Meet Judah Yarberry: RMF Youth Team, Hawaii, Uganda, and Kenya
Judah is a 9 year old in Hilo, Hawaii. Since he was 6 years old he has been traveling with his mother to East Africa where she does relief work with RMF. Judah raises money for these trips by selling plants and greeting cards at his mother’s clinic, and doing yard service and other chores for friends, neighbors and supporters. He often collects and takes school supplies, toys, and other needed items to children in Uganda and Kenya. His favorite part about his travels is meeting and playing with other children, and being around all the animals of Africa (he wants to be a wildlife conservationist when he grows up). When in the US, he shares these trips through slide presentations for local schools.
by Jonathan White, RMF Director of International Relations Reporting from Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement, Uganda (May 2010)
What a day
Not sure if I have the right words to describe this humbling experience and very full day, but I’ll try… This was all on the first of three days of my visiting the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement in Uganda, where RMF manages a broad initiative with the help of generous funding from the World Children’s Fund (WCF). Kiryandongo, like a lot of refugee camps/settlements, is run by the UN refugee Agency (UNHCR), and caters to refugees from the recent wars and unrest in Kenya, Sudan, Rwanda, the Congo as well as Ugandans displaced by flooding.
Our initiative works to fill the gaps in aid and resources to the camp that the UNHCR is unable to, which right now consists of supplying and supporting a primary health care clinic, supporting over 600 Kenyan and Sudanese school children, and an acupuncture program to help treat post traumatic stress disorder.
Straight into a community meeting
We had arrived the night before to the closest real town near the settlement after a long and occasionally very hot and bumpy 8 hour drive from Tororo. The day started right away with a formal meeting in a huge circular thatched roof building in the settlement with all the stakeholders involved: community leaders, head of each refugee group (Sudan, Congo, Rwanda, and Ugandan) teachers of nursery, primary and secondary school, UNHCR, Office of the Prime Minister, with Charles (RMF field coordinator) and I sitting in the front facing the entire group.
I was a little surprised by the size and seriousness of the meeting which started by going around the room one by one with each person welcoming me, describing how much had been done for them by RMF, and their hopes for future projects we might contribute to. I definitely wasn’t prepared to be doing this first thing upon arrival, as I initially thought I would just casually familiarize myself with the project, do some tours and have a few casual one on one meetings…this was not at all what was planned as I was about to discover!
As I listened for over an hour to each person’s heartfelt gratitude and requests on behalf of each group they were representing, it became increasingly clear with each story that there were still huge gaps in aid and resources to enable these people to put their lives back together again. I suspect this is fairly normal situation in a refugee settlement of over 5,000 people (which is actually small by UN standards), which is essentially trying to function as a self contained town….an enormous number of things that need to happen for this to happen, maybe it never does. From expanding school programs to the many children who still weren’t able to pay fees, to programs such as vocational training, income generating or microfinance initiatives to help people become self sufficient were just a few of the things mentioned.
These were proud people, and were genuinely looking for ways to support themselves again. At the end of the hour of going around the room, Charles tells me I am expected to speak to address the group about what I had just heard from everyone, which was unnerving to say the least, with them hanging on my every word and me still getting my head around the 6 pages of notes I had just scribbled down. I decided to keep it short and not get myself in any trouble…I thanked them for the warm welcome, and let them know I was there on behalf of RMF to listen to their situations, learn and tour our initiatives, bring my findings back to the US and hope to address some of their concerns over the coming year. This was greeted with warm approval and I breathed sigh of relief.
Deeper into the settlement
The meeting wrapped up after a couple of hours, and we all drove deeper into the settlement, and I again realized I had misjudged and that my imagination of what a refugee settlement would be like was obviously confused with the difference between a “camp” and “settlement”. This was a “settlement”, and is absolutely enormous, something like 12 squarekilometers, and each refugee family gets a plot of land to build a home and farm some land.
I had been picturing a fenced in, crowded tent camp, the kind you see on CNN during war reporting…this place was filled with rows and rows of corn as far as the eye could see and little thatched roof circular brick huts with families spread fairly far apart. The settlement continued off into the distance past rolling hills and further than I could see. So while these people were in most cases very poor, they at least had their own plot of land, and homes that the Ugandan government allows them to keep in their family for 100 years.
Next stop for the day was the primary health care clinic that we supported, a five building complex complete with a general clinic, Maternity Ward, Children’s ward, Women’s health center, lab/blood testing, and a medicine dispensary. Everything in the clinic compound was freshly painted, clean and orderly, and nicely manicured grounds. I was told it looked like it would be a slow day for them, and by slow day they meant there were only 50 people waiting in line instead of 100! More on the clinic later, as I did another tour the following day.
We returned to our hotel for a quick lunch and were told to return for my “welcome reception” at 2 o’clock. As we were driving out of the settlement we passed a group of women dancing and singing in unison, as I fumbled with my camera bag to take a photo, Charles told me not to worry, I’d see plenty more of that later as they were practicing for me…this was going to be interesting.
Let the Show Begin
Returning to the camp after lunch, we drove to a different area of the settlement, where the secondary school was located, and parked in front of the performance hall which was already filled with people. It was threatening to rain so they had decided to hold the reception inside.
