The Arch-Angel Thomas

You may not have heard of the celestial being whose name forms the title of this blog entry, but according to many people, he definitely exists. By their account, he came into their village school one day, sent by God and bringing a plan for their salvation. They now honour him for transforming their lives and their prospects. These people are members of the Atiira Disability Support Group. I am only exaggerating a little.

My version is more like this: Dr Tom was trying to apply the little knowledge he had gained about participatory action research to the situation of disabled people around Soroti, encouraged by Global Care staff. Thanks to the help received from people like Richard, the head teacher of Atiira Primary School, himself disabled, I was able to complete data gathering quite quickly. So I decided to feed back the information to the participants, following good practice in this kind of work. To my surprise they decided on the spot to set up a disability support group and it has gone from strength to strength. Some support and guidance from Global Care and from Richard has helped avoid the pitfalls, and some regular finance has supplemented their efforts. Really though, it is the willingness of the ordinary members, mostly very poor and uneducated, to trust one another, invest their own resources, pool risks, and focus efforts on the most needy, that is starting to lift them out of destitution. So today we were able to hear about a home built for a desperate family, wheelchairs provided, enterprise loans, and livestock distribution that transforms the prospects for families. Soon they hope to obtain a maize mill, so that local people can get their corn ground and the group can earn some cash. They have also been able to help the new group in Abeko about which I wrote yesterday.

One lady, for whom the new house was built, is still facing problems as she doesn’t have access to any land to grow crops to feed her severely disabled boy. Though not a young woman, she had even tried breaking rocks to earn some cash. We were able to suggest that she apply to the group for a micro-loan to do some trading. This is a good example of how the group can operate for the benefit of members, without them having to rely on handouts.

So, maybe it was God’s plan and timing, and the results are praiseworthy, but I’ll not put on any wings just yet. Meanwhile here is a proper angel for you.