We're fast approaching the end of the second term at Uganda Hands for Hope. I had planned this week to write a blog post detailing what we've been up to this term, including lots of positive things like securing more funding for our children with disabilities programme, new livelihood programmes, fantastic support from volunteers and visitors, carrying out assessments for new children to come on to the programme, events we've delivered, young people starting apprenticeships after completing their vocational courses and my experience as chief guest at the primary school's annual sports day....

 

I will write a post about these things, however I wanted to quickly write a blog detailing some fairly devastating and sad events that have happened over the last few days.

 



The Namuwongo informal settlement (or "slum") that we work in is made up of hundreds of houses and businesses (small stalls selling mainly food). The large majority of the families we support rent their one roomed houses from landlords, some who built their houses many years ago, some legally and some illegally. The settlement has been in existence for at least 40 years and, in fact, some of the families we work with have lived there for that long.

 

For many years there have been rumours that the city council here (KCCA) would demolish the slum, however these rumours were never realised and the slum continued to grow. However, KCCA recently published a notice in a local paper stating that they would begin evicting people who live 30 metres either side of the railway line, giving families very little time to vacate and no compensation. This is in order to develop the railway line (currently one cargo train goes down the line per week). This would mean the demolition of around 50% of the slum affecting thousands of people.

 

Since this notice was published local elected leaders here have been lobbying for a longer time period for residents to rehouse and for compensation (though compensation for the landlords obviously won't help most of the families that we support). Last week our head social worker and I met with various agencies, including the Rift Valley Railway who own most of the land and with local leaders. We also held a full parents' meeting to try and give parents as much information as we could (the picture of what was actually going to happen was very confused).

The general consensus at the end of last week was that the evictions would probably happen starting this week but over a staggered time period. Nobody expected what actually happened. At midnight on Sunday police came into the community telling people they were about to evicted. By 3am bulldozers had started the demolition. People were left sitting outside with their belongings and with no idea where to go. Most of our families can not afford the three months upfront rent needed for a new house (and, unsurprisingly, landlords around the area have this week hiked their rents up...) nor money to travel back to  families in their villages. Monday was also a public holiday here (for Eid) meaning community organisations in the area (including Hands for Hope) were closed as were schools. This meant that people were taken even more by surprise, that children weren't in school and so witnessed the demolition of their homes and that it was more difficult for community organisations to respond.

 

I spent some time in community today and was totally stunned by what I saw; chaos, anger, fear and distress. The demolition continues and those who know their houses will be destroyed are knocking their houses down themselves in a desperate attempt to salvage some of the building materials.  These are some of the scenes:

 

 

We have today launched an appeal to raise funds for those families most badly affected (see here -  http://eepurl.com/ZVZwD). We have had a good response to this so far. We are still trying to assess the situation for many of our families and our social work team is doing an incredible job. Many families are sleeping in the slum with their belongings and no shelter. Our first priority with the fund will be to support the rehousing of these people and others who are homeless. We will also use it to help people set up businesses and so rebuild their lives sustainably (many mothers have lost their businesses as many were situated along the railway line).

 

The people this eviction is directly affecting are some of the poorest and most vulnerable people in the country. The scenes in their community at the moment and the upset and distress evident in the children in our classrooms is heartbreaking.