As I got out of the car, two young girls ran up and grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the doorway while a group of a dozen women dressed in bright yellow slowly filed in behind me and started singing beautifully, Charles told me it was their welcome song and I was sang and danced all the way inside to sit at a table in the front of the hall. There were already a couple hundred people packed inside waiting, and as I was walked in by the two girls they all stood and cheered and clapped. This was really too much and I was definitely not feeling worthy of all this attention, I smiled humbly, felt like I was having an out of body experience, and was escorted to my chair with a swell of singing.
The next hour was the most amazing and deeply moving display of gratitude and warmth I am sure I will ever see….A dazzling variety show of singing, dancing, little performance plays and poetry. From 3 year olds to 80 years olds, all ages were represented. Each group, the Congolese, Sudanese, Rwandan, and Ugandan, all had very distinctive different singing and dancing styles.
My favorite one musically was definitely the Congolese which had a great driving drum beat kept by a 10 year old, and the dancing award definitely goes to the Sudanese women with crazy swaying leg movements I can’t really describe. What was also really amazing is that almost every group had also written a special song about RMF, and I was really glad I had been asked to bring a video camera and was recording as much of this incredible event as I could. They also put on little plays where both Charles and I were represented, plays about troubled teens, and plays about the role of education with their small children.
Far and away the cutest performance was the three four year olds enthusiastically reciting a short poem about education and RMF! I’m really hoping that part of the video comes out well.At the end of all of the performances over two hours later, it was of course, speech time again. We listened for about an hour of speeches from all of the school teachers and principal about RMF’s and WCF’s school support and everyone’s hope for the future.
Again I could tell I was expected to finish it all of by addressing the now close to 500 people gathered….not exactly comfortable with public speaking before an enormous group of expectant strangers, but really moved and a bit choked up, I thanked them deeply for the welcome and the incredible show, told them how much my heart had been filled, how proud they should be of their children, and how I would bring back this joy I felt to our organization and anyone that asked me about Africa.
I’m still a little stunned by the whole experience, being fairly new to RMF, I certainly didn’t feel worthy of this level of gratitude but was glad to accept on behalf of the people who had made it happen. It is truly amazing to witness in person what RMF and WCF have achieved together for these very thankful people in the past two years here.
If you’d like to donate to this cause:
$50 covers 7 additional Nursery School students
$100 covers one Primary or Secondary student for one year
$200 can cover emergency malnutrition treatment for one child
$500 purchases two weeks of medicine for our clinic
If you’d like to donate to this or any of Real Medicine’s causes, please click on the donate button on this page or go through our website at realmedicinefoundation.org
The RMF Proust Questionnaire (as in the ones in the back of Vanity Fair magazine)
Charles Naku, Country Coordinator, Uganda
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
All the necessities of life taken care of: clean water, have a family, be able to sustain my family, be able to move if I want to and not be stuck in one place, healthy/body mind…I don’t need riches, just a simple house. I always give away money if I have something extra, I’d rather give 10 and keep 10 then have 20 to myself.
What is your favorite activity outside of work?
Listening to music on computer, letter writing, reading novels
What is your favorite music?
Ugandan gospel, American gospel, Meditative Yoga music
Who is your favorite author?
A Nigerian author called Okwankwa, writes both fiction and non-fiction
What talent would you most like to have?
Singing. I would be very happy if a child of mine could sing well.
Where would you most like to live?
The USA, land of freedom, at least that’s the way it is perceived here in Uganda. Suppression in Uganda is still everywhere, and corruption is still a very big problem. I like the idea that everyone is listened to equally in the US.
Who are your heroes in real life?
Nelson Mandela. He is the perfect ideal of a man in power after being through so much.
What is your favorite website?
I use yahoo for my email and sometimes I read interesting headlines that grab me.
What is your favorite movie?
Mississippi Burning. I could watch that movie 100 times and I never get bored.
What is your greatest achievement?
All the friendships I’ve made with people, organizations, and friends
by Jonathan White, RMF Director of International Relations — Reporting from the Field (May 3rd 2010)
Road to Tororo
28 hours of travel, layovers and in-flight entertainment and I finally land in Entebbe, Kampala airport bright and early at 7:30 am local time.
This is a trip of firsts for me, first trip to Uganda, first to Africa for that matter, and the first time representing RMF in the field, so I’m a little excited and nervous upon arrival to say the least. Coming in on our approach to Entebbe airport I look out the airplane window to see a beautiful pastel orange and pink sky, lush green gently rolling landscape dotted with small farms and towns and the edges of the enormous (Great Lakes enormous) Lake Victoria complete with dozens of little fishing canoes paddling out for their morning catch.
Fairly quick and painless sweep through immigration in the empty morning airport and I’m greeted with a big smile by Project Director Charles Naku and our driver and his close friend John “the Baptist” (John’s father is an ordained minister). Stepping outside the terminal I’m greeted by a nice balmy 70 degree morning, much cooler than I’d expected a pleasant surprise.
