The Recreation Project

Innocent and Ben

On our recent overnight wilderness excursion, the wind and rain forced us under tarps, trees, and small caves.  As I moved around to see how our club was holding up, I encountered groups chatting, laughing, and dancing in the rain.  Underneath one tarp I found just one of our guys providing rain protection to a young boy who had wondered to our campsite from a nearby village.  The boy had a reserved happiness about him.  This climbing club member named Innocent befriended the boy (named Moses) and listened to his frustration with arriving to school late because he didn’t know what time it was: he had been kicked out of school.  Nobody in his house had a watch,phone, or clock.  Innocent was moved and gave the boy his watch.  I was humbled to learn that Innocent himself was in the midst of struggling to survive.  He is an orphan who dropped out of elementary school to support his older and younger sisters.  Daily he wakes up early to dig a small sugarcane plot to pay his sister’s school fees, even though he would love to go back to school himself.

Why is it that the less fortunate give more proportionately to others in need than do those with excess?  Psychologists have termed it “compassion deficit”.  Many propose the driving force to be empathy—the ability to relate to the needy person’s situation.  The hearts of the fortunate have no “deficit”, but lack the opportunity to experience what the needy experience.

It’s interesting: last week when the Juvenile Detention boys were cleaning the health center the guards who accompanied the boys were demanding for a “day allowance”.  When the In-charge explained that this was part of a day’s work, they said, “there’s nothing like working for free”—implying that they needed additional payment: this said in front of over 20 boys who worked all morning without pay.

It’s better to give than to receive—indeed.  There is something so healing about giving and not expecting anything in return.  Altruism is scientifically proven to be therapeutic.  Why don’t we do it more?  A challenge to myself and those reading this blog…

Later on I asked club members to draw their life path in chalk on the rock, noting several of their most influential moments–good and bad. I have done the lifeline exercise for years, but this time Innocent did something I’ve never seen before . At a certain point, Innocent’s lifeline split into two—one for himself and one for his sisters.  It was a beautiful picture of empathy.

What have you noticed about generosity and empathy?

When the children from the Remand Home went to do charitable work at Aywee Health Centre III yesterday, the people at the Centre and the surrounding community asked a lot of questions:
1. What made these children do this work?
2. What changed their attitude toward work?
3. Why are they doing this work and yet our neighbors and community members have never offered to help?
4. How are they reforming?
It was nice to hear some of them say that their experience with TRP has made them think about community service and giving back.

Recently a Justice and Law Committee from the District Government visited the Gulu Remand Home. Their findings mandated that the boys and girls of the juvenile detention center participate in 5 key on-going activities: Indoor and outdoor sports, Counseling, Life skills training, Dialogue and reconciliation with parents/guardians, and Literacy. We are proud that The Recreation Project provides the first 4 out of 5 activities.
This week we brought the children of the Remand Home with their parents/guardians. We were excited to see that 15 parents/guardians showed up!

We did several exercises geared toward getting the parents and children to talk about barriers in communication at home. We used an activity called “Eyes, Voice, Body” to present the challenge of clear communication and potential for misunderstanding. Here are a few comments from the debriefing session:

To the parents: What do you think makes it difficult for children to communicate with their parents?
Parent: Some of we parents over-drink and it becomes very difficult for them to talk with us when we’re drunk.
Parent: Many parents aren’t concerned with their children—they are only concerned with their work and finding money.

To the Children: What do you think makes it difficult for parents to communicate with their children?
Child: Many children are upset with their parents because parents have ideas about how their children’s life should go. For example, many parents decide that their daughters should go and get married-even when the girl is still a child. For boys, some parents push them out of the house when they are still young. We don’t want parents to just tell us what to do, but they don’t like talking to us about what we like.

What makes it easy to communicate?
Parent: It’s important to earn trust before communication can be successful. Our families are often full of mistrust and that’s a problem.
Child: we kids need to be loved by our parents before we can talk openly to them. Our parents often don’t show love towards us. That’s why we usually talk about important issues with our friends instead of our parents.

What has been the benefit from this project:
Child: I haven’t talked with my parent in a long time, until today. I have hope that this is the beginning of building a relationship with them and having unity in the family”

Other comments:
Child: “The training we get here looks small, but it has been so important for our human life”

Parent: One parent made the connection between our “Challenge course” (what we call the journey of life) and that falling off the challenge course is like making a big mistake in life. This doesn’t that you children should give up. These are learning experiences that can help you succeed in your future.

