UGANDA

THE ORPHAN GENERATION

40 Minutes

 

Sequence: Funeral

 

00.02.14

Commentary: Rakai district in South West Uganda

 

00.02.48

Another death, another funeral. In the wake of the AIDS pandemic these ceremonies have become so commonplace that people can barely afford the time away from work to mourn their dead.

 

00.03.03

20 years of civil unrest and economic decline have rendered Uganda highly vulnerable to the ravages of AIDS. One in six adults carries the virus that causes the disease.

 

00.03.13

Whole communities have been devastated.

 

00.03.26

But grief is not the only legacy of AIDS. By the year 2000, the World Health Organisation predicts, between 10 and 15 million children worldwide will have lost at least their mothers and possibly their fathers, to AIDS.

 

FREEZE OF CHILD

 

Title Caption:                 THE ORPHAN GENERATION

 

Sequence: Kabonera GVs

 

00.03.49

Commentary: This film is about the struggles of one Ugandan village to cope with the deepening orphan crisis. In Kabonera, in Rakai district, one child in eight has lost at least one parent to AIDS.

 

Across Africa, a generation of AIDS orphans is growing up without parental guidance and support. Yet like all children, they carry our hopes for the future. How can we find a way to protect and care for them?

 

Sequence: singing. With crawler captions.

 

1.    And I Rose that you see

Have too much sorrow

Because mama died

When I was still small

 

2.    And I Abi that you see

Have too much sorrow

Because papa died

When I was still small

 

3.    We’re happy, we’re laughing

Even as we suffer

Knowing that

Misfortune never lasts forever

 

Moses Dombo:

In the past, in the African culture, there was no orphan, because a child belonged to the community. A child belonged to the clan. Even if a father died or a mother died, a next-of-kin took over the responsibility of caring for that family. Today however that situation is changing. So many people have died in such a short time that you find – ok, there are cases where a parent died and somebody took over the responsibility and that one also died, so you find that orphanhood exists.

 

 

CASE STUDY: CHILDREN FENDING FOR THEMSELVES

 

Sequence: Veronica and family playing

 

00.05.19

Commentary: These five orphans live entirely alone. For more than a year now they have tried to fend for themselves remaining in the home where they first watched their mother, then their father die from AIDS.

 

Sequence: Children enter shamba and hunt for pumpkin

 

00.05.33

Commentary: This large and fertile shamba once fed the whole family with plenty. Now it’s rapidly falling into ruin.

 

00.05.45

Among the thriving weeds, the children hunt for food. There is still some to be found here, planted originally by the parents. But as bush takes over, only the last of this remains and the children are left struggling to cultivate their lush green wilderness. The eldest, now the head of the family, is fourteen year-old Veronica.

 

Sequence: Veronica walking through shamba

 

Veronica:

You can see how the sorghum field is running to weeds. There’s no-one to cultivate it. It wasn’t like this in the past. The whole area was neat. You see how the weed has spread.

 

This is the sorghum we planted when Daddy was ill, under his supervision. We’ve so far harvested three bags. The first crop was stolen, the second as well. They had started stealing even the third and so we said “Wait! What must we do? Let’s harvest the crop and earn some money for ourselves.” There are still people against us.

 

00.06.49

Commentary: The neglected coffee garden once generated a healthy income.

 

Sequence: Coffee picking

 

Veronica: (Voice over without Luganda underneath)

When Daddy was around we used to get up to 15 bags, but now we only get around five because no-one looks after the crop. Now whatever we harvest is mostly stolen.

 

00.07.05

Commentary: Besides being vulnerable to theft, orphans are in danger of losing their land. The risk deters many from leaving the parental home, says Rakai’s District Administrator, Robina Kasadha.

 

Robina Kasadha:

Before the last parent dies they tell their children that, if I die, don’t leave the home because we have some greedy relatives who think that when the parent dies or parents die, they tend to love the children at that moment. Deceive them to take them home to their own homes you know. By doing so they’re aiming to take the properties of the children. So now, many children don’t like to leave their homes.

 

Sequence: Coffee spreading

 

00.07.56

Commentary: With little experience and no-one to do the heavy work, Veronica’s family are trying to make their crops pay.

