Community Life

There's a camp in Northern Uganda which is home to 15,000 displaced people, and for many of them, it's the only 'home' they've ever known. Some were born at the camp and have lived there all their lives.

The residents at the Palenga camp are members of the Acholi tribe, victims of the civil war which has ripped the country apart for the past 21 years.

Life for Acholi children can be dangerous - and short. Many are the victims of abduction, torture, rape and mutilation. Disease is also a big killer.

An aerial view of a Ugandan camp

When Joanna Pike from Newton Abbot learned of their plight, she decided she couldn't just sit back and do nothing.

Joanna, who was born in East Africa, has set up a charity, Women and Children in Africa (WACIA), which was officially launched in March 2007.

However, Joanna has already visited the Palenga camp - she went there twice in 2006, and she has co-ordinated the delivery of aid which is already being put to good use.

And she returned at the end of May 2007, to take toys and clothes to Palenga and to draw up plans for a new school for children and other facilities at Keyo in northern Uganda.

Of the 15,000 people in the Palenga camp, 2,000 of them are under the age of six. Some are orphans, while others are left on their own all day while their parents work out in the fields.

Before her visits in 2006, the children had never seen a toy before - and they didn't know what to do with them.

Joanna Pike watching video footage back at home

"When I went over there in December (2006), I deliberately took basic toys," said Joanna.

"But they didn't know what to do. It hadn't occurred to me that, of course, the children wouldn't know what to do with even the simplest toys.

"During our visit, it became obvious that both the children and staff at the day care centre need help to understand how to use the toys effectively."

Unicef built a hut at the camp for the children to use, but it was padlocked and unused for 18 months.

WACIA has now turned the building into a day care centre for the children, thanks to a donation from Judy Fearne from Taunton. Judy was in the group which went out to Uganda in May 2007, and she helped to deliver a consignment of toys.

The charity has also paid for a fence to go up around the centre so that the children are safe.

Collecting water from the river

Joanna's aim is to provide help to camps in Northern Uganda and Tanzania by funding projects which are small, achievable, and self-sustaining.

But there's another - equally important - aim: "I can't believe that, until two years ago, I was unaware of what was going on," said Joanna.

"The atrocities are appalling. And around 1,000 people are dying in these camps of preventable diseases like typhoid and malaria.

"Aids is also an enormous problem with rates in some camps estimated to be as high as 33%.

"All this has been going on now for 21 years, and yet the vast majority of people seem totally unaware of it.

"When the genocides happened in Bosnia and Rwanda, the western world said 'we will never let this happen again'. Yet here we are, allowing it to continue.

"We need to raise awareness about what's going on."

Since the charity's launch in March 2007, Joanna has been amazed at the number of volunteers who have come forward with offers of help.

She is sifting through dozens of letters from would-be volunteers - some of whom have teaching and nursing experience and have offered to go to Uganda.

You can contact Joanna via the WACIA website which is linked from this page.