Newsletter No. 34! (from Gulu)
March 2012
The last time I wrote, in January, I informed you that Vincent Okuja, an art counselor, would be joining the MPM team with his very up-to-date and relevant experience of working with people in very difficult circumstances. His previous client groups include not only the Acholi people affected by war-trauma, but those of the Karamojong tribe living in very traditional cultures with all the dangers and difficulties that entails such as changing values and severe droughts.
Gulu Remand Home
I am in Gulu at the moment visiting Vince and helping him find his feet. Having already worked in Gulu, though, Vince has not only found his feet but is already learning to fly with MPM! I visited his second art therapy session in the remand home I had mentioned in the last newsletter where he had 25 teenage boys and a teenage girl. The session involved the teens drawing a poster advertising themselves either as they see themselves or as they want to see themselves. They then discussed the results, sometimes with much hilarity (“you want a square head, then?” mocked one boy!) and with much seriousness (“my brother was cut – that’s why I have drawn him that way.”)
The remand home is basically a juvenile home where children are kept as they go in and out of court awaiting verdicts, or where they stay as a result of their verdicts. They stay at the very simple residence for between a couple of weeks and six months. Some are there for simple theft because of being unwelcome at home for a whole host of reasons and therefore having to make their way on the street. Some are there for defilement or aggravated defilement and some are there for murder. It is heartbreaking to hear the stories and to find these teenagers (mostly boys but there are a handful of girls) living on the edge of society in a government institution where there is no funding for activities for them to do. They have either been disowned by their families or they lost their families during the LRA war.
The money given to the remand home by the government is only enough for food and the director was asking me for funding for them to improve their sanitation as they don’t have enough money for soap of any kind. I have put them in touch with the Ugandan Christian Lawyers Fraternity (UCLF) which is supported by the Baptist Union of Uganda (who I am currently working with in Kasese) in the hope that they can help lobby the government for proper funding for the remand home. The staff also face the obvious challenges of violence and aggression in the home but, as visitors and people who have something fun and constructive for them to do, we didn’t witness any of their aggression and we saw that they could be friendly and sociable young people. It is good for the staff to see them this way too. Vince is doing two morning sessions there per week and when Betty returns to Gulu she will add music therapy to the program, either combined with Vince’s art therapy or on alternate weeks or days but with related themes.
Prison Primary School Special Needs
I also visited Vince’s art therapy group at Prison Primary School’s Special Needs Unit (remember it’s not a prison, it’s next to a prison!) The children have such diverse needs ranging from children who are pretty capable educationally but socially unable to fit in to mainstream school, to those who are profoundly autistic and struggle to participate even in the special needs unit. Vince was doing an activity with the whole group. They had to draw what they could based on what they wanted for their future. Again there was the comedy (yet with underlying sadness) “I want to be a smoker” then the more serious “I want to be a nurse” juxtapositions. Vince discussed the outcomes with the children and gave space for them to vent their frustrations at being forgotten in a society that gives very little attention to children with special needs.
A Marriage of Arts
Vince, Betty and I have talked about how art and music can work together to complement each other and how that will work practically. It is exciting to watch as the two have ideas about how they can combine live music with live art. Betty is not yet back from maternity leave but when she is I will be avidly watching this space to see how they both get on.
Kony 2012
Some of you will have watched the “Kony 2012” video that has been causing news around the world. If you have seen it, regardless of what we think of the controversy that surrounds it, you will have learned something about the horrors of the LRA’s conflict in northern Uganda. It is those children who were traumatised by Kony’s rebels that MPM has been working with since 2008. I have to stress, though, that the LRA are no longer active in Uganda and have not been since 2006, but are now committing similar atrocities in the vast jungles of the Central African Republic (CAR), South Sudan and the Democratic Repupblic of Congo (DRC). MPM is working hard to help people return to good mental health in Gulu, but I certainly have in mind that there are other places where MPM could be useful. Whilst chatting to Vince today, he revealed he is keen to chase up a contact he has in the new Republic of South Sudan to try to do some peripatetic work under MPM’s name with ex-child soldiers there.
As usual:
Due to the additional member of staff, I need to continue to find more funding and new supporters as the cost of employing another therapist is around £100 per month. If you are willing to contribute a one-off donation or become a monthly supporter, please get in touch with me to find out how (either at my normal email address or at musicforpeacefulminds@yahoo.co.uk). Thank you to everyone who has contributed, and especially to the current monthly supporters for your support. You can visit http://musicforpeacefulminds.blogspot.com for more background information and pictures.
