News: Uganda

Like most of the children in the Children of the Nations (COTN) Uganda Children's Village, Samuel Ekel, who is now seventeen, lost his home and family during the rebel war that ravaged northern Uganda over the last two decades. Homeless, and with only their grandmother to care for them, Samuel and his sister moved to an IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camp near Anai-Okii, Uganda.

For Denis, the word money meant something his family never had enough of. After the LRA (Lord's Resistance Army), a rebel army that terrorized the villages of northern Uganda for over a decade, attacked Denis' village and killed his father, Denis and his family struggled to survive. "Our mother sometimes used to go and work for people by plowing the gardens, and she was given money," remembers Denis, who is now 15. "When she didn't do that, we slept without food."

Our children in Uganda are proud of their well. Not only does it provide them with fresh, clean water for drinking, bathing, washing, and cooking, but it is also one of the only sources of water for their entire community. Children of the Nations (COTN) is firm on its policy of sharing the well with everyone in the surrounding community, but it is overused—sometimes twenty-five to fifty people will be lined up at the pump.

Jonnathan Odongo lived in a one-room grass-thatched house with his widowed mother, aunt, five brothers, and three sisters. The roof leaked every time it rained, and the walls were weak, threatening to fall in at any time. After Jonnathan’s father died, there was no hope of reconstruction—his mother was weak and sick, and no one in his family had the money or strength to fix their crumbling home.