Cornerstone Foundation Australia

Kitgum, together with districts of Gulu and Pader, is located in Acholiland, the region traditionally inhabited by the Acholi people in the northern most region of Uganda (bordering Sudan), some 450km north of Uganda’s capital city, Kampala.

To the eye, this region is beautiful and lush. With an annual rainfall of 1m and fertile soil, the potential for self sufficiency and good health for the Acholi people is great.

However, such appearances are deceptive.

To begin with, Uganda is one of Africa’s most ravaged regions from the AIDS epidemic. You could say there is a whole generation of parents missing. It is currently estimated that there are 2.2 million orphaned children across the whole of Uganda - that’s 20% percent of the children population, 2% of the total population - and these numbers continue to escalate.

In addition, the area of northern Uganda has been the battleground of one Africa’s bloodiest and longest-running conflicts, indeed one of the world’s most vicious guerrilla wars. A group of rebel soldiers, known as the Lords Resistance Army (LRA), have been engaged in gorilla warfare against the Ugandan government for over 20 years. Their principal tactic is the targeting of the civilian population for killings, abductions, mutilations and other terrible human rights violations and atrocities. Furthermore, the LRA are uniquely renowned for the brutal abduction, at gunpoint, of tens of thousands of Ugandan children, many as young as 10 years of age, in order to fill its ranks.

Conservative estimates claim that upwards of 20,000 children are missing from northern Uganda (some reports cite that it could even be as high as 60,000), most are presumed to have been abducted in this manner by the LRA to serve as fighters, porters and sex slaves. It is thought that child soldiers have made up to 80% of its forces. In recent United Nations reports, more than 6,000 of those missing children are presumed dead due to disease, starvation and brutal abuse at the hands of their captors.

Most often, abducted children are commanded to kill in order to stay alive, some having to begin with members of their own families. Abducted young girls who are given as ‘trophies’ to the rebel LRA commanders  are then often raped and abused. If children do escape the LRA, because of what they have witnessed and been forced to do, they will never be the same again. Many of the young girls are now HIV positive and face the prospect of dying from AIDS. Those who may have been able to escape capture in the first place have to live with the image of their parents or other members of their family being violently abducted or murdered before their eyes.

The fear of abduction by the LRA led to the much reported ‘night commuters’ - tens of thousands of children, who fledfrom outlying villages, walking up to 20km every night to sleep in the streets of larger towns, often the closest thing to a safe haven.

All this has left thousands of children to struggle for survival as homeless orphans. Recent estimates suggest there are over 65,000 vulnerable and destitute children in northern Uganda alone, due to the combined effects of AIDS, war and displacement, disease and poverty.

The withdrawal of the LRA rebels in 2005 has brought relative peace to the region, but the legacy of 20 years of unrest remains. The traditional family structure has been decimated and children are growing up without family and without hope.

In many cases, the burden of raising orphans in Uganda falls upon surviving family, such as the grandparents or elder siblings who are often not much older than their brothers and sisters. Sadly the grandparents are generally very frail and the siblings too young and inadequately skilled to obtain sufficient income to support the family. Many orphans are simply left to tend to themselves, and with no income, the majority must terminate their education in search of employment but most are lacking the skills to produce an income to meet their daily requirements. And so the tragic downward spiral into further poverty and unimaginable suffering begins.

It is the mission of Cornerstone Foundation to give orphaned teenagers in this region renewed hope through the building of ‘Cornerstone Vocational College’ which will provide a safe haven, the necessities of life, and above all, a practical education so they can rebuild their lives and work towards a more positive future.

Disclaimer: We’ve tried to make the information on this section as accurate as possible, but it is provided ‘as is’ and we accept no responsibility for any errors.  We will endeavour to keep this information updated as much as possible.