Aid to the Church in Need: Uganda: Going home

Uganda: Going home

Posted by Press Release on 20/7/2009, 8:26 pm
Board Administrator

ACN News, Monday, 21stth July 2009 – UGANDA

Going home

John Newton and Eva-Maria Kolmann

PRIESTS and seminarians in Uganda dedicated to helping displaced people are celebrating a job well done after they returned to their home villages in their thousands.

Around 80 percent of the internal refugees – many of whom have lived in displacement camps for 20 years – have now returned to the villages they originally came form, according to Monsignor Cosmas Alule, rector of Alokolum major seminary in Gulu diocese, northern Uganda.

Speaking to Aid to the Church in Need, the charity for persecuted and other suffering Christians, he told how the refugee camp that had grown up around the seminary during the country’s civil war was gradually emptying.

Independent reports from organisations including the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre say that up to 1.8 million people were displaced along the northern border in the Acholi, Lango and Teso sub-regions – with up to 400,000 returning home last year alone.

According to Mgr Alule, even though the final peace accord between the Ugandan government and the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army has not yet been signed, the civil war, which began in 1988, was effectively over.

“Peace has finally arrived”, he said, describing how, unlike a year ago, it is now safe to travel on the roads in the region.

“Nonetheless, the situation is still a real challenge for the Church,” he said.

More than 150 seminarians from Alokolum seminary have continued to support the returning refugees – having lived and worked alongside them in the camps, ministering to their needs.

ACN has provided assistance for the seminary’s work, and has already paid out more than $16,000 in Mass offerings for priests teaching at the seminary to support Alokolum’s ministry with those affected by the civil war.

Students from Alokolum are going into the villages, helping returning refugees build new lives for themselves.

Many seminarians are teaching in the schools, but children who have grown up in the refugee camps are frequently disturbed and unruly.

Mgr Alule said: “They have never had the chance to learn such things as hard work, self-discipline and respect for other people and their possessions.

“An important part is played here by the older generation, who have preserved their traditional values and are now able to pass them on to the younger people.”

He also told ACN how an “entire generation” of adults are struggling to return to normal life, as in the camps many had forgotten how to earn a living, and there is also the problem of psychological trauma.

Mgr Alule said: “Many people are deeply traumatised, having witnessed such horrors as their own mothers, sisters and wives being raped, children abducted and their fellow humans murdered.”

Monsignor Cosmas Alule, rector of Alokolum major seminary, Gulu. (Photo ACN)

In order to help those affected, a number of pastoral workers are being trained in a centre set up for this purpose by the diocese of Gulu.

The rector said the Church had taken a “prophetic decision” to keep the seminary in Alokolum and not move it to a less dangerous part of the country.

Mgr Alule added that if they had relocated, the faithful would have been given the impression that the Church was abandoning the suffering people in order to keep the seminarians safe.

He said the Church had retained the trust of the people.

The monsignor added that this had been “an important signal for the future,” showing “that the Church is on the side of the people in their joy and suffering.”

According to Mgr Alule the war left no seminarian unscathed, which means they empathise with other Ugandans and provide good pastoral care.

Many seminarians were born in the camps or had been abducted by the rebels.

Despite these challenges the number of vocations continues to rise.

During the last academic year there were 163 seminarians, while in the coming one there will be 206 – but the building is only really suitable for around 140 students.

ACN is committed to providing $15,0010 for the construction of a new dormitory.

Editor’s Notes:

Directly under the Holy See, Aid to the Church in Need supports the faithful wherever they are persecuted, oppressed or in pastoral need. ACN is a Catholic charity – helping to bring Christ to the world through prayer, information and action.

Founded in 1947 by Fr Werenfried van Straaten, whom Pope John Paul II named “An outstanding Apostle of Charity”, the organisation is now at work in about 130 countries throughout the world.

The charity undertakes thousands of projects every year including providing transport for clergy and lay Church workers, construction of church buildings, funding for priests and nuns and help to train seminarians. Since the initiative’s launch in 1979, 46.5 million Aid to the Church in Need Child’s Bibles have been distributed worldwide.

For more information, please contact the Australian office of ACN on (02) 9679-1929. e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org or write to Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148. Web: www.aidtochurch.org

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Aid to the Church in Need PO Box 6245 Blacktown DC NSW 2148 ABN: 62 418 911 594
Ph/Fax (02) 9679-1929 e-mail: info@aidtochurch.org web: www.aidtochurch.org