Children abandoned at the prison

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.