start of business activities … At the heart of the testimony is always the same pillar: clear communication that to have really freed them was the self-consciousness, or the recognition of their value . « Now I am free, now I am free », they repeated, but of a freedom generated by the discovery of being loved and of their own value contained in their own breath, in the pure, essential fact of being in the world. What then the money is missing, that make sure to arrive at the end of the month, that Teddy’s daughter must resist every day the pressure of those who say that for a woman is easy to make money, just sell … All this does not move a millimeter from their certainty.

“Money is important, but it’s not important,” explains Sharon, who knows how to use facial expressions as a teacher: “Only the rich can say that money is not important, because they have it. The poor know that it is important and they would like it. I always repeat: money is important, but I have more money. Money can not buy me. ”

The two women at the Lgbt stand

“If I find out who I am and I stand firm in my dignity ( nobody pronounces dignity in Brussels with Teddy’s granitic tone, devoid of any rhetoric, ed ), he does not define the poverty or violence that I can suffer. My value is irreducible and therefore I can stand in front of everything. Problems do not disappear, but take on real dimensions, which can be tackled ».

The two dragonflies of Kampala are curious, and they are curious too. Nothing that moved in the exhibition space at the “Tour & taxis” center escaped their radar. A nearby booth was run by an LGBT rights defense association. A solitary young man of about thirty was presiding over him, and he did not receive many visits. Teddy watched him sideways, until he could no longer resist and one evening approached him, with Sharon in the ribs. She stayed with him for a long time, did not seem to want to give up: “I wanted to understand what he is looking for, how he is . For us Africans it is a very distant subject. I have listened to him, I have tried to grasp his need, I have not told him anything, except that he must know that he is worth “.

After 48 hours spent in the great cooperation fair, going through the corridors with Sharon meant stopping every two steps: she greeted everyone and had to exchange something with everyone, as if she were the hostess, with her Ugandan dress and her shoes gym.

The stand was designed to show a way to do development cooperation that, in respect of all the rules and trends that the EU imposes, one of the greatest donors in the world, knows how to get to the real needs of people and from those to start a recovery, trigger a process that allows each person in each context to recover life in hand and play it in full, in its community. Teddy and Sharon transmitted it by osmosis, overcoming the filters of the bureaucracies and pro forma that often envelop these worlds. It is not difficult to think that they have infected more than someone with their way of looking at reality.

Published by Communion and Liberation 

Can you tell me about yourself?

I am Nkundabantu Sarah and I stay in Kireka near Acholi Quarters. I was born in Bushenyi and in a Muslim family so I was a Muslim. I am a mother of 3 children and I lost my husband in 2017.

How did you meet MEETING POINT INTERNATIONAL?

I was suffering a lot and I was tortured by my husband and he was beating me all the time.  I was sickly and my body was full of wounds. We had no food and many other needs. He was a catholic and we always fought over converting to being a Catholic.

One day I went to my neighbour and told her all of my problems. I requested her to teach me how to make paper beads so that I could get transport in order to get money to go back to the village in Bushenyi.

She told me that she also had the same problems before joining Meeting Point International but when she joined, she was helped with most of her problems. And she learnt how to make beads from Meeting Point International.

She invited me to go to Meeting Point International at Kireka and she said that I would get peace.  And so, I asked her on how I would join.  She said that if I wanted, she could take me there. She told me of the days when they normally met. She finally took me to Meeting Point International and I found women there, happy, making beads, and others making matts.

I sat down and I was so quiet and I felt like everyone was looking at me. And I asked her what I could tell them. She told me that I would be sharing with them and if I had any problem, I would share and be counselled. She told me that there was a lady called Teddy and that if she came I would talk to her and share about my problems and that she would hear me out. By that time Aunt Rose had gone for leave. Aunt Teddy counselled me and told me that I would be fine. She encouraged me to continue coming to meet the women.

And the following week I was seeing a change, my stress was reducing. We were dancing a lot. I could go home feeling fresh. In this way, I started to know the women. I started to become happy and I became stress free. I still have problems now though they don’t affect my happiness.

I got a mother who loved me in a special way and taught me about my value (A loving mother Aunt Rose). When I learnt about my value, I became happier. I joined the community school (a place where some friends meet in order to share their experiences and face life in a better way) to learn more about myself until I discovered myself and the meaning of my life.

What makes you so happy about being in Meeting Point International?

What makes me happy is the sharing between the women, dancing, educating me about my value. Aunt Rose teaching us about the value that we have. What makes me happier is my discovery about my value. I was born a Muslim and my whole family was Muslim, I joined Meeting Point International when I was a Muslim but now I am a catholic and I have changed and I am doing catechism at Mbuya church. I am enjoying many things in Meeting Point International.

I saw that you are also working at Meeting Point International, what are you doing?

Before joining Meeting Point International, I was a nurse, I studied as a nurse but my husband could not allow me to go and work, I was just at home. When I joined Meeting Point International, I got a job in Sseta and started working there and when the clinic was sold, I remained without work until Meeting Point International gave me a job so I started working in Meeting Point International as a nurse. Helping the sick women and their children and their husbands, we treat them and we also visit them. If we realise that someone is sick, we go up to their homes and see how they are doing and if it needs the hospital, we report to Aunt Rose, then they are referred to the hospital.

How do you feel when you are helping someone who needs your help?

I feel happy because they are also cooperative. We counsel the sick, showing them love and reminding them of the value that they have. It makes me happy when I can help someone and they also accept to be helped.

What do you Understand about this Value that Aunt Rose made you discover?

the value shows that we are equal. That you and I have the same value and the one who gave me this value is Christ. Christ who gives me life and everyday circumstances is there for me.

What exactly made you to decide to become a catholic?

I became a catholic because of this value which Aunt Rose used to teach me about opened my heart and I want to be near Christ who gave me this value. When Aunt Rose educated my heart, I started dreaming about Communion and Liberation, about the church and priests preaching. My heart changed and I wanted to become a catholic because I loved what she taught me.

I started studying Catechism at Mbuya church and I was baptised on 31/3/18 on Easter Eve.

I am so happy to become a catholic and I am happy to be the child of God. It was not easy for me because my fellow Muslims used to come at my home to embarrass me and threaten me so that I could give up. I could tell them that I do what my heart has decided me to do. No one can stop me now because I am a catholic and I can’t change what God has planned for me.

How did you start selling traces? And why is it so special for you?

I used to buy traces and read about my value and other peoples experiences and this helped to discover more about my value

I sell traces because I want other people to learn about their vale and to know about Communion and Liberation and to also share the experiences that are in Traces.

I would like to thank Aunt Rose for helping me discover my value and the meaning of life. I also want to thank my mother Lina for selling traces because I learnt more about my value from buying traces and reading about them. I sell traces at Christ the King church Kampala and I am so happy buy them to read for myself and also sell them. I am happy in Meeting Point International.

Ayoo Sarah and the VSLA Groups

My name is Achan Aida Agnes a social worker of Meeting Point International following the VSLA groups in Naguru.

In 2017 after sharing the money saved, I managed to Identify one of our clients Ayoo Sarah, who was enjoying a success from the VSLA group’s activities.

Sarah joined Meeting Point International in 2006 after she was tested and found out to be HIV positive together with her husband. She is a mother of 6 children and altogether lives in a family of 8 members.

Life in this family was not good because of low income earning. The family used to eat once a day and sometimes went without meals. Her husband lost his job because of a health problem and it was hard for them. The business Sarah was doing needed a lot of energy but due to her sickness, she couldn’t continue operating the business of brewing local Waragi (a spirit).

Sarah joined the saving group in 2013, though Sarah went through many trainings about the VSLA she was not contented with what was taught. She believed that they were going to steal her money. In the first year, Sarah hadn’t saved well because she knew that they were going to steal her money. In the end of the year when the group was sharing, her money was so little compared to her group members who saved well.