 

00.08.04

Running a homestead demands so much time and strength that many AIDS orphans are forced to drop out of school, damaging their long-term prospects. Against the odds, these children are still attending their primary classes.

 

Sequence: Education song (crawler captions)

 

I used to go to school,

But I lost everything when I lost my mother

There’s a lot of suffering in the world, Pity me, pity me.

 

Sequence: Broken down wash house

 

00.08.54

Commentary: A wash house, built by the children and child-sized.

 

00.08.58

Desperate as it seems, for many orphans, fending for themselves is the only available option. In this way, they can keep their land and remain together as a family. The role of parent has fallen to Veronica.

 

Veronica:

The main difficulty is getting up early in the morning to wake them up. They won’t get up until you call them. And coming back to cook for them and even wash their clothes on Saturday, because they can’t wash their clothes for themselves and they can’t bathe themselves. Let’s put it this way, everything people normally do is difficult.

 

00.09.37

Commentary: Veronica’s struggle to care for her brothers and sisters will soon prevent her from pursuing her education. To enable the family to survive, she has forfeited her own childhood.

 

Sequence: Porridge eating

 

Veronica:

Most of all I have to work hard to make sure these kids don’t go begging for food in the village.

 

When Dad was alive we never used to be this desperate. We never got short of anything, because he used to say, if you crave something, you’ll go to the neighbours, and I don’t want my children begging. And if we wanted anything, he would buy it and we would eat it and that was that.

 

 

CASE STUDY: SINGLE PARENT

 

Sequence: Semammbo walking across fields to fish

 

00.10.19

Commentary: The hardships of AIDS orphans begin long before the death of the second parent. Semammbo’s family were living in Entebbe but came home to Kabonera after Semammbo’s father fell ill with AIDS. Two months later, he died. At fifteen, Semammbo has given up school to support his mother. He now works every day of the week, fishing, digging and collecting firewood.

 

Sequence: Semammbo interview

(Partly in voice-over under fishing sequence. Luganda fades out under pictures)

 

Semammbo:

From the time my father died I realised that hard times had begun. It’s true I was working already, but I knew I had my father so I wasn’t really making a big effort. ------ It hadn't yet entered my head that he was going to die or that things could come to this. Then, when my father died, then I started suffering. I started working all the time ---- That's when I realised that the trouble that had befallen me was really very big trouble.

 

I do try. The problem I get now is, I'll go somewhere for a job but I'll have just started an earlier job and not finished it. The bit of money I've already earned, maybe I've used. Then I hear we're out of salt or sugar. So deep down in my heart I get very bothered.

 

Sequence: Broken down house and family in house

 

00.11.34

Commentary: Semammbo's mother, Nabasula, also has AIDS and now grows weaker each day. The cost of medicines is an additional strain on the family's finances. Semammbo and his younger brother built the fragile shelter where they now live. There is little bedding and the wind howls through holes in the walls.

 

Semammbo's mother:

The house leaks. It was never made firm. So when it rains we are really badly off.

 

The last couple of days I've started getting some sleep. But for a long time I haven't had any sleep at all, because of the pain. I sleep badly.

 

Sequence: Semammbo digging

 

00.12.16

Commentary: The family have some land, but it is now suffering from neglect while Semammbo concentrates on working to find cash.

 

Semammbo in voice-over:

Now the problem I have, which I need help with, since my mother is sick - she cannot even drag herself to the banana plantation to do some digging or heaping potatoes or cassava. She's no longer able to do any of these things. So now I'm hoping to get a single job so that I can stop going to dig in the villages to get little bits of cash. So that I have one job and do some digging at home, because the whole place is in ruins.

 

Sequence: Charles preparing matoke

 

00.13.04

Commentary: Semammbo's brother Charles is eleven years old. He looks after their mother, prepares their meals and also earns a little money doing small jobs. In families afflicted by AIDS the roles of parent and child are often reversed as children struggle to support sick parents.

 

00.13.22

Yet even as they wrestle with their poverty these children have the distress of watching a parent die.

 

Sequence: Charles tending a sick mother

 

00.13.36

Commentary: Working with AIDS patients and their families has made Sister Ursula Sharpe familiar with the grief of children.

