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John Njendahayo – Link Programme Report – Summer 2006

It has been a very busy summer throughout June and July.

Gavin Mart (son of John Harvey's predecessor at St Michael's) flew out to Kenya early June, to collect the vehicles from a ship in Mombasa and bring a team together to drive them across Kenya and into Uganda to have them in Kampala in time for the main programme starting early July. This whole adventure has been written up by Gavin in a 10 page report which makes compulsive reading. If you would like a copy then please email Revd Tim Hall at

tim@link-international.org

Also early on in June Rachel and Frances (students from Liverpool and Nottingham) arrived at John’s Centre to spend 3 weeks working with a shanty town church and joined their young people’s team, visiting homes and hospitals and running children’s activity programmes. They were then joined late June by Laura Whitaker from Mission House 14+ fellowship and Emmanuel Christian Centre in Llandudno. Together the three girls spent a week teaching at Katwe United School, following this they went south for two weeks and spent one week in a remote mountain village with Revd Arthur, visiting the dispersed mountain community in their home and teaching in the school. For a further week they went to Mbarara to Pastor Emmanuel’s church. They lived with Emmy’s family and many orphans in a household of 23! The girls spent much of their time in the orphanage school.

On 9^th July the St David’s College Team arrived at John’s Centre. The team composed eight 16 year old pupils, six boys and two girls plus two members of staff. For two weeks they ran an activity programme in Katwe United School. The programme was highly successful and the whole experience had a huge impact on both our pupils and the people of the Katwe shanty town. In week 3, the team travelled south, collected Laura from Mbarara and headed for Rwanda. The experience in Rwanda was hugely challenging and the young people experienced first-hand the atrocities of the geonocide, as they visited the Jenocide Memorial in Kigali and then the gruesome genocide site at Nyamata. Here 10,000 Tutsis had gathered in a church for refuge during the massacres only to be trapped and slaughtered. The team were shown round by a girl who was 9 years old at the time of the massacre, was in the church when the people were being slaughtered, but hid under a mountain of bodies, escaped to the marshes and somehow survived until the Tutsi army arrived. To help process this whole experience and their own emotions, the team spent two nights on the way back to Kampala in the Queen Elizabeth national Park and the beautiful Ruwenzori Mountains.

Each of the pupils were given a painting from the school – Sam Charlesworth receives his…

So much has been achieved this summer – vehicles successfully delivered, 3 church communities encouraged by our teams visiting and working with them, 3 schools visited and children really shown they are loved, an orphanage had time and care invested in it, and our young people deeply challenged and moved by their experiences. Experiences that will help shape their lives and the major decisions each faces in the next few months and years.

Future plans

Phase 1 By Christmas we hope to have finished the accommodation units at John’s Centre. The units are designed to increase the flexibility of the work of the Centre, enabling family groups, increased numbers of young people or longer stay 'early-retired-VSO' type folks who can bring appropriate skills to the work of the Centre. The units could also be rented out to local people if there were gaps in visitors at the Centre. £5000 is required to complete this work.

Phase 2 The facility would provide training courses via the International Computer Driving License, a local high quality internet cafe in a rapidly developing residential area with a new University within walking distance. The target figure for completing the facility is £15,000 and will provide 10 computer stations, fully networked, with up-front projection for teaching, state-of-the-art software, and one year's subscription to satellite broadband connection.

And a dream..... Set up a permanent camp close to the Ruwenzori Mountains (The Mountains of the Moon) and The Queen Elizabeth National Park. The dream would be for our young people from UK to take young people from the shanty town communities that we are building links with in Kampala and share the delights of the beauty, trekking and seeing the animals. Target figure £10,000 to buy the land, set a water supply, toilet facility, some small huts and a communal cooking, eating and sharing shelter.