News from Ben Parkinson in Uganda

Ben sends news of The Butterfly Project, a network of committed young people, who are determined to be catalysts for change in their communities, supported in their objectives by Chrysalis (CYEN).

Some highlights follow: to see the full text, click here.

On the positive side

The President has shown compassion recently with his decision not to limit children’s activities in the village so dramatically and also to delay their return to school during the return of public transport, which was bound to see many new cases and outbreaks.  I could see the children, who were perhaps less vulnerable than adults being used as guinea pigs and it felt wrong, though most people with schools here are also seeing their livelihoods under threat by further delays.

The delays are also now leading to a mass exodus of our children from the slums back to the villages until school restarts.  It has been impossible for families to feed them adequately over the last couple of months, so their option is now to push them home into taxis and buses with vastly inflated prices, as they can transport only half their normal passenger load.

A few members:

From our perspective, though, it has been quite an interesting and different year so far.  In 2014, we had a year of working with the local children extensively and it was very successful.  If you are interested to read about it, then this is the link.  My intention is that this centre here becomes a hub for training youth on all aspects of climate change – from awareness to mitigation to practical projects to reduce carbon emissions.  We’ll also utilise the centre to help with virus-related issues moving forward next year.

We are still supporting more than 20 families with essentials each week and. for those that are not yet back at work, we are also supplying food, though the President says he is going to start to distribute food again, though has not said when.

11th June: I have seen a large influx of children here over the last two days and it is not easy to make sure they are compliant with the lockdown regulations.

Cohort 3 member, Kenneth, has been masterminding this project, as he lives in that community. Though complying with the 5 at a time rule, we have also been running activities here – athletics, boardgaming, art, cooking, computer training etc. – and it has been good to get to know more about the children and help them to discover their talents.

Back to the positive:

Andrew Mbabazi, one of our C5 Butterflies has been very productive on the sports and cooking side. His family are entrepreneurial and need a social investment to build housing that they planned to rent out to support the school fees of their children.   We are supporting his home building project and construction materials are now available.

The boys are all talented but withdrawn and shy and I am certain it is related to the living accommodation.  However, they are extremely brilliant children, so I want to help them, as part of our remit is to discover and support talented children.

Andrew’s mother is very entrepreneurial and I believe that she can make a business work, so I am proposing that we help her start a small business. Details of both projects are given here for those who feel inclined to give some support.

Ben ends: “I hope you are all still avoiding the virus – it’s an amazing time right now, when the most selfish are being exposed very clearly and the genuine causes are being recognised, though we are losing climate change”.

 

 

 

.