 

Sister Ursula:

The whole psychological effect on the child – I didn’t think that we know very much about it. We can only compare it to what has been seen with war orphans. But for sure I have seen cases. I can remember one pair, they died. Ho got sick first, the wife got sick. And the few months before the wife died. . she had five children, the oldest was a girl of eleven and it was in an area where we often pass by going down. And many days I would go past that house and find the door closed and the window closed in the middle of the day and I would go in and I would find these five children gathered around the mother on the floor. And it was really interesting because the oldest girl in particular, when the mother had fever, she got fever, when had diarrhoea, she had diarrhoea. It was a total mimicking of mother’s symptoms.

 

Sequence: Family eating meal.

 

00.14.33

Commentary: Semammbo and Charles need material help and emotional support if they are to withstand this troubled period in their lives. Like Veronica’s family, they have at least the security of the land they live on.

 

00.14.47

When orphans have no land and no-one to protect them they can become completely destitute.

 

00.14.55

Increasingly they are leaving the countryside, and migrating to the city in search of income. There they began a new life, as street children.

 

 

CASE STUDY STREET CHILDREN

 

Sequence: George and Kiza walking around the streets with music

 

Fade music,

 

00.15.19

Commentary: George and Kiza are brothers. When their father died he was buried in his home village where the boys had relatives. But once the funerals was over their uncle said he couldn’t feed them and sent them away.

 

The two boys their way to the town of Lyantonde where, like the other street children they found here, they slept rough – taking shelter in empty buildings, or in the back of vehicles. They used bags from the refuse tip for bedding and got up early to avoid being found and beaten. As street children they’re hounded by the local authorities who want them driven out of Lyantonde.

 

 

George and Kiza:

We used to sleep in trailer tyres on the ground-----

 

And I tell you going without food------- I’d say I had nothing to eat for four days------- I was almost starving and lost weight. So I said, a mad person who feeds on rubbish, at least he’s alive isn’t he? So I went to the rubbish tip. There I found a loaf of bread, a big one. I dashed off to a water point, took my loaf of bread, not knowing there was rat poison in it. I sat myself down and began to eat. In that state of hunger I couldn’t feel a thing. I kept eating until the bread was finished. I drowned all that with water. I was full. And I was on my way. Three steps on I felt a sharp pain in my guts. I felt dizzy and started to throw up……

 

Sequence: George and Kiza trying to get some work

 

00.16.53

Commentary: From dawn till dusk the boys chase after work, digging latrines, carrying rubbish and pushing barrows full of luggage for a small commission. But the work is unreliable and they’re sometimes refused payment for their errands.

 

00.17.10

Street children are often badly treated. Mostly they’re regarded as menace. Some become pickpockets. The girls often turn to prostitution. Many street children  petrol to forget the cold and hunger.

 

00.17.29

Today it’s George who strikes lucky with some work.

 

Sequence: Café

 

00.17.50

Commentary: What money they do earn is rapidly spent. Tonight they’ll eat well. Tomorrow they may go hungry.

 

00.18.02

How many of Africa’s orphans will end up as street children., surviving like George and Kiza on bravado and a few frail hopes? How many will be forced to chose between crime and starvation?

 

00.18.16

Across the continent, orphans are struggling to overcome hunger, poverty and grief without adult support. They’re sacrificing education, forfeiting land rights and sliding towards destitution.

 

In the second part of the film we see how these children can be protected against the tide of suffering which threatens to engulf them.

 

Sequence Orphanage. Children woken up. Go outside and queue for drinks

 

00.18.42

Commentary: It’s Morning in the Ugandan orphanage.

 

00.18.46

It’s been a cramped night [wake up, wake up all of you]

 

00.19.00

There are now close to a million orphans inn Uganda, In response to the demand created by the orphan crisis new children’s home have sprung up – Rakai four have opened their doors in the last two years.

 

00.19.14

This orphanage, run by a local church organisation, is ill equipped and under-resourced. It has rapidly recruited 200 children into its care. Many of Uganda’s war orphans were raised n orphanages and these institutions may seem an obvious solution to the present problems.  Yet Government and non-governmental agencies agree that, while such homes have a roll to play in providing short term emergency care, they are not the long term answer.

