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Gaining a Skill and Independence with the Help of Bantwana and All Saints Church
Kapchorwa, Uganda — Doreen Chelangat had dropped out of school. The reason was painfully ordinary: Her family couldn't afford the school fees. An uncle, who had been her caretaker since her parents died when she was very young, felt badly about it, but he had 12 kids in his house—seven biological children and five orphans.
Then Doreen, 17, heard about a program that would teach her how to sew, giving her the chance to learn a skill to support herself. She applied and a committee from the All Saints Church in Kapchorwa, Uganda, chose her and nine others who also had left school. They also selected 10 boys for a separate class to teach them carpentry skills.
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| Jacklin Chebet (right) is learning sewing and after eight months of tutoring, made possible by the Bantwana Initiative, hopes to get a job as a tailor. |
"I was just sitting at home before, and it was very frustrating," said Doreen, who had earned high marks in school.
In Kapchorwa, a town of 12,000 people in eastern Uganda, the Anglican church had decided to make children a priority in their community outreach programs. First, they started a primary school for young children. Then they targeted the problem of older dropouts who were hanging around the town center, or remained hidden in their homes, with little hope for the future.
But their idea was just talk—until the Bantwana program stepped in with an $8,000 grant in 2007.
For Bantwana, the program had broad appeal. A community group had identified a pressing need. The need involved an often over-looked group of vulnerable children. The community itself had been bypassed for years. And for just a little bit of money, it hoped, lives would be changed.
Until recently, Kapchorwa, set in the high foothills of Mount Elgon near the Kenya border, had just one tenuous link to the world: a deeply rutted dirt road that became unpassable during the long rainy seasons. During these times, villagers would set off on foot to the nearest population center, Mbale, a seven-day walk, stopping at strangers' homes to sleep along the way.
But after Uganda paved the road to Kapchorwa in 2002, the door to the world opened wider, and leaders began to reach out for help.
"For so long, this was a closed-off place," said Rose Chebet, the district probation and social welfare officer who also is a member of All Saints Church. "No one knew where we were, and what was happening here. Now, we have much higher hopes, and this vocational center is an important step for us."
Rev. David Chesakit, 37, the pastor at All Saints, stood before the sewing and carpentry classes one day recently and told them that he hoped the eight-month programs would help them in the years ahead. And he said the two classes should help each other immediately. "The boys will make stools for the tailors," he said. "And the tailors will make aprons for the boys."
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| Some of the children approach the altar of All Saints Church in Kapchorwa. The church, with some assistance from the Bantwana initiative, has begun several programs aimed at helping families with vulnerable children. |
The children laughed. One of them was Jackline Chebet, 16. She said later that her mother and father had both died in 1995 when she was in primary two, or second grade. She said she dropped out of school then, and only returned sporadically afterward.
"Ever since then, I've been doing other people's work—cleaning, washing, cooking—in their homes," she said. "And now I'm staying with a very poor family. I would have continued doing that work if I didn't have this program."
Jackline said she hopes the program will give her tools to depend on herself, not others. "I feel very happy here," she said. "I do have a vision—that if I acquire these skills from the class, I'll start a business and then can help my own brothers and sisters." She has four sisters and two brothers; all of them, she said, live in different homes and rarely see each other.
Doreen, who had stopped going to school in 2006, said she was very excited after making a pair of shorts in her first week of class. "I felt very proud, and my uncle told me I must continue with the program," she said. "I think he was proud of me, too."
Uncle John Malinga, 45, said he was. "I thank God that they have offered this course," said Malinga, a peasant farmer, who took in his niece when she was seven years old. "I said to her, ‘Daughter, do your best.’ Her life now could change. Before, she could be just getting ready for marriage and that would be it. With this, she can choose her future. We are very excited for her."
Doreen's teacher, Jackline Jameston, 21, herself an orphan, listened to the uncle and took Doreen's hand. Jackline had been teaching the students only for a couple of weeks, but she said she already had high hopes for several of them.
"Several of these girls will do very well on their own, I can tell," Jackline said. "Doreen is a very bright girl. I think she will be a great person in our society."
Doreen, not long removed from being stuck at home, beamed.