Thursday 23 August 2012

Alice's Story

I watched the BBC Panorama programme about Joseph Kony and the LRA recently. It seems amazing that the combined forces of Uganda and USA cannot find this killer who is now believed to be in the Central African Republic.

Our Medical Student, Grace, has befriended Mary whose life was so devastated by this man. She is just over 20 now but just before she was born her father, then working in Kampala, visited Gulu and was burnt to death in a grass hut by LRA soldiers. Her mother returned to Kampala but shortly after Mary's birth her mother died of a heart attack. Mary and her sister grew up as street children in Kampala and her sister is now lost somewhere. Mary was taken in be an orphanage and did well at school getting a place to become a teacher at the University at Gulu and funded in her first year by the orphanage and Jesuit priests.
Grace got to know Mary when Mary was in hospital recently.
We heard of nearly 2 million people displaced or killed by LRA. Mary's story is just one of many and we are looking to see if we can assist with some of her student costs this year.