Written 20 March, 2012-
It’s been nice to see that the media is beginning to talk more and more about the atrocities committed by Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army. Suzy has gotten to know a few ladies over the last year or so who have been personally affected by the evil acts of the LRA. She and a friend went to visit one of them last weekend. Emily is a young woman that Suzy has gotten to know well at the weekly craft market, and Suzy wanted to explore possibilities for Emily to make some jewelry to be sold in the U.S. through Friday Market Beads.
Their journey started with a series of taxi rides (taxis here are vans that carry up to 14 people) to an area east of Kampala called Kireka. Emily was waiting there for them and instructed them to get on a boda boda (motorcycle) for the rest of the trip to the place where Emily lives, a slum area called Acholi Quarters. They made their way down narrow alleys filled with dirt and sludge and across small wooden bridges until they finally reached Acholi Quarters. The Acholi are known to be very clean people and this area was proof of that. It was the cleanest slum Suzy had ever seen. Here is Emily’s story.
Emily is 26 years old and lives with her husband Richard and two-year-old son Michael in a simple two-room block house. They are both born again Christians. Each has a college degree from the top two universities in Uganda. Emily is an Acholi from northern Uganda. She was displaced from her village near Gulu during the civil war there in 1998. She fled to a rehab center near Gulu and later came to Kampala with her parents. Her dad has since passed away; her mom is HIV positive.
Emily is one of eight children. Four of her sisters were abducted and killed by the LRA. They were taken into the bush and beaten severely. They were too weary to go with the others to the rehab center and had to be left behind where they died. Emily witnessed all of this first hand as a twelve-year-old girl. She says that God showed them love and kindness at the rehab center. They were assisted by an NGO and moved to another place near Gulu and then on to Kampala. The family traveled on a truck carrying fruit from Gulu to Kampala, and her mother was carrying a young baby. When the family arrived in Kampala work was difficult to find. The family members started working in a near-by quarry using a hammer to break rocks.
Now Emily and her sisters make jewelry from paper beads and try to sell them in the local market. She says that the market for the beads is very small, and it is difficult to make a living from that alone. At times when the family needs money for food, Emily goes back to the quarry to break rocks. She is able to earn 150 shillings (about 6 cents) for filling one 20-liter jerrican. On a good day she can fill 30 jerricans and make 4500 shillings (less than $2).
Emily says she trusts in God. He has helped her survive, and He alone gives her hope. She desperately wants a market for the handicrafts she makes so she can help to support her family.
And this is where Suzy and Friday Market Beads come in. We want to help Emily find a market for her beautiful products in the U.S. Over the next few weeks we will be working with Emily to develop a product line and then to produce a whole lot of jewelry. Please pray for Emily and her family and pray that her products are well-received by people in the U.S. To learn more about supporting Emily by buying her products, please email us at rliving1@juno.com or check out our Friday Market Beads page on Facebook.