In the second year (2014), Sarah decided to move together with her friends. She stopped doubting and started to buy all the shares hence saving well. At the end of the year, she was among the happy ones because she had saved a lot of money, together with her friends.

It was in the second year when Sarah’s eyes opened and realized that saving groups were so good. She could easily get loans from the group. Through financial literacy and Select planning and management, she managed to identify a business of selling water and soft drinks, setting up a stall for selling food stuffs like onions, tomatoes, bananas and many others.

In 2015 (her third year) after sharing the money saved at the end of that year, she managed to buy a popcorn making machine adding onto her existent businesses. She was now able to get Ugx 20,000/= per week from water, Ugx 20,000/= per week from selling food stuff, eventually making Ugx 40,000/= per week. She was able to run this business in 2016.

In the end of 2017, when they shared the money, she bought a motor cycle which operates in Kampala. She employs someone to operate the motorcycle and she collects Ugx 50,000/= from him per week and at the end of the month, she saves Ugx 200,000/= from the motorcycle business.

Sarah is now happy, she managed to rent a double room with electricity and she can cater for school requirements for her children. They are happy because they can now get their basic needs and they now have 3 meals in a day.

In Uganda among the survivors of the horrors of the war. In a slum in Kampala they built a school by breaking stones and creating necklaces

by Alessandra Muglia – photographs by Stefano Schirato – video by Aldo Gianfrate

After a year and a half spent in the bush hostage of the rebels, Adelo was a ghost of herself. “I was 15 when they kidnapped me, but I already had two children, one just a month old. I left them to my mother. They forced me to kill and torture my people. They made me feel worse than them, a damn thing. They raped me, the Hiv came to me. I never thought I would survive all this. And let alone one day see our boys graduate and leave these huts to go to university ». It is almost noon, the sun is hot above the expanse of plates and red soil lying on the hill of Kireka, a suburb of Kampala.

Adelo smiles, then became Ketty, Ketty Adong. “I changed my name once I escaped from the forest,” he says, sitting on a bench in his brick hut in the heart of the Acholi slum. A shanty town without running water, sewers and inhabited mostly by ethnic women Acholi, the same rebels, the most massacred during the civil war that for nearly twenty years has bloodied their lands: the insurgents kidnap them to enlist them and make them they, the government, crammed them into inhumane fields before destroying their villages in search of the militia. Women arrived exhausted from the north, where the fighting raged, they found refuge on this hill overlooking a huge stone quarry. To welcome them Rose Busingye, Ugandan nurse, who dispenses care and attention with her International Meeting Point, an NGO local partner of the AVSI Foundation. Magnetic gaze, here it is venerated like a mother Teresa lay: it is the person who has “liberated” these women from the weight of inhuman experiences, as they themselves sing in a kind of welcome show. Women who have seen hell and now put it on stage, dance on it, let themselves be carried away and dragged to the rhythm of drums and calabashes. An explosion of vitality and enthusiasm that you do not expect. “At first they wanted to let themselves die – says Rose in Italian (she studied in Varese) – they did not want to cure themselves, they sold the antiretrovirals we distributed”.

They could only break stones to survive: 50 kilos of gravel for the equivalent of 70 cents in euros. And a whole day splitting her back is not always enough to take them home. A bestial effort for anyone, a massacre for these women with HIV or with already full-blown illness. But the Acholi slum today is also something else. Ketty, after telling of when she was Adelo, gets up, opens the door and proudly points out a big boy out there. Charles Carron meets us, jeans, T-shirt and deep black eyes. She is her eldest son, she is 18 years old and graduated in a very special high school: she built it herself together with other Rose women.
“Here we felt looked beyond our miseries and we were born again, we wanted the same for our boys,” says Doreen Angoon, 52 and 5 children, also from the North of the city of Gulu, and landed here after being kidnapped by Kony rebels. “In the other schools they insulted our children. Your mother has the HIV” they mocked them, sometimes even the teachers. This is why we said: “we must build our school”. And we succeeded ». In 2010, they began to create necklaces in recycled colored paper – strips rolled up like beads and then waterproofed with enamel – they sold 48 thousand, mainly thanks to the Avsi network abroad. “With our gravel we made the floors, erected walls,” adds Angon.

In 2012 the inauguration: the school is a modern mango-colored building on the other side of the hill, along Kireka road. State-of-the-art laboratories, spacious classrooms with wooden furniture, bathrooms with running water, reproductions of “The Sower at Sunset” and “First Steps” by Van Gogh and phrases like “teaching is the adult way of learning”.
The slum seems light years away. Many arrive after more than an hour’s walk and stay there until the evening to take advantage of the light that is scarce at home. Within 450 students, girls and boys together, 45 per class, half compared to 90 of the national average. Seven years after birth, it’s time for budgets. «Since 2014, they have reached maturity in 156, of these 78 are attending university – explains Matteo Severgnini, educational adviser -. The others could not access it because they were not able to pay taxes. ” Even if they work in the quarry every weekend, as many students do barefoot, from elementary to high school, to be able to pay the contribution for the school material. The tuition fees are covered for 352 slum students from Avsi with distance support. Another 100 students instead, of (relatively) affluent families, provide for themselves. The institute is also frequented by young people living outside the slums, now recognized as a school of excellence. «This year we entered the top 100 of the best schools in Uganda – 76ths out of 1592 – based on the results obtained for the final exam. A great result: nobody expected it from an institution that welcomes children from the poorest areas of the city and where it is forbidden to beat to teach ». An innovative method compared to the others where the “spare the rod and spoil the child” is valid (if you do not use the wand vices the child). “So much appreciated by the students that 80% of the 78 slum university students study pedagogy because they want to teach,” says Severgnini. The revolution of education (and of a society) starts from here.

by Alessandra Muglia – photographs by Stefano Schirato – video by Aldo Gianfrate

Published from Corriere Della Sera

Selling of Traces, a journey to self-discovery

 Struck by how Aisha, Hanifa and Sara (three Muslim ladies of Meeting Point International) would gratuitously avail time to monthly sell Traces, we decided to go deeper to discover the reasons why they are so moved. Here is an abstract of what transpired in the dialogue with them.

By Andrea Nembrini and Rose Busingye

Left to Right: Aisha, Hanifa and Sara

– Why do you sell Traces? Why do you like it?

Sara

I’m a true Muslim, an original one. I joined Meeting Point International in 2011. I didn’t know what Traces was, but I started buying it, reading it and loving it. There are a lot of beautiful things in this magazine, which you can learn from. In particular, there are other people experiences, and when you read an experience that is different from yours, you discover more about yourself, about what you really desire for your life. As a consequence, I’m now studying catechism, I’m going for community school, because I want to learn more about it.

Hanifa

Even if I’m a Muslim, I joined Meeting Point International. This is because there were other people around me, but in my life nobody has welcomed me like at MPI. I was so surprised by the way they welcomed me and treated me. I used to have a lot of sorrows, my heart was heavy; but from the day I reached this place my life has changed. I’m now happy, and my family too.

So, about Traces: actually I don’t know English very well, and I even can’t read this magazine, but because of the friendship I got here, I sell it, and I love doing it. This friendship pushed me to sell Traces, but also to love this religion. Sometimes I think I believe in this religion even if I’m walking on the Islam path. I remain Muslim, but I love Catholicism.

Aisha

I joined MPI because I wanted to be happy like these women. One day there was a woman next to me with an issue of Traces, and looking to the pages of the magazine I could read a word: happiness.

