Will my father return home?This is the question on Joan’s lips.Joan ‘s father was released from prison in January this year ,but he never returned home,he had spent 8 years in Prison ,his children always looked forward to the day he would come home,but alas this not happened yet .
Last Saturday Joan who is 10 years old asked Marjorie our outreach coordinator whether it was true that her father was released and whether he will return home, Joan told Marjorie that she loves her father and would want to meet him outside the prison walls and stay with him but she doesn’t know where he is.
For the last three years with the help of Wells of Hope she has been meeting him within the prison environs, it would be a great joy for Joan to meet her father this time outside the prison. Please pray for Joan so that she can meet her Dad.
Joan is a happy and friendly young girl . she has two sisters,Lillian and Maureen . She loves being at school and believes it is a big chance she has acquired.
Joan’s father was jailed for charges relating to acid burns he is alleged to have inflicted on his wife Aida. as days of Joan’s father’s release drew nearer ,Joan’s mom ,who has many scars on her body became more worried because she feared that the father of her children would return to kill her and when she got to know that he had been released she abandoned the children and went to southern Sudan to work as housemaid. The children are now under the guardianship of Aida’s sister.
This is now a dilemma for these children, Dad is no where to be found and their mother has also abandoned them.
We have other children like Joan whose fathers were released and never returned home, yet they are believed to be alive. Such children include Nagujja Mary, Nalugo Jackie.
On the 21st and 22nd July 2011 we will be taking the children to visit their parents in prison, however,for Children like Joan, they have to be helped to handle the disappearance of their parents.
In the picture attached, Joan (Extreme right in green uniform)is seated with her father in prison, this was last year when children visited their parents in prison.
Francis Ssuubi
