Three girls, Marias 6 years,
Helena 13 and Catherine 11 yesterday found themselves at a
crisis,after they were abandoned at the prison gate where their mother
called Bonny is serving a 12 year jail term for killing their father in a domestic
brawl.
Hailing from Ntungamo
,Western Uganda ,these little girls were brought by their aunt the sister
to their mother who did not want to care for them although from our
investigation she seems to be fairly well off. We tried to convince her s to
take care of the children but she refused, she almost disappeared from us at
the prison. She maintained that taking on these children threatened her
marriage and her own livelihood and that she has her own children to look
after, and that she was just being kind to have brought these children to
their mother so that she can determine where she can take them. She said she
had gone to the village to attend a burial of a relative and the villagers
forced her to bring these children to Kampala city, so she decided to dump them
at the prison.
The welfare officer of the women
prison called me and informed me about the crisis these children were facing,
because the prison does not allow children older than 18 months to stay with
their mother s inside the prison. We had to divert our attention from our
planned work to redeeming these girls. Normally we go to villages to trace
these children ,but yesterday was a rare case.
Since all this time when their
mother was imprisoned they did not know where she was, it was a mixture of joy
and sadness when they met in prison yesterday. Bonny begged us while on her
knees to take her children.
The story goes that in 2010 ,
when Bonny a mother of six children, including these little girls was
jailed , her eldest daughter became the leader in the home, after a
period of 8 months she ran away from home because she was tired of looking
after her siblings. However, after a period of one year she returned with a
baby of 2 months old and disappeared later.
Meanwhile,one of the boys,
disappeared from the home but would seldom return to check on his
siblings with birds he had hunted down,he would then disappear for several
months.One other boy was taken on by an orphanage in Kampala.
During all this time the
three little girls stayed at home, and would take charge of the home. Helena
and Catherine’s school report shows that the last time they appeared in a
classroom was in December 2011.They told us that they would sustain the home by
cultivating food crops and sometimes well wishers on the village would render
some help.
The two girls (Catherine and
Helena) would attend school in turns ,because one of them would have to stay
behind to care for their sickly sister Marias and generally to care for
the home and to cook their food. Some days both of them would not go to
school, and since this year began they had dropped out.
Marias the youngest girl, of six
years looks like a 3 year old baby, we had trouble deciding whether we
should take her on, because our policy requires that we select children aged
between 5-10 years. Marias we have been told suffered from Kwashiorkor when she
was 3 years and her condition worsened when her mother was thrown in prison. As
such she is stunted and her growth is retarded.
From yesterday, these little
girls became part of the Wells of Hope family of children of prisoners. We will
provide them education, food ,medical care and other needs as the Lord will
provide. As you will see in the picture attached, those are the only clothes
they have. They are in need of urgent medical checkup and treatment, clothes,
mattresses, bed sheets, knickers. There was joy for the children at the girls
side to receive these girls, however, one of the female teachers cried on
seeing Marias in her state.
Early this year 60 prisoners
applied to have their children helped, we have a big challenge of reaching all
the villages, our problem is that we don’t have a car of our own,we have to use
special hires which are so costly.
There are many children like
these with parents in prisons hidden away in remote places, you can choose
sponsor a child at Wells of Hope or give onetime donation to help us make a
difference in the lives of children with parents in prison.
