Salvation Army in Uganda makes education for children in camps a priority

Children are suffering terribly because of the current crisis in Uganda. Hundreds of children have been killed and hundreds more forcibly abducted from their families, while many thousands have fled to the squalor but relative safety of IDP (Internally Displaced Persons) camps.

Children in the camps quickly learn to cope without many of the things most people take for granted. Food, clean water, adequate sanitation facilities and basic medical care are rarely-seen 'luxuries'. Getting an education is yet another huge problem for these children – and it's one of the problems that The Salvation Army is determined to help solve.

Sometimes there are no teachers in the camp. Even where there are teachers – who often have had to flee for their own lives – there are no classrooms and no supplies. So the children who want to learn huddle together under the shelter of a tree while a teacher tries to teach them with no materials.

Even the children who live near enough to a town to attend a regular school face great challenges. Captain Mike McKee, currently on assignment to launch Salvation Army emergency relief operations in Lira, Uganda, visited an IDP camp located within 100 yards of a public school there. Captain McKee explains: 'Initially we were relieved to think that at least these children would have an easy time getting their education but we were wrong. Even here, so close to a regular school, the children face an uphill battle.'

The public schools in Lira were hopelessly overcrowded even before the camp was set up. Now, with hundreds of additional children sheltering nearby, there isn't any room. The few IDP children who manage to find a place don't have a school uniform and the parents, if they are around, certainly can't afford to buy one. The school's headmaster says that the children from the camp mostly just 'hang around', not attending classes because they feel so different to the other students.

Fortunately, help is on the way. The Salvation Army team in Lira is busy making preparations in order to demonstrate – in practical, tangible ways – that the world has not forgotten the people there. Donations to The Salvation Army's Africa Crisis Fund will help provide for the needs of the victims of Uganda's 'forgotten crisis'.