 

Moses Dombo:

We’re talking about close to 30,000 orphaned children in our district. The immediate reaction one has is – set up an orphanage and then provide care. But how many children are you going to put into an orphanage?  A maximum of 100/200? What happens to the 30,000? Where do they go?

 

Sequence: Children in orphanage

 

00.20.06

Commentary: Setting up orphanages is discouraged by Ugandan Government. Many of these children they say, have relatives in the community. And it is the community who should take on the care of orphans.

 

Jolly Nyako works for the Ministry of Social Welfare.

 

Jolly Nyako:

We are trying to make sure that the children are kept in their families rather than removing them form their family into an orphanage.

Now this policy came after, you know, some bitter experiences. Some 10 years ago when. In the worn-torn areas where children, you know, ran from their families – because there was a war going on, and they were, their parents were dying. And they ran into reception centres. And they grew up in reception centres and became big boys and big girls and by the time they were becoming 15/16 you know it seemed like no one had planned what happens to them at that stage. Trying to resettle them at that stage they are already 15 years, 16 years back into the community became very difficult because somehow they had been detached from their village life and they were already used to an institution where food was always available. You know, a bell is rung and they run for food.

 

Now taking them to the community where they to go and look for the food --- it had become very difficult for them.

 

Sequence: Orphanage: food prepared/ children scratching

 

00.21.33

Commentary: Some orphanages in Uganda are well run, but this home is not even meeting the children’s most basic needs. Food is often short. Children have been forced to go without meals.

 

00.21.45

In the overcrowded conditions disease spreads rapidly and many of the orphans have scabies.

 

Sequence: Inspector visits orphanage

-      van pulls up

 

00.21.56

Commentary: In an attempt to improve the standard of care in orphanages the Ugandan government carries out unannounced inspections.

 

Dialogue:

 

Inspector      -Good afternoon, how are you?

Head            -You are most welcome.

I                  -How many do you sleep?

H                 -There are about 30.

I                  -30 in this small room?

H                 -30 in this small room here.

I                  -How do they sleep inside here?

H                 -Ya.

I                  -If you brought a building inspector here or a health inspector he would certainly recommend that here, this small room accommodate a maximum of six children. Now an extra 24 children, according to me as a government official its more than too much. Are all these children orphans or they have some relatives?

H                 -They have lost parents

I                  -Parents

H                 -And they have got relatives.

I                  -Don’t you think it would have been better to have some of them being looked after by the relatives?

H       - Well, you see, it is a problem because some of these relatives are.. I mean, what I mean to say is they need to be cared and looked for, I mean looked after. We hope they will be well looked after when we are just, when we are having them here.

 

I        - No, but you see, the government emphasises that a child grows up in its natural family, not in an orphanage.  Why don’t you look for the relatives of that child in the community?  Any maybe help the relatives to sponsor two or three children at school, instead of bringing kids here where they can easily catch diseases.

 

H       - Well.

 

I        - It is something you must give serious thought to because now government has put in place rules and regulations governing homes and certainly when the time expires, you know the grace period expired, the government is bound to close this home.

 

Sequence:      Praying

 

00.24.18

Commentary: But however laudable the Government’s aim of returning orphans to their home villages, do these communities have the resources to cope.  Aid agencies are now being encouraged to develop schemes that will bolster the existing family support systems and so enable relatives to take on the extra burden of dependent children.

 

Moses Dombo:

We had about 200 people from the community.  We sat down and we were discussing and tracing the real problem.  And my question to them was “What is the biggest problem in the area?”  And somebody stood up and said “our biggest problem is orphans” and somebody else stood up and said “our biggest problem is poverty”.  And

So we had to ? it out and see what is actually the problem.  And the people agreed and they said “Orphans are a problem because we are poor”.  If we were not poor the orphans would not be a problem.  These are our children.  They are a blessing because we cannot afford to maintain them or even care for them or provide for them the essentials of life.  So in my opinion, if the families can be supported to increase their income, this would be very, very helpful.

 

Sequence: Orphan Registration

 

00.25.30

Commentary: The first step in supporting orphans within the community is to record where they are.  At the instigation of The Orphan Community Based Organisation, OCBO, village councils in Rakai collect this information for a central register.  In Kabonera they are registering their newest orphans.