But that woman was going away, and I didn’t know how to find that magazine again, so I asked her to take a look. And I saw a lot of pictures, and in all these pictures people were happy. So I asked her the cost, and I bought my first Traces for 3.000 ugx (approximately 1 usd). Reading it, I was surprised because everything in that magazines was about happiness, the possibility to be happy even if you are in trouble. So when you read about these experiences of happy people, you also become happy. Not even one story in this magazine could make you not happy.

Even now it’s like this: every time I buy it – and I always buy it – it makes me happy. Traces made me also understand that religions are different, but often what separates us is just the way we dress; instead we are together, because God is one. This is what I’ve learned from Traces.

– Could you explain your love for this Catholic experience, for Traces despite the fact you are woman of Muslim faith? How can these two go together?

Sara

Rose told me about my value, which I didn’t know about before. So I understood that this Catholic religion does not segregate, it welcomes all religions. That is because of what Rose thought me: you have to discover yourself. It means that nobody should tell you: “Come here and be a Catholic!” You are the one to learn it by yourself, but after you have discovered yourself. When you know who you are, you decide what to be. And for me, after discovering myself, I decided to stay with these Catholics.

Hanifa

When I was suffering so much, no one was touched by my situation, nobody helped me. But here I discovered I was helped… Someone has loved me, someone gave me her friendship. I even don’t know how to explain it: one day I was crying all day long, and my children as well, they were going to a very bad school, they even didn’t receive their reports… Now I’m happy, my home has changed completely, my children go to school, they study in peace, they are happy.

So how could I not love this place, which brought to me all this happiness? How could I not love this magazine, which tells stories about this place?

Aisha

Usually I buy all the remaining copies (because I don’t want to waste them) to give them to my friends and family members. At first my father, who is a Muslim, asked me where I got it from; but now he likes it, I told him to ask me if there is anything he doesn’t understand. Often Traces is so beautiful that I buy more than one copy, because I know that the one who will receive it, surely will also be happy.

– When you are selling Traces, what do you tell the people you meet?

Aisha

First I read it very well, and I pay attention to those beautiful things which make me happy, which help me. And because I want other people to be happy like me. And people understand if you are selling something important for you. What I read in Traces is what I tell to the people I meet, I even show them the page where the point I like is. And people ask us a lot of questions.

Hanifa

I can’t read Traces because I don’t know English, but my children read it for me at home. They show me on which page the article I like is, and so when I’m selling I can tell people: “Look, it’s right here!”.

Sara

Before you sell it, you first go through, so you know the meaning of what you are saying when you are out of the church shouting “Traces, Traces!” And you have to explain, otherwise it’s just a name for the people, they don’t understand. But if you tell them your own experience, they will tell you: “Ok, I trust you, I’ll buy it”.

– What was your most beautiful experience while selling Traces?

 Aisha

The most beautiful thing for me is that when we are selling it; a lot of people come to us because we are Muslim, asking why we sell a Catholic magazine. And we can answer them: “Because we love it; because we are getting beautiful things from it, and we want also you to get them”.

Sara

One day I was selling Traces, and an old educated Catholic man came to me, asking me a lot of questions to embarrass me. He said: “You people, what are you doing? Is this thing from Uganda? Where is it from? Is the Pope aware about it?”. But I could answer very well to all his questions, I told him about Communion and Liberation, about Italy, and I told him that even the priest, during the mass, had given the announcement about this selling. At the end he said: “You Muslim woman, you have challenged me”, and he started looking for money in his pocket to buy one.

When I’m selling it, I’m feeling as if I’m selling gold, a very expensive thing!

Hanifa

Sometimes other people who are selling other magazines in the same place told us that our magazine is very expensive because is a muzungu thing [a thing for white people]. But they also ask: “How can you stay with this white people, hugging them like friend? I wish I would also be embraced in this way.”

So, we can answer to them: “Yes, the magazine is expensive because it comes from far, but we are also “expensive” and valuable, because of the friendship we are living.”

MPI had the child protection training with all the staff in order to develop its own Child Protection Policy. Before the training, the Director of MPI Rose Busingye Shared MPI’s approach to child protection policy.

“We can learn rules but we know very well that behind these rules there is somebody, a Name, a human person. If behind Child Protection there is a child, then you find that it is interesting otherwise it becomes usual skims or things to do.  Like in schools these days, children study for passing exams, not for development. If things have meaning, then I have to put or do anything in order to learn all the ways to do them. It’s not the government to tell me to do things but why should I do it.”

Rose Busingye.

The training was conducted by Mauro Giacomazzi of LUIGI GIUSSANI INSTITUTE OF HIGHER EDUCATION.

8/05/2017

Meeting Point International monthly Staff meetings held by Rose Busingye

Rose; “….the main thing is to know what you really want. If you know what you really want, the child will not be a problem to you, because the need of the child is your need. We always look at the child outside our lives. We don’t look at the child and think that what the child needs is what I need. We fear the freedom of the child because we ourselves are not free. If you are free, you understand why the child is behaving in a certain way. Through your freedom, the child will find it easy to belong to you. You will be a point of reference to this child….”

24/04/2017

In most Ugandan schools, there is a day that is dedicated to sports activities, it is called “sports day”. Usually, the students are divided into groups called houses to which a name is dedicated. The students compete through these houses in co-curricular activities organized by the school. On such days, students show their talents, strengthen their relationship with teachers and express their love and passion for the houses they belong to. Usually, after such days, vivid memories remain in the minds of the students and conversation among friends about the day continues for weeks and even teachers go to classes and have conversations with students about the day.

This year Luigi Giussani High School had a sports day and its houses were; St. Agnes, St. Kizito, St. Savio and St. Theresa. Social workers from Meeting Point International, staff from Luigi Giussani Pre-primary and Primary school and some old students were invited  

The day began with a speech from Mr. Kawuki Michael, the head teacher. Who recalled students to participate by saying, “The awaited day has reached for us to bring out the talents God put in us”. Two categories of games were to be played: football and netball.

The day was officially started with the prayer, the singing of the national anthem and then the head teacher declared the competitions open.

“We are not here to compete, but don’t be fooled that we are here to loose”. These were words written on the yellow posters held by the students who were chanting in a loud voice and if somebody whispered, you could barely listen.

The first game was a football match between houses (St. Kizito and St. Theresa), during which students cheered vigorously as the players counter-attacked each other with goalkeepers making saves and others missing precious chances to score. House Patrons were on the touchline giving instructions and encouraging their players. When a goal was scored, you could see teachers and students celebrating hand in hand with each other! And the game ended in favour of St. Kizito; 1:0.

On the netball pitch, the game was between St. Agnes and St. Kizito and St. Kizito emerged winners with 11:6 points. Several houses kept competing throughout the day following the fixture that was made. They were all competitive and all the students participated fully in the competition.

The air was filled with Music which put life in the competition leaving students entertained and happy. At 2:00 pm, lunch was ready, all the players and other students got their food, sat in the Pavilion of the football pitch and were entertained by their fellow students who danced. It was a great moment that left everyone smiling.

After lunch, the games continued until 5:30 pm, everyone gathered in the Pavilion, to listen to the outcomes of the competition, and were so anxious to know how their houses had performed. All the players accompanied with their house patrons were requested to present themselves in front of everyone. The master of ceremony, Mr. Wandera Joseph along with the referees made some few remarks. Outstanding students in the different fields were awarded some gifts and congratulated for their performance and was a lesson for everyone to always aim for greater things.

Before Mr. Komakech Fredy, a sports official count read the final results, he read details of the games and this left everyone barely sitting, anticipating and calculating. Finally, St. Savioturned out to be the first, followed by St. Theresa, St. Kizito and finally St. Agnes which took the last position. The members of the winning house were so happy and excited and could not wait to hold the trophy in their hands. A social worker from Meeting Point International and a guest from Luigi Giussani Pre-primary and Primary School handed over the trophy. Upon receiving the trophy, the DJ played a congratulatory song which left students running all over the football pitch. Other houses were left with a task of becoming champions the following year.