And I probably shouldn’t post this one, but this guy’s response gave the whole group a good laugh, He said “Some people peed a little bit at the top of the leap of faith—this shows both the challenges that come in life and also the ability to overcome.”

Parents made us promise to bring them back–and we agreed. They said that they had made more progress in talking to their children in the one-day program than imaginable.

I moved to Gulu in January and almost immediately started hearing rumour of a climbing wall. Being a keen climber and general outdoor adventure-nut, I had to investigate. This is how I found The Recreation Project.
My first impression was one of amazement that someone had even thought to build an outdoor activity centre in a developing country, in a former conflict zone. With a background in youth work, outdoor education and mental health, I understand and have witnessed the benefits of adventure-based therapy first-hand back home in New Zealand. What I didn’t expect was to meet people with the vision and drive to use this tool to work with war-affected youth in northern Uganda. My first reaction was to ask when I could climb on their wall!
I was then roped into (excuse the pun) helping out with some of the big groups they had coming through the forest. Seeing the youth trying out the zipline, leap of faith and climbing wall for their very first time was an absolute pleasure. Their energy was infectious but most rewarding was seeing those who had the greatest fear overcome it and make a huge gain in self-confidence. I was also impressed by the professionalism and enthusiasm of the TRP staff and facilitators, most of whom come from the local area and can tell their own moving stories about growing up during the LRA’s insurgency. I enjoyed these days so much I started talking with Ben and Zach about how I could get more involved with TRP and this resulted in a three month volunteer placement as their Capacity Building Coordinator.
One of my first tasks has been to work towards setting up Uganda’s first Youth Climbing Club. The goal being to provide the opportunity for local out-of-school youth to learn how to climb, develop leadership skills and learn about protecting the environment. When they complete the training programme we’ll take them on an Outdoor Adventure Excursion to a National Park – a place few local youth ever get the chance to visit. I am incredibly excited to be a part of making this happen and hope that we can bring others onboard to lend their technical and financial support as well as provide climbing gear for these youth!

I’ve also been able to look at how we can make the ropes course and programmes more accessible for people with disabilities. I’ll finish with one of my favourite pictures from working at The Recreation Project so far:

Fred fell out of a tree when he was 13 years old and broke his back, he has been using a wheelchair ever since. Now in his mid-30s, he climbed a tree for the first time since his accident last weekend at The Recreation Project. Strapped into a harness, with a couple of strong facilitators hauling on the rope, Fred managed to pull himself up the ladder to the platform in the tree. Once up there and clipped into the zipline trolley, he started to question the safety and sanity of what he was doing. But he still managed to launch himself off the platform and fly down the zipline. As he came down from the wire and reseated himself in his wheelchair, he had a look of shear amazement and joy on his face. Fred told us he couldn’t quite believe he had done it but that he was incredibly pleased to have overcome his fear and enjoyed flying through the air. He now wants to do it again and bring his sons next time to share the experience.

I remember asking all of you readers if you believed in the potential for rehabilitation for young people who have committed crimes. Two weeks ago I met with several boys from the Gulu Remand Home (a place where minors stay while awaiting their trial). One of the boys said “People don’t believe that we can reform—but we can, and we do!”   The boys I talked to admitted their crimes.  They showed remorse and explained how they came to committing the crime. They said most people in society think that they are worthless and need to stay behind bars—but many of the boys themselves believe that they can take steps towards amending the wrongs they have done and still live a normal life. We want to fan their resilient attitudes.

TRP has hosted the Remand Home children in the forest in the past, but we’re moving into a long-term relationship with them in bringing the boys and girls to TRP for an ongoing series of 6 trainings. Themes for the day programs include: decision-making, leadership and peer pressure, psychosocial support, family sessions, and vision-casting among others.  At the same time, we are offering a weekly sports outreach (in partnership with UNICEF) and hope to begin giving them opportunities to learn the trade of building a “kitchen garden” (small vegetable garden) and raring poultry.  These activities will keep them active while learning a practical skill which they can use upon returning home.  The final aspect of our program will create time and space for parents and family members to talk to children about ways of staying out of trouble and cultivate healthy family patterns.

Outside of weekly literacy and numeracy classes, there are no planned activities for the children at the Home.  Bringing them to the ropes course and having weekly sports training camps allows them engage in meaningful physical activity. One boy said “we usually sit here and play cards, but your forest is a place that all of the children here should experience—it is a place that we never expected we would go.”