 

00.25.58

They record which parents children have lost, and who, if anyone, is looking after them.  This crucial information is made available to aid agencies so that they can provide assistance.  Already 6,000 AIDS orphans in Rakai have their school fees paid.

 

CASE STUDY:       GRANDMOTHER WITH MANY CHILDREN

 

Sequence:      Children doing a variety of jobs / children walk back the well past graves of parents

 

00.26.19

Commentary: Those in the front line of caring for AIDS orphans within the community are often the grandparents.

 

00.26.25

Now in her 60s, Josephine is single handedly raising her 25 orphaned grandchildren.

 

00.26.32

She has buried all five of the sons and daughters who would normally have supported her into her old age.

 

00.26.40

One thing she’s not short of is help with the daily chores.  Under her supervision everything gets done.

 

00.26.49

The meals they are preparing will be eaten in three shifts.

 

00.26.49

In Uganda such huge families are becoming commonplace.

 

00.27.00

To help this one to cope OCBO has arranged for an aid agency to pay the school fees for all the children.  They also provide them with a little sugar and flour.

 

00.27.12

Molly is working for OCBO and regularly visits the family to see how they’re managing.

 

Molly:

Madam, how are the children?

 

Grandmother:

They are so so.  Some are OK.  Some are sick.  But thank you for coming to help me, because I was very worried.  These children, I brought up their fathers.  When my own children grew up, they would have brought up their own children.  But now I have to undergo the duty of bringing up children a second time.  When they get sick, I have no money.

 

Molly:

Mother, now what are the problems that you have found in dealing with these children?

 

Grandmother:

For the young ones I just can’t tell you.  I’m the only one who knows.  And now during this time when I’m sick, I’ve had a lot of struggle because I struggle with them both during the night and during the day.  As I told you the other time, I have to wake up three times in the night to check on those who have wet their beds and put fresh bedding for them.

 

00.28.44

Commentary: Thanks to their grandmother’s endurance these children have a home.  But Josephine must have support if she is not to buckle under the strain.  Manuel Pinto chairs the Ugandan Community Based Association for Child Welfare.

 

Manuel Pinto:

The communities are willing to work.  Their constraint is mostly, the people who are intervening have been the old grandparents or the other ladies and men, within quite an advanced age group.  Then there is a very high level of poverty.  I would even call abject poverty.  That they’re not able to cope in giving meaningful assistance to these children.  So these are the areas of intervention that we want to address.  Can we assist these people who are trying to help with some kind of support and can we, as communities, design programmes where we can get the others to participate?  And give these people support within the community?  It is growing, tilling the land of these people, growing the food, helping the children to go to school, helping to teach them skills, practical skills, all within the community.

 

Sequence:      UCOBAC meeting

(“Out” words: Who are the NGOs that you really want to participate in this programme?)

 

00.30.05

Commentary: Local and international aid agencies trying to help orphans need to cooperate if they are to make the most of limited funds.  The Ugandan Community Based Association for Child Welfare, UCOBAC, coordinates the efforts of different groups, making sure that they are not simply duplicating the same work.  UCOBAC aims to make sure that the aid directed at orphans is ploughed into projects which are both effective and sustainable.  To do this they encourage the large agencies to work through smaller locally based groups and so capitalise on the energy and expertise of the community itself.

 

Sequence:      Kabonera women’s group, washing

 

00.30.52

Commentary: In Kabonera a women’s group has transformed a building that was one a bar into an orphan day centre.  Now some 100 children come here for help and support.  This weekly washing session is not just about hygiene.  It’s a chance to find out how the children are getting on at home.  All over Uganda the fact that women traditionally care for the children has put them in the forefront of the present crisis.

 

Captions for song:

 

          Women all of us today

          This is the time for us to grow

          But

          We need to find out what keeps us

          From rising in our Uganda

 

Sequence:      Kabonera women’s group talk

 

Woman 1      - The children feel at ease because we are all women.  They grow up much better with our women’s ideas.  Whatever we tell them, they understand.

 

Woman 2      - We thought about it ourselves.

