HELP International: Uganda, Lugazi 2010

Here's a little plug for my HELP International team.

Lugazi, Uganda 2010

I just wish everyone could experience something like this once in their life.

The world would be a completely different place.

.peace.

5. How Time Really Affects Us

As of 2009, the life expectancy in America was almost 79. In Uganda, the latest statistics show life expectancy around 49. A 30 year difference.

Imagine how much knowledge, how much experience, how much love a person can gain in that 30 year difference. When the average Ugandan is dying, the average American hasn't even retired; the average American isn't even considered a senior citizen yet. Americans are not even beginning to think about social security. And Ugandans are dying.

Thirty years is 360 months. Thirty years is 1, 565 weeks. Thirty years is 10, 957 days. Thirty years is 262, 974 hours. Thirty years is 15, 778, 463 minutes. Thirty years is 946, 707, 779 seconds.

Every three seconds a child dies from hunger related to poverty. How many children die during those 30 years? How many children die in one year? One month? One week? How about just one minute? 20. Twenty children die from hunger in just one minute.

Here is my new favorite statistic: Americans spend approximately $2 billion each year on candy during Halloween. Just on candy. Just for Halloween.

Compare that number to this one: it would take only $6 billion to provide education for the developing world. Three years of Halloween candy or education for the whole world? There are 121 million children without education worldwide.

Does anyone's stomach hurt?

Think of this: I just ate a "fun-sized" Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and it took me 17 seconds. How many children died while I ate that? Almost six.

I was in Uganda for three months. About 11 weeks. 80 days. 1920 hours. 115, 200 minutes. 6, 912, 000 seconds of my life living in Uganda, Africa. And if I die at age 79 I will have spent the last 59 years of my life thinking about Uganda.

When I arrived home from Uganda, I immediately knew that I was supposed to go back. I know that my "calling" on this earth is to help people. It only takes one person to change the world. But if we each were that one person, imagine how much more change could happen.

4. Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Bill

With the political debates broadcast across the American nation, I find it hard not to remember the impact that the 2008 Proposition 8 campaign had on America. Will there be another nasty separation in our nation with these new political candidates?

Proposition 8 put into effect that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California." Of this same likeness, there is a law in Uganda that penalizes homosexual behavior and activity with jail time. In 2009, anti-homosexual extremists proposed a new legislation that would increase the penalty of these acts to life-time incarceration and even death. The proposed bill is officially known as the "Anti-Homosexuality Bill" but is also referred to as the "Kill the Gays Bill."

Since homosexuality is already illegal in Uganda, the 2009 bill added extreme punishment for the behavior. It acts against homosexuality with minors or disabled persons and has added penalty if the accused has HIV/AIDS. Relatives or friends who fail to report the homosexual activities of a person can also receive jail time.

Homosexuality is seen as an abomination or "un-African" by a good majority of other African countries, but Uganda is the most infamously known country to attack the rights of homosexuals.

Parliament building in Kampala, Uganda

Since Uganda heavily relies on foreign aid (approximately 30 percent of their budget comes from foreign aid), there have been an increasing number of countries threatening to withdraw aid if this anti-homosexuality bill were to pass. With full knowledge of that fact, Ugandan citizens continue to rally in the streets and protest against homosexuality. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni received increasing pressure to pass the bill from Ugandan activists but equal pressure from foreign influencers to silence the bill.

The legislation has been pushed aside and parliament meetings as recent as May 2011 have adjourned without voting on the bill. Uganda still receives the aid it needs to function as a country since the bill has yet to be decided on.

When I arrived in Uganda in May 2010, I had not actually heard about this bill. In my research of the country this bill apparently became invisible to me. Upon my arrival, we had a team meeting where we were informed of how intensely anti-gay the country was. Being a liberal minded free-thinker, I asked a trusted partner about the issue a month after being in Uganda. After a long moment of quiet contemplation, he looked at me and said, "We just do not like that. It is not ok. We do not talk about it here either. It is not a safe matter." Reprimanded, I did not press the issue any further during my stay.

Boys at the HOPE Orphanage

After seeing what Prop 8 could do to a country that is largely considered to be educated and open-minded, it is easy to see how another anti-homosexuality legislation can destroy a country that is considered to be "third-world."

http://www.thegrio.com/opinion/homophobia-in-africa-raises-questions-about-foreign-aid.php

Without the education and tolerance that we are supposed to have in America for all people, Uganda is bound to have civil distress over an issue such as this. But then why did that same distress come to America? What type of culture are we creating for our children to grow up in? One of tolerance and peace...or one of disdain and discrimination?

It's shocking to see the similarities between two countries that seem so vastly different, isn't it?