One would ask, “Why someone would hit a ball, the round bouncing solid, try to get it, fall down trying to save it? Why this day?”

According to my observation and judgement, this event was so important in the life of many students, through my interaction with them, many of them told me that it has helped them to refresh their brains from books, helped them become flexible and physically fit, discover what they had in them, created an avenue for them to be so free with their teachers and with this, their performance in school will also improve.

The day closed with everyone dancing to Music without focusing on the results of the sports day rather living the moment happily.

Compiled by Gashumba Emmanuel.

On our way from the stone quarrying, despite the hotness of the sun… we moved home to home visiting our families. We went there not like the best educators nor like experts but as a friend who wants to stay with them in their daily life.

 HIV/AIDS DIALOGUE 

Florence , 43 years old. 

Sometimes I could wake up and look at my children, and think of the value that Rose always remind to us. Without hesitations, I take my ARVs (antiretroviral drugs) and I think to myself “I need to live and for my children too. We had an HIV/AIDs dialogue with Aunt Rose, she taught us how to stay in front of the disease in an interesting way, I learnt about how the virus operates in my body, the usefulness of the drugs and how to fight the virus by eating proteins foods and now what make me wake up in the morning is the what Aunt Rose said “When you discover your value, you discover how to protect even what you have.”

Yesterday the 12/20/2016, after a year of working and living, women of Meeting Point International accompanied by Rose (Director) with the sense of gratitude went to thank AVSI FOUNDATION UGANDA for their friendship and patience that they have had in all these years accompanying their desires, dreams. But all these struggles with AVSI friendship have made Meeting Point International what it is today.

Thank you JOHN MAKOHA (Country representative AVSI) for receiving us.

    Meeting Point International Crafts 2016

  Necklace and bead making is a wonder in MPI. The women are making new types of beads, crafts starting this December  .

Farewell for Francesca Peverelli at ITANDA

It was a beautiful month June, four buses carrying 130 women and children headed to ITANDA falls in JINJA district to bid farewell to Francesca who had been a volunteer at MEETING POINT INTERNATIONAL for about one year. When Alberto and Aunt Rose arrived with Francesca, the women were already singing and dancing full of excitement while other women and children were looking at the waterfalls; women danced and sang different types of songs and danced.  Shortly at the glance of Francesca, women ran to carry her up and turned around dancing.

Francesca did not know that it was her farewell as one whom they were about to miss in few days to come although they would still remain in her heart.

After along dance, at lunch time both the women and children sat together ate food. When all the people had eaten, youths sung some songs and shared their experience about MEETING POINT INTERNATIONAL, women too shared some experiences. One of the youth, Polycarp said before he joined LUIGI GIUSSANI HIGH SCHOOL, he was a boy who used to join in fight, he did not see anything good in the person even in himself but as he was talking at the moment he is one of those people who has changed completely. Whenever he could see anybody fighting he comes in to stop it. Ever since he became aware of himself, he is totally a changed person.

Another lady by name Francina was also happy and gave her witness saying that she has found a home in MEETING POINT INTERNATIONAL she has found a happiness and good friends. Francina added that she used to be sick but Aunt Rose treated her heart and body, mind and opened her eyes.

She thanked Francesca that she has also become a friend to all the women. “You were sent to a good soil, you got the best mother Aunt Rose. Tell the people there about the love you found in MPI” said Francina to Francesca. Francesca told the women that she was going to miss the women but she added that she found a home In MEETING POINT INTERNATIONAL and more so the awareness of herself. She had also discovered her value.

Written by

 Teddy Bongomini

CODICE KIR 1519 

BERNARD KAYEMBA

5/11/2016

                              ( The Sponsor of KAYEMBA BENARD in the photos.)

Yesterday has been one great day for me and my husband because we received your photos with your grandmother and we saw the new bicycle and other things and we saw your smile so nice that our heart was full of happiness.

We are very happy to help you and your family we like to go by bicycle and we are glad that you too can walk around with the new bike we know that you are good student and you are very sharp we know also that your dream is to become a pilot but we don’t know if you want to became pilot of car or bike. We would like to know this we hope to receive your letter soon

You are our little angel!!!

elisa ilario.

( Kayemba Benard and the grand mother) .

IS A RADIO-CONTROLLED CAR WHAT YOU NEED?

Ronald is a boy supported by AVSI through Meeting Point International; he received a gift money, a little amount of money to spend for buying what he needs. He lives in a Welcoming House, he shares everything with other Children there because he is so charming, despite is goodness he lacked clothing. That’s why Rose looked at the gift money an opportunity for him. Rose took him to the supermarket and showed him many useful things that thought he needed: underwear, raincoat, schoolbag…but the Ronald wasn’t convinced on something else that Rose showed him, Rose didn’t notice the fact he had seen before a red radio controlled car.

Ronald needed nothing else but the red radio car controller, Rose gave him time to choose among the numerous alternatives. In the end Ronald chose the schoolbag but at the moment of paying Rose realized that he was sad, she understood that the bag was far from what he desired.  She told him to go and take what he needed. He run faster than he could and in one second, he was back with a car in his hands.he needed a lot of things but a car was the only thing he desired.

When Rose was asked why she bought something that the boy did not need she reply «A boy play up only when he is aware of being loved, if he or she is intimidated in front of someone he would not have the courage to ask for something. What the boy was asking is the aim of the iceberg of the awareness he has to be loved despite all the limitation he has. The fact that an orphan is aware to be loved till the freedom of play up is the defeat of poverty and abandonment»

written by Francesca  

Looking at the bicycle smiling, he started talking to his grandmother endlessly a sign of gratitude for what he had received. He didn’t know cycling, for him having it at that moment seemed forever. 

compiled Jude 

Christmas with MPI women

(Interview with Rose Busingye (Director MPI) with Lumanyika Bright)

Before this New Year of 2016, I heard about the Christmas Celebration that the women of MPI had at Luigi Giussani High school. What roused in me was the desire to know really what had happened on that day; I couldn’t hide from that fact that had happened, it was such a disturbance that left me yearning to go deeper.  It was for me too that moment and what dominated was nothing but the desire to relive those memories with someone who had witnessed that feast. So I asked Rose (MPI Director) to share with me about the Christmas with the women.

What was for you Christmas with the women?

When we talk about the women, people begin to look at what they do, their mistakes, we really don’t look where they are looking and we don’t see what they have found that is beyond the mistakes they do.

The preparation was on that morning of 24^th, on 25^th it was ready. If you ask our people who are working they say, “me I don’t have this, I didn’t budget” but imagine that evening the women budgeted, they contributed money, went for shopping and on Christmas; it was ready. They bought two goats and one pig then each one was bringing potatoes, chicken, rice and others. You would see that, the most important thing was not the preparation but something that was happening; that something that was connected with their lives. Maybe with friends we bargain, we buy this, we don’t buy this, and you would really understand that it’s something beyond friendship.  People who tell their children and husbands that “you remain home, I am going to celebrate with my friends” this is a wife telling a husband.

You can see that when one discovers a value; everything rotates there, everything serves what the person is, the value the person is, the problem is when we start the other way round, we start with money and forget ourselves. We think that the most important thing is money more than our lives and then we hang up there and we are not moved at all. Christmas is just a day like any other day, but for them what I saw that day was something beyond life. We stayed there up to 7 pm in the evening, and we ate while dancing because it became like Christmas is celebrating ourselves and what came is for me, is me. It’s not to have a new dress but to have myself. It’s to celebrate life that is what I witnessed.

I kept gazing at her while she was telling me all this, I felt as if nothing mattered any more than the desire to stay and look where those women were looking and to have what they found.

