There are 143,000,000 orphans in the world today. The population of orphans theoretically makes up the 7th largest nation in the world
Last weekend, Adam and I went to Kampala’s most well known and longstanding babies’ home, Sanyu. It was the first orphanage set up in Kampala in 1929, by a missionary sister, and since then tens of babies’ homes have sprung up around the city. The home can care for up to 50 little bundles of joy at any one time, and they are almost always running at full capacity.
Sanyu gives a safe haven for babies from anywhere from an hour old, up to four years of age. The home is run primarily by Ugandan ladies, called ‘Mammas’, and everyone from the babies to the visitors call them that collectively. These women are incredible. They clearly love the kids, but they also have a no nonsense strategy, due to the sheer volume of the crawling, walking and shuffling bubbas, and scoop and chuck them around, but miraculously in a way that doesn’t hurt or upset them.
I’ve never seen more than five Mammas there at any one time and so the home relies hugely on volunteers to come and help out with the changing, feeding, and bedding of the lively brood, along with just keeping them occupied. In no way is this a chore, and the home is constantly full up with visitors, mostly expats, who either are living there and just want to have a snuggle, or more commonly, by people who are looking to adopt. I don’t know a huge amount about adoption, let alone international or interracial adoption, but for most non-nationals, legally adopting a baby is a long and cumbersome process.
I’m not sure whether I agree with international or interracial adoption, because of the potential problems it causes for the child, especially for their sense of identity. To be a black child, growing up in a white family, in a country so far removed from their original culture, must be a challenge. Giving an abandoned child a nice home and loving parents is of course wonderful, but taking a child out of its native culture is not always what’s best for the child.
I’ve been to Sanyu a few times before, but this time the experience had a really profound affect on me. Firstly, a friend who I’d met back in September had come back to Uganda, and back to volunteering at Sanyu, primarily to see these two twin boys, Gideon and Gilbert, who’d had such an affect on her. She’s in her early twenties, and wants the boys to be adopted by a Ugandan family, however she wants to contribute to their upbringing, by setting up a fund to pay for their education herself. I was so impressed with her attitude to it all. She wants to be in their life, but in a way that is best for the boys, and I guess she doesn’t think adopting them herself would be.
Secondly, there was a little girl there, called Faith, who had been abandoned only days before. This little girl, with her perfect, gorgeous face, was so miserable and forlorn it just broke my heart. She sat upright for hours, just staring into space, with no interest in playing with the other children. From behind her body is so tiny that you’d think she was under one, yet when you look at her face, and see how advanced her expressions are, you realize she’s more like two, but just so malnourished and underweight. I tried to touch her, to stroke her arm, thinking she’d want to be picked up, but she just pushed my hand away, shaking her head with a huge confused frown on her face.
After a while of trying with her, I asked Adam to have a go. He sat next to her and reached out his finger to her. She stared at him for ages, but then eventually held on to it. In little stages like this she slowly warmed to him and at one point I turned around and she'd buried her head into his leg, hiding her little perfect face from the world. She stayed like that for ages.
Once Adam had gained her trust she let him pick her up, carry her and rock her the way a baby should be. He even got her to smile. I just couldn’t stop thinking about what she had been through. Where her Mum is, if she’s alive or dead, if she abandoned her because she couldn’t look after her properly, or if she was forced to abandon her. Is Faith a product of rape, has she experienced abuse, was her mother a victim of domestic abuse? I wonder what those little eyes have witnessed, whether she realized she was being abandoned, and how long she was alone and scared before someone found her.
Thirdly, I met one guy who is trying to adopt a little boy, Joshua, who may die. He’s currently got TB and is being treated, but at six-months old he also has HIV. This guy and his wife have already adopted two Ethiopian children, and heard about Joshua through an adoption network they’re associated with. He flew out to Uganda to meet Joshua and start the process. He simply wants to give this little boy as good a life as he can. It’s so selfless – and really reaffirmed for me that some people just want to help others regardless of the obstacles that may be in their way, or the heartache it may cause them.
Adam's going to finish his work two weeks early to go to the home everyday and play and look after the 46 babies they currently have there. It's the most magical place. Although all these babies have no mums and dads that can look after them, there are so many people that love these babies and give their time to brighten their days. Here’s the link to their site for more info: www.sanyubabies.com
Statistics on the number of orphans in Uganda are not exact, but earlier this year Unicef estimated that there are 2.5 million orphans in Uganda, representing nearly 10% of the population. Of those 2.5 million, over half have lost either one or both parents to aids.
The civil war in the north of the country has deprived many children of fathers and brothers; they’ve lost sisters to sexual servitude and their mothers have been left to bring up huge families alone. Gender disparity and domestic violence are still rife within Uganda. Polygamy often leads to families with so many children that the family cannot look after and support all the children. Abuse of children and their rights is still a huge issue, with many teenage girls being raped by family members, resulting in pregnancies that they do not want and are not old enough to handle.
A friend of mine has just set up her own transitional babies home in Kampala, to help young women who don't have the capacity or the support to keep their babies. Child’s i Foundation tries to prevent mothers abandoning their children in the first place, giving them the support, counseling and skills to provide for themselves, ultimately empowering them o keep their children. They opened last month, and currently have six babies in their care – all of whom I believe are coincidently little chaps! The home looks after the babies for six months, giving them excellent healthcare and love. Meanwhile, their mothers are invited to come and visit the babies everyday to get to know them without the overriding burden of worrying that they cannot currently provide for them. Two of the mothers whose little boys are currently in the babies home are only 14. Both of their boys are the product of rape; both by close family members.
My friend Lucy, the mastermind behind the home, called Malaika – meaning ’angels’, comes from a TV background and used to be one of the producers on Big Brother, among other shows. Using social media, she runs the website as a blog, regularly uploading short film clips so that contributors and partners feel involved with every stage of the organisation’s progress. Her home is a truly original idea, trying to tackle and prevent the cause of abandonment, rather than deal simply with the consequences. Please check out her site http://www.childsifoundation.org to read about the home’s amazing progress. She’s currently in the UK and should be appearing any day on GMTV with Lorraine Kelly for an interview! So watch out for it!
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