Mr and Miss East Africa UK team of volunteers feed Kampala Children

Uganda often referred to as the ‘Pearl of Africa’ and gifted by nature is bordered on the north by Sudan, on the south by Rwanda and Tanzania, on the east by Kenya, and on the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Uganda has substantial natural resources, including fertile soils, regular rainfall, and sizable mineral deposits of copper and cobalt. Agriculture is the most important sector of the economy, employing over 80% of the work force, with coffee accounting for the bulk of export revenues. Though Uganda is endured by nature, it has got an overwhelming number of children on the streets and suburbs of Kampala. Most of these children find their way to the streets as a result of poverty, wars, harassment and negligence by their parents.

As part of the Shout Campaign, Mr and Miss East Africa UK team of volunteers fed over 1000 Street Children of Kampala the whole week from 9th-13th February and showered them with love and attention through a programme called FEED THE CHILDREN. According to Mbugga Lattib, Mr and Miss East Africa-UK Country Representative, the exercise started on Monday 9th February, 2009 and ended Friday 13th February, 2009. “We had a number of activities each day from Monday among them was gathering around information on what troubles these children in living on the Streets, feeding them with light meals and ended with a big day on Friday by giving them a balanced meal” Said Lattib Mbugga.

A street child’s day starts as early as 4:00am. They operate in and around the city and suburbs of Kampala. The children are divided into groups, each entrusted with a task for the day. This can be anything from rooting through the garbage skips, visiting the abattoir for meat left over, collecting firewood and charcoal or scrap metal to sell. They are also expected to return with money, leading to their daily street begging that we are all witness to.

The Shout Campaign is a campaign initiated by the founder of Mr and Miss East Africa UK beauty pageant, Pauline Long to help bring an end of the extreme child poverty in Africa. Pauline Long believes poverty is not a way of life it’s an injustice which must be overcome on the other hand giving back to the underprivileged is not an act of charity but an act of justice.

Miss East Africa-UK volunteers collected together and fed a total number of over 1000 Street Children on Friday in the heart of Kampala City. They fed them with a well balanced meal that included Matooke, Rice, Sweet potatoes, Posho, Meat, Beans, Peas, all type of vegetable and provided them with drinks. “We need Government and all Ugandans to see what is happening to the Street Children and to recognize that together we can do our best to give children decent lives, no child should belong to the Street. All children need the society to look after them.” Said Pauline Long, CEO Mr. and Miss East Africa UK/Shout Campaign.

In an interview one street child said, “My parents were killed by LRA rebels in Northern Uganda, we went through great suffering of hunger for a period of time and later we came here with our younger sister to beg on Kampala streets, that’s how we have been surviving for 6 years to date. We are often rounded up by government and dumped to Kampiringisa prison for rehabilitation; we don’t want to be there because we are not prisoners. We’d rather stay on the streets” Said Opio Charles, 14 yrs, one of the Street children.

People think that it is poverty and AIDS that causes Ugandan children to leave home, but the problem goes beyond that. Rich families have found out that they have lost kids to the streets, and seen that those children who have remained at home are miserable. “I ran from home due to severe harassment of my father and my step mother, I was not given food, not taken to school and whilst my other three brothers and four sisters went to school, I felt I wasn’t part of my own family then that’s the reason I am on the streets” Said Sserunjonji Geoffrey.

Then Caroline Alupo, 14 years old said she was abandoned on Kampala streets by her mother who had paid a visit from the village to a place she does not remember in Kampala at the age of 5 years. She has since remained in Kampala as a street child, however she says if given a chance of getting necessities and a home she can go to school though old. "There is no food and I don't have money. I don't know what we shall eat today. I have four other sisters, and seeing them hungry." Said Alupo.

Dias Nyesiga, Miss East Africa UK volunteer who was among over 80 people who fed these Kampala children said, “This is a great concern that need intervention by entire society and government, these are our children, they belong to us, they are our generation of tomorrow, they don’t deserve to be on streets” He said he was much shocked by the kind of life style these street children lead.

Bobi Wine, Artiste, now East Africa’s top celebrity and once a street child said, “I have been on the streets, I know what it means to be there. There is great suffering and the situation these street children go through may force them into bad citizens, let us all be involved to bring back hope to these children.”

Through feeding the street children of Kampala the team of Mr and Miss East Africa UK hopes to create the awareness of the plight of the forgotten Kampala children and to inspire Ugandans to give back to the community. The beauty pageant hopes to work closely with African governments as the starting point to introduce a system for children’s welfare. The help to these Children came from MR. & MISS EAST AFRICA UK and was financed by a UK Kenyan based Pauline Long, CEO of Shout Campaign.

51% of the population is under 18; number of street children is estimated at 10,000; underlying causes of children’s problems in Uganda include armed conflicts, diseases (HIV/AIDS), lack of education, inadequate services and entrenched poverty. THE Government is concerned by the increasing number of street children in Kampala. Gender Minister Syda Bbumba on Thursday said: “It is a growing concern for the Government that there has been an astonishing influx of street children and families on the streets of Kampala.”

Statement from Pauline Long

Africa needs us all; it’s not about what Africa is doing for us it’s about what we are doing for Africa. I am not political but judging from what our African leaders /politician stand for, it seems they have got their priorities in the wrong order. I’m here to get every African to SHOUT out loud to help get the priorities in order.

I recently read a press release for Miss Zambia UK celebrating 10 years of supporting women affected by HIV/AIDS and dedicating the event to 75,000 street children of Zambia, I felt rather uneasy reading the article , first of all as a humanitarian and secondly as an African. What on earth are 75,000 children doing on the streets of a beautiful country in a beautiful continent? Why are 350,000 children living on the streets in Kampala? Don’t you think someone should take full responsibilities for this? Don’t you think the African child is getting a VERY raw deal? Where is the justice? My friend and great Sudanese musician and Humanitarian who was brought up in Kenya, Emmanuel Jal once said to me “Pauline in the society we live in today, if you want something so badly, you have to make noise, you have to shout to be heard.” I took this onboard and decided that I was going to start a campaign to relieve African children off poverty; and this was the birth of SHOUT campaign.

SHOUT campaign is about telling it as it is and knocking on those doors to the exclusive chambers of the African leaders and asking them to let us in for a dialogue. It’s about us sitting on a round table with the leaders and not sitting in the usual 5 star hotels boardrooms enjoying caviar while creating policies that are never implemented. It is about us reaching out to African leaders to tell them enough is enough; the African child has sat on the bench for too long waiting for aid to arrive.

It is also about us putting the African leaders in the same pedestal as the poor African child, where we would ask them, what if it was your child! We will also go an extra mile to get them to experience the life of surviving without basic needs by asking them to spend a day or two living a life of a poor child. It’s really about getting people to get in touch with their humanitarian side. It’s about AFRICANS FOR AFRICA not Bono or Angelina Jolie for Africa. After all is said and done all we demand is for African leaders to put a system in place to ensure that no African child goes to bed without food the same way there is a system in place that ensures all African leaders/politicians roll in state of the art cars and live in mansions as soon as they gain power.

Right now as an adult and as an African I feel like I’m letting the Ugandan child down and I consider myself part of the problem the African child is facing, however I want to eliminate myself along with other Africans from being part of this problem to becoming part of a solution and this is where SHOUT campaign comes in. The campaign will involve every African and Ugandan who feels responsible for Africa and that includes mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers. If we eliminate poverty from childhood there are high chances of eliminating poverty by the time these children become adults.