Uganda and Its Present Situation While many of us are aware of the turmoil that has affected post-colonial Africa since the 1960’s, relatively few are aware of the particular situation that now embroils Uganda .

A Brief History Since the late 1980s Uganda has rebounded from the abyss of civil war and economic catastrophe to become relatively peaceful, stable and prosperous. But the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in the northern districts, those bordering the Sudan , remain blighted by one of Africa 's most brutal rebellions. In the 1970s and 1980s Uganda was notorious for its human rights abuses, first during the military dictatorship of Idi Amin from 1971-79 and then after the return to power of Milton Obote, who had been ousted by Amin. During this time up to half a million people were killed in state-sponsored violence. Since becoming president in 1986 Yoweri Museveni has introduced democratic reforms and has been credited with substantially improving human rights, notably by reducing abuses by the army and the police.

President Museveni has not, however been able to prevail against the insurgent Lord's Resistance Army, led by one Joseph Kony, the LRA’s cult-like leader who has said he wants to run the country along the lines of the biblical Ten Commandments. Military action and tentative peace talks have not halted the massacres and mutilations perpetrated by the Lord's Resistance Army against civilians in the north. The violence has displaced more than 1.6 million people and tens of thousands have been killed or kidnapped in the course of nearly two decades.

Moses Zimbe and the AYCA Several years ago, I Moses Zimbe, beheld the circumstances surrounding orphans whose parents had been killed by the LRA or by the AIDS epidemic and decided to do something about it. At age 22, i was able to secure 32 acres of my mother’s clan land and establish an orphanage which now houses some 100 children in the village of Kikusa Magoggo, about 25 kilometers north west of the capital city, Kampala. With help from local residents, i founded the Abandoned Children and Youth Association (ACYA), began planting maize and beans, and provided these otherwise helpless orphans with a safe place to sleep at night, the food, however insufficient, that can be grown on the land around the village, and most importantly, perhaps, a flicker of hope in youthful eyes that had become glazed by despair, sorrow and hunger. During these times i have faced adversity in a way which is an example to us all.

While it is estimated that more than 20,000 children have been abducted by the LRA and made into sex slaves or child-soldiers, I endevered to give my and soul to the safety and hope for a better life of several hundred orphans. Though my back, my will and my spirit is strong, my dear i can not continue to do this good work without help. The maize crops are not supported by any irrigation wells. In fact the village of Kikusa Magoggo itself has only an intermittently functioning well. Thus, during the dry season (November through February in Uganda ) i and my orphans drink from catchment ditches that fill during the occasional rains.

Most of the children suffer from malnutrition, and display the familiar bloated stomachs that result from Kwashiorkor, a phenomenon common in the children of Africa . Knowing that being a brave young man , i have been inspired and given the strength to accomplish such good, one child at a time, one life saved and then another, how can we fail to assist him? No Oxfam, no Save the Children program is there for him, due to said organizations’ discomfort with political events now happening in Uganda . Just as i Moses Zimbe took it into my heart to act outside of bureaucracies, we hope that those who wish my cause well will take the same personal initiative.


Moses Zimbe