Let’s say we thought that as mothers [of the nation] we were obliged to look after those orphans, take care of them and teach then what their parents would have taught them if they were alive. (09.10.58)

 

Woman 3      - When we saw the children were suffering a lot, we got an idea and opened up a small school for them; and that’s been difficult because we had to rent the house and pay the teacher.  We got an organisation to support us, but it’s still a problem because the number of children goes up every day.

 

Sequence:      Language lesson

 

00.32.30

Commentary: The women’s school can provide a crucial opportunity for orphans who are often forced to drop out of school because they can’t afford school fees.

 

00.32.44

Even so, these lessons are pitifully inadequate since there isn’t the money for furniture, books or writing paper.

 

Sequence:      Charles walking to day centre

 

00.32.55

Commentary: For Semammbo’s brother Charles the day centre has been a lifeline.  A place to find friends and emotional support, and to learn new skills.

 

00.33.12

The children are taught handicrafts here.  The brushes and mats cost nothing to make but can be sold or used at home.

 

Sequence:      Women digging visited by Fred Wajje

 

00.33.22

Commentary: The women have given their own money to set up the centre but they desperately need more funds.  On this land they are planning to grow food for the children.  In the hope of gaining support for the project they have invited Fred Wajje, an agriculturist from World Vision to see what they are doing.

 

Dialogue between Fred and women:

 

Fred   - It would have been better if you had got a tractor as soon as possible to cultivate before planting sweet potatoes.  By the way, did you also want to plant beans too?

 

Woman 1. – Yes, beans and cassava.

 

Fred. – Now what do you want to do with the food – is it for your consumption or for sale?

 

Woman 2. – That food is for feeding the orphans and our only aim is to feed the orphans.  Should there be any surplus, then we sell it.

 

00.34.09

Commentary: Community initiatives like the Kabonera centre provide an opportunity for aid agencies to help the children most directly affected by the AIDS orphans crisis.

 

Fred Wajje:

We are willing to assist them if they can let us know what they want, for example, they want to re-plough that land.  We are ready to pay the tractor owner to come and re-plough the land and if they want seeds, they tell us how many seeds they want, how many kilos, and we can buy the seeds and bring to them.

 

Sequence: Sewing machine lesson

 

00.34.42

Commentary: The women have asked the village tailor to teach their orphans to sew.  A skill like this may help this girl to weather hardship in the years ahead.  For orphans who are forced to support themselves at an early age, vocational training is especially valuable and can be effectively supported by aid agencies.

 

Moses Dombo: (cut to blacksmith sequence under synch)

The type of vocational training we are thinking of is not setting up a big technical institute or setting up a big vocational school,.  But identifying a blacksmith in the village, or a tailor in the village or a carpenter and help him to take on a few children and train them gradually.  A kind of apprenticeship.

 

00.35.25

Commentary: With foresight, orphans can also be equipped with important vocational skills by their families.

 

Sequence: Beer making

 

00.35.34

Commentary: Parents facing death have a race against time to pass on their most valuable skills to their children before they become too ill.

 

00.35.45

Gerard and his young brother are learning to make beer for sale in the village.  They’re being taught by their father, John, who has AIDS.

 

00.35.57

This is a crucial period for the family to prepare the children as well as they can for the years ahead.  It’s important for instance that the father makes a will to ensure they keep the land which is rightfully theirs.

 

Sequence: Gerard and mother dialogue

 

00.36.16

Commentary: Gerard must care for his mother, Fausta, who also has AIDS, and is now very ill.

 

Mother: Well done with the brewing

 

Gerard: That’s OK

 

Mother:  Have you finished for the day?

 

Gerard:  Yes we’re through with the day.

 

Mother:  MMMmm

 

Gerard:  I made enough for two days.

 

Mother:  MMMmm

 

Gerard:  I made two lots.

 

Mother:  So you worked very fast

 

Gerard:  Yes, we worked very fast

 

Shall I rub some Vaseline on?

 

Mother:  Yes, rub a bit of that stuff on me.  The whole body hurts.  The whole body has dried.  Do you see it?  The body doesn’t have any more blood.

 

Mother:  Can I have some orange to drink?

 

00.37.09

Commentary:  Sister Ursula believes that as parents approach death, much can and should be done to alleviate their distress.