Written by

Lumanyika Jude Bright

2/02/2016

My name is Gashumba Emmanuel. I am a Social Worker of Meeting Point International, following up children in the Distance Support Program Office (DSP) both at home and school to understand their social wellbeing, behavior and characteristics such that they are helped to discover their greatest need, desires and value. I attended my high school from Luigi Giussani High School, completed senior six and right now am studying at Makerere Institute for Social Development doing a course in Social Working and Social Administration and at the same time working at Meeting Point International as a Social Worker.

Meeting Point International (M.P.I) supports over 1700 children in their education and most of the children under support belong to the women of M.P.I. When the women of M.P.I, through their encounter with Aunt Rose discovered their true value, they wished that their children also discover the same value that they had discovered, everything they touched acquired a meaning and become present for them and so they wanted their children to also feel this total Joy and happiness that prevailed within their hearts. What struck me most and keeps on moving me every day is the great charism that the women exhibited through the selling of various paper beads made from recycled papers and provision of strenuous manual labor in the setting up of  a beautiful school for their children called Luigi High School and the Primary school called Luigi Giussani Pre-Primary school. Most of their children study in this two schools and they wish that their children can discover who they are, the love that their mothers have for them and God their creator through a beauty that is in front of them. Some other children, study in various schools surrounding Kampala and among these  schools we have; St. Jude nursery and Primary schools, Mivule schools, Nagalama secondary school, St. Kizito schools and many other schools to mention but a few.

Children have been in schools, a few months back and they were in their third term of the year, meaning a term that is supposed to determine their promotion to the next class; some have been candidates like the senior fours, senior six and primary seven. They have all been working very hard, reading day and night, consulting teachers in order to acquire good results that would enable them to move to the next level of education. At the end of the day, those who worked hard acquired good results and were promoted to next classes. For the candidate classes, they are still waiting for their National Exams to be released by the Uganda National Examination Board (U.N.E.B).

Most of our children are now in their holidays at home helping their parents in various domestic works like mopping the houses, rolling of paper beads, working in the stone quarry with their parents, selling charcoal with them, cleaningutensils and many other types of work.

Most of the homes of these children are located in the suburbs of Kampala City especially in Naguru and Kireka. Since this is, the longest holiday within the whole year, I Gashumba Emmanuel a social worker of Meeting Point International decided to carry out an interview on one of the students of Luigi Giussani High School called Namaganda Brenda who shared with me her experience at school and home. She said that “when the term is ending and am going for holidays I feel very happy, good and I feel like jumping to the sky because in the holidays, I become stress free from the books and exams. It’s the time I interact with all my family members with ample time and no interference at all. However with time, I become bored and start missing my school again. When she told me this, I posed a question to her [why do you get bored at home and after you start missing your school again? She replied to me saying that it’s because most of my friends are found at school than at home. At school, am more free and I express my self freely because am with my age mates and she added on saying I also miss my teachers at school, the good food, the good structures of my school and various school activities that take place at school like the Music, dance and drama, sports and many other school activities that keep me busy, happy and active. 

I replied to her, wow it’s a beautiful experience because, it reminds me of my school days in high school where by, when the time for holidays was approaching, I used to fill very excited because the pressure for reading books would reduce and that’s the time I would Participate more in various co-curricular activities like playing basket ball and football. I would also get excited to have much time with my family members but after a few weeks at home I would also again desire to go back at school to study and interact with my colleagues. Basing on this interview, I came up with a conclusion that most of the students when they are getting their holidays, they are very excited but when they reach at their homes, they get fade up of the life at home and they again desire to go back to their schools and even when they are at school, they feel like getting holidays. This is really so striking, hahaha oh oh oh…….

Namaganda Brenda

2/01/2016

In this world everyone’s wish is to always be the first or on top of the others.This refers to the children who sat their Primary Leaving Examinations from Luigi Giussani Pre-Primary and Primary school. It was challenging at the start to convince the children to join the school but when their time came to leave the school, most of them felt like not leaving the school, yet they had no choice but to give room for the incoming candidates.

If anyone like me ( Adong Evelyn a social worker at Meeting Point International) had a chance to talk to these children, or see whatever they did, one could really feel that they were really going to miss the school because of the love, care and protection that they were always given at school.I had a chance to enter their classrooms and sawthe indicators and reminders written by them that “Never forget the Pioneers of L.G.P.P.S” I was really moved personally because in my years of Primary seven, we left no reminders as we were leaving the school butthis love that the children showed for their school was different. The pioneers never wanted to be forgotten due to the fact they are the first primary seven (candidates) to sit national examinations in this school.I had a chance to talk to one of the pupil (Carrado Corradini Joshua), he first responded with a smile and his face portrayed happiness. To me, his smile and face made me realize that there is somethingspecial about the school. He then continued telling me that.

“I love the school and missed it because of the teachers like Mr. JohnBosco (head teacher) and Miss Monica who always spent their evening hours playing football, netball and also the gym activities like jumping, skipping, and others with us” honestly, it is rare to find teachers in a school playing with the children. This is because most schools in Uganda are mainly academic based and they don’t care about the social wellbeing of the children. In fact the teachers from other schools don’t build relationships with their children.

Corrado continued telling me that “At times we are called to the staff room and given snacks,by the teachers”. “Mr. John Bosco was always after me to ensure that I eat food.Whenever I am not feeling happy teacher Bena (class teacher) was always concerned to know why am not happy but not only to me but also other pupils in school”. When I had these words, I remembered my school days where by the teachers never cared about the children and no teacher could take an initiative to know whether the children have eaten food or not. I must confess that L.G.P.P.S is really a school among schools that I have seen. The last thing that amazed me from Corrado was what he said when I asked him what he would tell other people about the school.” L.G.P.P.S is a good school. I will tell them to join the school because even the support staff try to ensure that children use the toilets properly and they don’t destroy things in the school compound”therefore in L.G.P.P.S they not only care about the academic progress of the children but also their social wellbeing in the society.

Complied by

Adong Evelyn 

2/3/2016

During Christmas holidays, a group of Italian sponsors came to Kampala to visit Meeting Point International and Luigi Giussani schools.  One of them is called Lorenzo; he started sponsoring Luigi Giussani schools before he even saw where his effort was going, all this was because of the friendship with Rose Busingye (the Director of MPI). He met her in Italy and he decided to involve himself with what this woman has built in Kampala. Reaching Kampala and realizing the concrete impact of his contribution surprised him. He was happy and he could not imagine the beauty of the experience he was supporting and all he could say was “I am happy to sponsor people who are happy”. Lorenzo was amazed in front of the way people live here: the community of Kireka and Naguru is composed of women who have incredible stories: “I am free” they sing. Free form all of the reductions that affect people’s life: they are focused, centered (as the Pope says) on the Christian encounter they made through Rose. It releases every woman from all the limitation they have: money, success, wellbeing are meaningless if a person does not get the value of life. Instead of taking these women live giving everything to the others and are happy and free. It really provokes all of them and me: I was accompanying them and I have never felt so involved like that moment because those women were changing the conception I have of happiness and well being. Lorenzo said “Supporting a school or an NGO does not help you to understand the fact that behind these institutions there are people and there is an experience that can change the world”. Why a group of women can change the world? Because the happiness they show among the difficulties of their life is the sign of the dearest thing they have: they meet Christ every day in the things they do: working, feeding children, crushing stones, making beads. Looking at them I realized that when the Pope says “When Jesus become part of our lives, we cannot longer remain imprisoned in our past. Instead we begin to look at the present with a different kind of hope”.

These women share an experience that make them friends, and this friendship is generating development. Lorenzo and his family were welcomed by the women of MPI in Kireka: they say it was like being welcomed by a family. Families of people who are free to give you everything, because they already have what really matters: the value of life and the value of the Christian experience. After dancing and singing with Rose plus the women, the visitors went for lunch with Rose.

