My Trip North

This past week I was in Northern Uganda.  I was on a promotional tour for a new program being offered at St. Francis Family Helper Programme.  This new service is a workshop for teachers to help them develop alternatives to corporal punishment.  Besides beating, teachers also use both verbal and emotional abuse.  It has been a practice of beating children when they misbehave.  The child lays on her stomach. The teacher may place his foot on either the child’s neck, lower back or the back of the knee to keep the child in place.  Three to ten strokes of a stick is applied to the buttocks, thigh or the bottom of the feet. The number of strokes speaks to the severity of the misbehavior. This is a common practice throughout Africa and is not uncommon among adults as well.  Thieves, when caught, are frequently beaten by those who are near-by, sometimes to death. 

St. Francis Center is trying to alter this practice.  There is an awareness in education circles that this practice of beating should stop and the time is right to bring this thinking into the mainstream.   Once the teachers have received the training, the plan is that the teachers then instruct the parents. The real focus of this effort is alternatives to beating the child so time is spent on classroom management techniques for example.

I was in Gulu for part of the week.  On the way home we passed through Murchison Falls National Park. This is in the West Nile region of the country.  Just after crossing the Nile we saw these elephants on the right. What I didn’t get a picture of was the herd of gazelle that were on the right. 

The rainy season has settled in here and I guess I have acclimatized myself because at 70 degrees I am feeling cold.  It is all gift.  Peace