 

Sister Ursula:

I’ve seen many, many patients before they die and I don’t think I’ve ever found any that were afraid of dying, but their real concern was concern for the children.  So my own thinking would be why should a child watch its parent die from diarrhoea when a very simple medicine can stop it?  Why should a child see its father or mother scratching itself to death?  Why should they see such an undignified end to their father and mother when simple drugs can keep them alive?  So I feel very strongly, let us keep these children from being orphaned for as long as possible.  For a small child, every day, every day is imperative that it has the mother and father with it, particularly the mother.

 

Sequence:  Kitovu medical team arrive

 

00.38.05

Commentary:  The Kitovu hospital helps those children destined to become orphans by keeping their parents alive and comfortable for as long as possible.  Their mobile health team visits families in the community, dispensing simple medicines and treatment.  They see Gerard’s family once a fortnight.

 

Sequence: Dialogue between nurse and Fausta

 

Nurse:  Oh our Fausta.  Fausta Nassune.

 

Mother:  Yes madam

 

Nurse: Now Fausta, how are you?

 

Mother:  I have a lot of pain in my body, I have pain all over here in my joints.

 

Nurse:  Can you sit?

 

Mother:  Yes I can sit.

 

00.38.43

Commentary:  John and Fausta’s youngest child may also have AIDS.  In the future, caring for the small ones will fall to Gerard.  The Kitovu project has introduced him to a counsellor who is helping him to plan ahead.  Joseph is one of 260 community workers trained by Kitovu hospital’s mobile AIDS health programme.

 

Sequence:  Gerard Counselled by Joseph

 

Gerard:  You see what I had planned, I had planned to get somebody who would be able to help me.  It would work out if someone would take care of the young ones.

 

Joseph:  Is this someone just a friend, or is it going to be a wife?

 

Gerard:  My wife.

 

Joseph:  When do you plan to do that?  As you can see your parents are sick and you don’t know when God will call them.  So when do you plan to do this?  The idea of getting somebody to help you with things?

 

Gerard:  I did want to work on it in a little while from now.  In this year I wanted to start on it.  But as you can see I don’t really have any proper help because I’m not working.  You can see how it is.

 

Sequence:  Family praying

 

00.40.00

Commentary:  John and Fausta pray that they will live long enough to help Gerard marry and set up a home for the young ones, but time is running out.

 

00.40.10

For this family, medical care is keeping AIDS at bay and winning precious months in which to face the future.

 

Sequence:  Sex education session

 

00.40.34

Commentary:  For millions of children AIDS is destroying childhood.  Education is the only weapon which can ensure that the disease does not also destroy their adult lives.  The Kitovu project holds monthly orphan days to raise awareness of the disease.  Today they are visiting Kabonera.

 

Counsellor:

Who do you think is not infected?  Put your hand up and come and point him or her out.  Look and think.  Yes, you come over and touch him or her.

 

Child:

This one?

 

Counsellor:

This one?

 

Child:

Yes.

 

Counsellor:

Why do you think this one is not infected?  Is it him?

 

Child:

Yes.

 

Counsellor:  Why do you think this one is not infected?  Is it him?

 

Children:

Because he is fat.

 

Counsellor:
Because he is fat?  And a soldier as well eh?  No friends, let me tell you, even a soldier can be infected.

 

00.41.25

Commentary:  Working with small groups the counsellors can break down the usual taboos about sexual matters.  They encourage the children to speak freely about intimate human relationships and to explore ways in which they can protect themselves against the virus.  Through open discussion it is possible to build an awareness that could prevent this generation from simply repeating the mistakes of the last one.

 

Sister Ursula:
This is a slow process but we must make a start.  And my hope would be that these children themselves, these teenagers, that if they themselves become convinced, through a kind of thought process, then hopefully they would convince their friends and it would kind of have a spread effect on the community.  That’s my hope and we can only try.  But we must try.

 

Sequence:  Children at Kabonera centre

 

00.42.21

The parents of these orphans must have had many hopes and fears as they faced death, unable to complete the job of raising their own children.  The communities must be enabled to fulfil that task for them, meeting these children’s needs and protecting their rights, for the sake of the future.

 

Robina Kasadha:

We have to protect this younger generation, more than the adults.  Unless we do that, then our country will perish.

 

Closing Sequence: Children sing together at Kabonera women’s centre.  Play out under credits.