This was an occasion to ask Rose about the story of Meeting Point International and to go in deep in the story of the women that generate this beauty. Rose told the stories of Teddy, Florence, Tina, Priscilla and many others so we could know in detail the past and the present of these people. Many stories were incredible for us because we realize that it does not matter what kind of problems or difficulties a person has to face: if someone in aware of his/her value can discover that this is greater than the issue or the limitations. This way every challenge can be the occasion to discover again that each person is loved and every instant is meaningful. Lorenzo repeated “I am surprised in front of the happiness of these people. They have lost many things, but they have what really matters: they know why they wake up in the morning”.

Rose told the visitors the episode of the Christmas Party at Meeting Point International. On the 25^th the women celebrated the catholic feast in the field in front of Luigi Giussani High School. Teddy, one of them, said “We did not organize anything. On the 24^th we realized that we want to spend Christmas together and even if we were many, all the hearts were turn to the same thing so we moved on as we were one; on the 25^th everything was ready and beautiful because everyone brought the best she has. I brought the console and I was the DJ. We danced all day and at the end of the day I was not tired”.

Later visitors went to Welcoming House and the Children welcomed them: all of them were astonished because they noticed that nothing was missing in the life of those children. They are loved and accompanied in their growth: Apofia, Rose and the “aunties” take care of them. You can see that even if they are so young they are aware of the fact that someone loves them now and will never stop. This awareness can really make the difference. Children are hopeful and happy for what they receive every day and not sad for what they do not have. What Rose and Apofia give them is something that can change people’s lives. Apparently these children have nothing because they share everything and no one possess “things” but looking at them especially at the way they live, everyone can see that they have the love of someone who will never abandon them and it gives strength, hope and curiosity in meeting the others. The awareness of not to be alone in front of life’s challenges is what can change someone’s life. Here in MPI is evident: people do not need their problems to be solved, because these problems are challenges. People need to know they are loved and not alone.

The thing that surprised Lorenzo most was the happiness of the people he met: contributing to the development must be a contribution to the growth of people. The happiness Lorenzo noticed is the sign of the awareness that people have about the value of life. They are happy because they know that everything they do has a value. When someone understands that he or she has a value everything he or she does get meaningful because every experience becomes the occasion to discover the meaning of reality and of life. I work here since July, and accompanying the sponsors has been a great occasion for me to understand again what I can discover in my everyday life here.

Francesca Peverelli

Working to collect the documents for the Distant Support Program of AVSI, MPI’s (Meeting Point International’s) social workers have the occasion to look at the impact that our work have on vulnerable children supported. Two times a year the donor has to be updated with information about the child supported and the Social Worker plays a key role in this communication: he or she is the one in charge of building the bridge between two different cultures in order to show how the money provided has been invested in the path of growth of the child.

This work takes a long time, and is a great occasion for a critical review on the work done during the year. Reading through the personal communication of the child and the communication written by the Social Worker, I was surprised in front of the great things that can happen when a person is accompanied in the challenges and the efforts of everyday life.

The first thing that got my attention was the fact that there are very young people, thanks to the social workers and the carefulness of the teachers, who have a great awareness of themselves and of what really matters in life. In particular there are two twins who attends the “Luigi Giussani High School” who underlines the teaching method of the school they are attending. These girls explain that the aim of the teachers is not only to make them learn information and skills, but they want that the children can discover themselves, their qualities and their potentialities. The method is to introduce them activities that reawaken all the desires they have: art to reawaken the desires of beauty, dance and sports for discover all the potentialities of the body, Theater and Drama of African tradition to develop the awareness of their history. «The best day of the year has been the one of Music Dance and Drama: all the students participated. Different events took place like folk songs, traditional dances and poetry were performed. Everyone was completely astonished and excited. What a day it was», wrote a girl.

The beauty of this experience is possible, thanks to what is happening here, the carefulness of the teachers and thanks to the fact that someone in another continent decides to invest on the current situation of a vulnerable child. It generates a gratefulness in the child that gets aware about the fact that they are not alone in front of their challenges and it reawakens the affection for who is making it possible. The twin of the girl mentioned above writes to her donor «I have always wondered who you are to me. Sometimes I can think that you are just a sponsor to me, but I found out that you are a family and every time I wake up, I pray to God to keep us close. No matter how the distance is. I still know that you really care about me».

These witnesses are just the aim of the iceberg of more than one thousand children that are supported and accompanied in their life. The most clear perception I had meeting these young people is that they know that they are not alone and the fact that someone is interested in their situation and wants to be their friend and walk with them. People don’t need their problem to be solved, because behind the solution there are other problems that arise, people need to discover that they are not alone and that happiness is something that can really happen.

In the SWAR of a Social Worker, it is very well explained «We do not only want to take the children to school, but we want them to experience care and love; that in front of their suffering, there is someone thinking about them and always there with them in each challenge they meet».

    Francesca Peverelli

                                                                                                                                                                         10/12/2015

Through a friend called Francine working in the Italian Embassy, MS. Rose Busingye (director of Meeting Point International was able to know about the two refugee families. She was moved by their situation and in this way she sent social workers to follow up these families and to find ways how they can be helped.

We found that, these two families (10 members) originate from Rwanda in central and East Africa. They left Rwanda because of the inter-tribal war between the Hutu (majority) and the Tutsi (minority) that resulted to the 1994 Genocide. By early July 1994, forces had gained control over the country, including Kigali the capital city of Rwanda. In response, more than 2 million people, nearly all Hutus, fled Rwanda, crowding into refugee camps in the Congo (then called Zaire) and other neighboring countries. This war claimed many lives, many people were separated from their families, and displaced, lost their jobs and many people lost their qualifications in the burnt houses.

These families makes me realize that, the gift of life is given to us by God and very precious. Every time we all struggle to live our lives to the fullest we run the risk of forgetting that the one who gave it us has power over it. The most important thing is to always learn to love ourselves like the way these families love themselves and in this way we shall live our lives according to God’s will. This is because if you love yourself, it is easier for you to also love your neighbor and give value to the others in life because in life there are circumstances that are beyond our control but all we have to do is to face the reality and in this way we are able to overcome these situations just like the way this family did.

These families are always moving together, you cannot imagine the mutual relationship that exists among the family members, they do not want to leave each other. When times became tough for them, they went and hide in the forests of Congo, they could not what was happening in that area. After some time when insecurity persisted in Congo, they fled to Uganda but since ‘’tough times never lasts but tough people do’’, which reflects to the love that these two families shared.

In Uganda, these families settled in Kakiri found in Wakiso District which is in the central part of Uganda, where they are staying in the same house that was given to them by a friend. The heads of these families were primary teachers in Rwanda but they lost all their qualifications in the burnt houses during war. People always say that you will never know how “hot fire is unless you step in it yourself”, this is because we always don’t take the situations other people are going through unless you also go through the same situation. In order to fit in one’s shoes, you should be aware of yourself and your freedom.  In order to earn a living, they resorted to doing casual work like washing clothes, fetching water, digging in the garden for people and at the end of the day they are able to get what to eat. All this was so challenging for them because they never knew the local languages that are used in Uganda but all in all they were able to live happily in the society.

Rose embraced them with the love of Christ and the value they have in them and with the love that they shared, they were inseparable because Rose tried to take the children to the Welcoming House so that they could be able to get the basic needs but they were inseparable, the children resisted because they could not imagine leaving other family members.

