Mission Direct - Volunteers helping the world's poor

Kotomor, Northern Uganda

Giving childhood back to Uganda's displaced boys and girls

Mission Direct is partnering with the mission agency Youth With A Mission (YWAM) to provide a school for an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in Kotomor, in the North West of the country.

 

 

These families are refugees in their own country due to the terrible legacy of the Lord's Resistance Army - a terrible violent cult led by a self-styled messiah figure. During 20 years of war with the (LRA) rebels, over 1 million people were displaced from their homes and Northern Uganda became notorious for atrocities and the abductions of children by the rebel army, turned into brutal child soldiers. Now that the LRA has been removed from Uganda and the country is returning to normality YWAM has developed a programme focusing on school children in Kotomor. The aim is to help them deal with the traumas they have faced. As well as proper education for these children the school will offer opportunities for them to see life with a different perspective through counseling, fun, sport and education for the future.

This isn't just the chance of an education, this is a chance for these children to get their lives back; to make a fresh start.

The planned school is a seven classroom building with a counselling room and teacher accommodation. YWAM have started construction and some classrooms are now being used for teaching even though they have only mud floors and no windows or doors. Mission Direct plans to help develop the school in 2010.

Other Highlights

After 10 days in Kotomor we visit the Murchison Falls National Park and stay overnight in a game lodge and go on safari where you may see Lions, Elephants, Hippo, and Water Buffalo.