I was also moved with this family because amidst all the trials, whether young or old, they were ready to face it as a family. The more you realize yourself the more you will know about your neighbor, all this comes after one discovers him/herself. Rose could not imagine one man who moves into people’s homes looking for a job to dig in order to exchange for food, in order to feed ten members. During our recent visit, I visited the family, because we had managed to take three children to school while the two remained at home as we were getting a solution for them to start school in 2016. She was being disturbed by the other two old children who were not going to school, they kept on asking her ‘why they were not going to school yet their brothers were going there’ so we had to organize with the head teacher of the school so that he would allow them in school the coming year since it was already in the middle of the term. We also discovered that just the little support that we had given them, the two women who were living with the children had discovered a skill of making bags out of beads in different colors, they looked nice and for sure, we realized how grateful it is to help such kinds of families, I the social took the photos, Rose Busingye was moved by their creativeness and she asked them to bring samples and she will help them to sell them through Meeting Point International, the income they will get will help them improve their standards of living.

Written by, Adong Evelyn

Social worker

Children writing letters, poems, stories and draw good pictures.

Child Letter Exercise is an activity where children share their life experiences to the sponsors who support them in education. They write letters, poems, stories and draw good pictures expressing their happiness to their beloved sponsors. This activity started on 1 /11/2015.

We started with the candidate classes of senior four and senior six of Luigi Giussani High School. It was very easy for us to deal with these students because they are adults and know what to do.

After working on the candidates of Luigi Giussani High school, we came back the following day and worked on other three classes, senior three, two and five. They were very happy to write to their sponsor, they shared many things with them for example they talked about the school activities that took place in their school like Music, dance and drama, sports day and also the situation in their families.  They were very cooperative with us and this made the exercise run very smooth. When we reached in senior one, it was so attractive the way the children wrote their letters, they were full of love and passion while carrying out  the exercise.

After completing secondary , we  then went to the primary section .  we also started with the  candidate class primary seven.

It’s a very exciting moment most especially the young ones in Nursery and Primary.They are very eager to write letters, poems and stories. Every child wants to be the best in this exercise. Children of P.5 to P.7 are good in writing letters, poems and stories while those of P.1-P.4 are good at drawing pictures and shading.

The nursery children know how to shade pictures. They are the youngest at Luigi Giussani Pre-Primary and Primary School. The education system in Uganda goes into stages and this is the first stage of child development. A child is born with an empty mind however the environment keeps filling it that in the end the child becomes Human.  Luigi Giussani Primary is a school that grooms children to become human through teachers, Social Workers and the Executive Director of Meeting Point International (Rose Busingye). It starts from infancy stage through the Nursery teachers of the school then to the Adolescent stage.

I myself feel great while carrying out this exercise because I like interacting with children and this exercise made me feel good seeing the children eager to participate in it and share with their sponsors what really on their mind and it also gives me a chance as a Social Worker to interact freely with the children and understand them better.

Social Workers helping children of baby class to shade drawings for their sponsors. They are all very excited. The one on your right is a Social Worker called Gashumba Emmanuel of Meeting Point International and the one on your left is Muhimbise Elizabeth a Social Worker from AVSI.

They are showing us how they managed to shade nice drawings. In this activity, we encourage young children who cant write to shade drawings with the most beautiful colours to their sponsors.

Compiled by Mugisha Eria

1 /11/2015

“The heart of man is one and it is the same in Italy, in Uganda and in every place.  When you know that you have a value, you know that also the others have a value”.

Three children were abandoned by their mother and left to their paternal grandmother who is old and also vulnerable. The social worker of MPI Teddy was informed of this situation by a neighbour of the grandmother and she was concerned about the health’ condition of the three children that are 7 years old, 2 years old and 7 months old respectively.  The grandmothers works washing the clothes of other people and she stays away from home all day so the children remained inside the house alone all day long.  As soon as Teddy became aware of this situation, she decided to go for a home visit to the grandmother’s place. She said: “As soon as I knew that there were three abandoned children I decided to go and to see how they were living, if they had food and water, the place where they were sleeping and their daily activities. From my experience I have learnt that if you want to understand better a situation you have to live that situation together with the people and to share with them their life. So I decided to spend one day with the children and the grandmther, from 7.30 am to 11 pm. When I got there I saw that the situation was not good: the children were left alone all day, they had not enough food so they had to share 3 bananas, one was given to the youngest, one to the second one, and one was divided in two partes, one for the oldest child and one for the grandmother. They could eat only a banana in a day. I saw that they had appetite, but when I tried to give them a cup of tea, they vomited all of it. They were malnourished and they spent all day inside the room, they didn’t play with others children and they weren’t happy. I tried to speak with the grandmother to understand what we could do in order to help her and the three children. She told me that she could not take care of the children. The first thing that I did it was to share the issue with the director of Meeting Point International, Rose Busingye, who took the children to the women of Meeting Point in Kireka. When we arrived at Kireka, Rose explained the situation to the women and she asked: ‘what shall we do with theese three children?’. It didn’t pass one second that one of the women said: I’m going to take one, and then just after her, another woman said: I’m going to take the little one, and then another one said: I’m going to take the other! In five minutes the three children found a second mum and a second family.”

I was surprised when she told me that, so I asked her:

“ Why did these women, that have their own children, decide to take another child and to take care of her?”.

Teddy smiles at me and she says: “We have received a great love, a love that says to us that we have a value, that we have our own dignity. We have been looked as beautiful persons. At the beginning, when I looked at myself I didn’t see nothing, I was nothing. Then I met someone who looked at me not for my errors or for my limits, but for my desire and for my value as a human being. I wanted for myself that gaze, so I have started to stay with the people that loved me. Now, I and also the other women want to do the same with everyone. The money are not a problem in front of this great love. I feel happy when I can help someone to be happier. I started to work as a social worker for this reason, I love to stay with people and to go along with them looking for their value. This is my life, and I love my life”.

She introduced me to Apolot Florence who is taking care of Mugerwa Sharon, who is 7 years old. She said: “When Rose came and asked us what we should do with the abandoned children I had no doubt. These children have a value like me and like you. When I was in need, someone took care of me and of my childen without asking me anything, we have been loved as we were. I want to love as I were loved. Sharon is now happy, the first week that she was with me and with my children she didn’t play with them and she was apathetic, but then she felt loved, she felt at home, and she completely changed. Now she is attending P1 in Luigi Giussani Primary School, she eats properly and she plays with her friends”.

Written by Marta Gulden

Meeting Point International (MPI)  in the beginning  wanted a person to discover  his/her  value and dignity. In the activities we do like Medication, school fees, food, emotional and material support, shelter among others, is an instrument to educate  the person, through  what  MPI  gives  one discovers  himself/herself, in these activities MPI wanted  the  beneficiaries to realize that   they are  greater than these things  MPI  is  giving  them. The great success is that people begin to discover their value, they no longer see death they take drugs regularly without difficulty which is evidenced in their glowing health.

 The women had discovered their value and wanted the same for their children.  When the director of MPI, Rose Busingye  had no money,  they told her wait, the outcome was  48000 necklaces which were  sold and today,  you see the beautiful standing schools  of Luigi Giussanni High school(LGPS) and Luigi Giussani   nursery and primary school in the hill of kireka and Kamuli road. The smiles of the children and women staying in there, the uniqueness of the teaching, the care given to them are outstanding making these schools one of a kind in the country.in these schools the teachers are attracted to the children take care of the children like their own. What the women learn, the children learn, When children learn , the women learn too. It’s a harmony of success.

One is educated beyond education, it’s the totality of your life, MPI doesn’t want to leave anyone in front of his worries, challenges, they journey together educating each other, it goes beyond school itself. When the women discovered their value and dignity, they started to work which is seen in the way their VSLA groups are exceling, no one is running after them, when MPI teaches the women, they teach other and develop in their small ways. They make necklaces with new fashions, the number of beneficiaries MPI buys requirements and rent has greatly reduced because the parents are taking care of it, when one discover the value they excel, weak students when they discover this, they take off, the child is not measured by a report, he is greater than the marks of the class the children are assured that they are not these poor marks, they are greater than them because the marks do not define them. These have seen among weak students exceling in their academics.

Wen u really discover the meaning of your life , u discover the meaning of everything, at 18 is the real age of educating  the child  for MPI, it’s when you  can accompany the child and  the freedom of this child, here the child understands the meaning of his life , why he should live and study. When you  stop at 18 you have not educated,  that’s why we take time, it’s not easy to accompany the freedom of a child, you wait slow   for the freedom of this person  to move.

When a child reaches adolescence, is the moment of discovery, the moment of beauty, is when the child needs an education, it should be total, because a child needs to understand really who he is.

A happy person has  no problem of welcoming another person regard less of  his own  challenges because you know who are, you know what another person is, you know what life is , and   you take care of it, because it’s precious,  when you have something precious you protect it. You develop it

The value  and dignity for the beneficiaries is clear and this is the development and success For MPI

For instance the experience of Marvin at student at LGHS

“The way that I have been looked at Luigi Giussani High School changed my life: one tells you that you are a value, that he wants to stay with you to find out the meaning of your life, and you see teachers that take care of you not only for the performances and the results, but first of all for the desire of your heart to be happy.”

In one of our weekly meeting, we asked Marvin to tell us his story, his interests and his dreams in order to understand better what is interesting also for us and for the sponsor. Every story of the children that are sponsored is interesting and full of facts that can also become a provocation for us workers and for the sponsors that read the report.

Marvin is a 17 years old boy who is receiving support through Meeting Point International in order to attain his education. He has completed his ordinary level of studies and he has now joined the advanced stage with aggregate 23 which is a division one. About his results, he said: “I know that the results are great but I was expecting a better score, because I was sure to have tried my best during the examination. For my nature if I don’t get the maximum I’m not happy, nothing is enough, but from what I am living and experiencing at the school, I now know that everything I am and everything I do is embraced”.

Then he tells us what he has learnt and what he is still learning at work and at school: “Working here at Meeting Point is a great opportunity for me, because I can learn many things, it is like a dream that comes true. I have been always interested in working in an office and in using the computer, so when I started to work here I was very happy, it was great. The thing that I am learning here is that I am not perfect, I can make many errors on work, but that I am not defined by them. I am something greater than the error I can do. Many times I make plans and then something unexpected happens. Once I planned to meet with some friends and then my mum asked me to go to work to the shop. I really wanted to stay with my friends, but I went to the shop. At the beginning I stayed there without speaking with anyone and thinking that I wanted to be with my friends, but then I tried to let my heart open to the unforeseen and really something unexpected happened. Some of the other vendors came to me and they started to speak in Luganda, that I don’t know very well, and I also got to learn many words. I started to enjoy the work at the shop. Now I can say that everything that happens to me it is for my growth. I have started to look at myself as a value when I started to go at Luigi Giussani High School because I received a new gaze on me, I felt loved. I have started to say ‘I’ and to become free in front of others and in front of everything that happens in my life. When you become aware of who you are and of what your heart desires, everything becomes more beautiful. One can have a lot of money and be fine, but then in the end he is not happy because he is not aware of the great desire that he is. But one can also be poor and be happy, because his heart is alive”.

One of us asked Marvin: “What is beautiful for you?” and “What can help someone that is not attending Luigi Giussani High School to discover the same of you?”

He said: “My seriousness with the reality can also show to others what I saw and what I experienced at my school and in my life. Life is a continue encounter, and in front of all that happens I have to go deeper and find out what it means to me. When you judge something, you have to do it starting from your nature, from your desire. Things become beautiful when you know for whom and why you are doing them. In everything that I do, in my daily activities I want to be fulfilled. I am fulfilled when I am aware that Christ is with me, that He is guiding my life, so I am not scared of anything and most of all I am not defined from what I can materially reach. My life is beautiful because there is someone that takes care of me”.

23/09/2015

The roses of Kampala (by Gianni Valente, 30 giorni)

In the poor neighborhoods of the capital of Uganda hope is burgeoning among a group of women infected by AIDS. The story of Rose and her friends….

Traces Aug 2014 (extract article on Rose)

Rose: This is the latest “flower” born from Father Giussani

“The project of the Luigi Giussani High School was started because we wanted the kids, like the adults, to understand their true value. Our intention was therefore to see if our experience could educate, and so we wanted that what began with their mothers, who have discovered the value of their lives, could continue in the children as well”. Rose Busingye, the founder of Meeting Point International in Kampala, Uganda, says this about the Luigi Giussani High School, a new secondary school built in the capital of Uganda, in the district of Kireka, which will open on February 3. “The mothers participated and are helping even now, even doing strenuous manual labor. Our intention was precisely to create this wonderful place for companionship and belonging to ensure that these children can discover themselves,” Rose says.
And all of this was possible thanks to the many necklaces made of recycled paper by the women of the Meeting Point…
When a person finds herself, when she realizes her value, then everything that she touches acquires a value and becomes present. The most important thing is her discovery that she is not defined by poverty and disease, and when she discovers the infinite value of herself, then, at that point she can do anything, even necklaces. There is a moment where you feel thrown into reality as a fighter, and nothing scares you any longer because you know to whom you belong. Afterwards, everything becomes easier, through the flourishing of this belonging.
On May 21, 2010 you laid the first stone?
Yes, but our stones have the uncanny ability to take root, grow and even make flowers! The school can accommodate 400 children, from twelve to eighteen years old, and in the coming years, this number will grow to 600. The building has twelve classrooms on three floors, some office space and laboratories. Children become the protagonists here, in a place where they can experience education and human growth.
This is also thanks to the mothers, who have done everything to ensure a future for their children, right?
Education begins with the family, the most important thing, and for this reason the Meeting Point has created these small communities where the women greet the kids as real children, even if they often are not their actual children, in order to create an essential and fundamental relationship. We do not know how it will go in the future, but the fact that even one child can discover the value they have is a great success for us.
What can you tell us about the great solidarity that was created for this project?
The school project was carried out thanks to the many friends who have supported us not only economically but also psychologically. They gave us the strength to continue and helped us in building this wonderful school. They have also contributed substantial funding, but I believe that where there the heart is, there are also funds. On February 3, we will inaugurate the school, and all the women are preparing many things for the big event. Many friends will also be coming from Italy and Spain, together with the Apostolic Nuncio, who will baptize the children and give his blessing, as he did on the occasion of the laying of the first stone.
What does it mean for you to see the school named after Luigi Giussani?
The merit for the school is not only ours, but is because the work of Don Gius [as Rose calls Don Giussani, ed] continues and is always present. His first mission was in the schools and, as we continue to try to carry out his intentions, we saw right away that his charism continued to influence us and change us. Basically, I think it is possible to live happily only by savouring the charism of Don Giussani because it is made purposely for man, but unfortunately man often goes in the opposite direction.

“When I received the news of Katrina Hurricane, I asked to have a minute of silence to pray for those who died. But one of the women told me: “When you met us, you did not only pray for us and I now that I am dying I do not want that if someone meet my children he does pray for them only….we want to learn to love as somebody loved us”.

In four weeks they fully filled a lorry with stones to be sold. I was moved to tears because I was not like them, I was not moved by what happened in America, instead they were moved. The human heart is like this, the human heart is this: it moves and when it sees another man in need, the first thing is to say: “I am with you”

Rose

Thursday, November 24, 2005
Reported by Bruce Nolan of The Times-Picayune in New Orleans told their story on Thanksgiving Day. The Dallas Morning News repeated it in an editorial last week.

 A WEALTH OF COMPASSION

Impoverished women from war-torn Uganda, many of them with HIV, perform arduous labor for weeks to raise nearly $900 for local hurricane victims. Please click on the link below for the full story.

A wealth of Compassion