Baboons on the road
Even though Charles and John arrived driven to Kampala from Tororo (4 hours away) an entire day early by mistake (and my very confusing travel itinerary, which had me leaving SF on Saturday and arriving Monday which he couldn’t believe!) he and driver were in great spirits and full of questions about my travels.
After strategizing our day a bit, we decided to immediately get the processing of my Sudanese visa (heading to Sudan in a week and had to apply for visa in Kampala) started before we left town to make the 4 hour drive out to Tororo.
This as in all things embassy related turned out to be a bit of a wild goose chase…drove in around traffic packed roundabouts for an hour before we located the embassy, then started application only to discover we needed a passport sized photo, proceed to several more roundabouts, take photo, return, then sent off to a bank to pay fees, several more roundabouts….ahh the joys of visa bureaucracy.
Charles and Sister Claire
While our driver was handling himself reasonably well, he was a bit overwhelmed from what I could tell as he is from a much smaller town and not used to the incredibly aggressive drivers and traffic of Kampala.
We finally hit the road our of Kampala around noon and slowly crept our way out of Kampala through a long dusty line of honking big rigs, hundreds of mini-van bus taxis, and thousands of bicycles and motorcycles with two or three on back (called boda-bodas).
The highlights of our 4 hour road trip to Tororo included passing through two rainforest preserves, a baboon sighting on the side of the road and passing through dozens of very lively roadside towns and markets.
Gardening Mama Kevina
We ended our day with an early evening tour of the first of our initiatives in Uganda, the Mama Kevina Orphanage/Boarding School in Tororo. I was deliriously tired at this point; starting to sway on my feet a bit, but our host and head of the school, Sister Claire was overjoyed to see us and very helpfully offered some coffee and biscuits to keep us from falling over!
Charles and I were given a guided tour around the school’s property and many of it’s half finished buildings, introduced us to some students and described a dire new situation they have found themselves in this past year…This story deserves it’s own dispatch and report so stay tuned for a complete update on the Mama Kevina School story!
Mama Kevina School Bakery and Office
Fast forward to a nice dinner with everyone at the serenely quiet hotel I was booked into, and I pretty much collapsed the moment my head hit the pillow. Next step in this journey is leaving Tororo and making a 6 to 7 hour drive out to the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement to check in on our clinic and school support we provide to the Kenyan and Sudanese refugees.
Aketch Tereza, a 16year old girl in senior four at Mama Kevina Comprehensive School in Agururu Tororo, is one of the students traumatized by war and HIV/AIDS.
She is an orphan losing her father in war and losing her mother to HIV/AIDS. She was raised by her grandparents enduring the hardship of the rural poor. School fees and daily meals were very difficult to attain.
Afflicted with nightmares of falling in a ditch and being chased by someone with ill intent Tereza took advantage of acupuncture treatments being offered at Mama Kevina. Treatments reduced the stress of being an orphan and her nightmares disappeared
She also uses the treatment to help her concentrate during reading, previously when she went for her private reading/revision, only bad memories would arise and her stress would increase.
ereza has also learned to reduce her tension through yoga which has been offered daily since RMF provided yoga training to the Mama Kevina staff last year.
Dispute over results of the 2007 Kenyan presidential election resulted in widespread demonstrations and ethnic violence. Tragically, over 300,000 people were displaced and as many as 12,000 Kenyans made their way into neighboring Uganda to find shelter in refugee camps.
One specific need among the refugee population was treatment for the psychological effects of trauma, and RMF was quick to get on the ground and assist, bringing acupuncture services to camps. Black Irish movie full
Recent studies suggest that acupuncture may be as effective as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for psychological conditions. “Acupuncture is a proven, easily transportable, and cost-effective healthcare tool,” says Megan Yarberry, RMF’s Team Whole Health Project Coordinator “We’re hoping to provide support and healing to hundreds of people each day.”
This last December RMF visited the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement and found the acupuncture program thriving.
Judah Yarberry is a 9 year old from Hilo, Hawaii. Since he was 6 years old he has been traveling with his mother to East Africa where she does relief work with RMF. He shares his experiences here.The Snows of Kilimanjaro film
The last few days have been spent organizing and giving out the school supplies. Charles, Joan, and Susan went with me to give out the supplies and toys in Village 1 (the camp has different villages in it). We walked from house to house (really, they were mud huts and old UNHCR tents), through the corn and other crop fields. We saw an ibis standing on the road, and our guide said there were black mambas in between the cornstalks: that made us all scream!
Bathory hd All the kids were so happy to get the school supplies, and each kid was given a sticker. The kids who were too young to get school supplies got 2 stickers. When we came back to Maga Maga (where the acupuncture training was), I gave things to my soccer buddies. It was a free-for-all because they were so excited they were asking for seconds, and crowding me. Finally Beth had to pull me out and take me to the matatu.
Judah Yarberry is a 9 year old from Hilo, Hawaii. Since he was 6 years old he has been traveling with his mother to East Africa where she does relief work with RMF. He shares his experiences here.
The Planets psp Last week, we were in Tororo. I really enjoyed seeing my friends, the neighborhood kids around Mama Kevina school. When we walked toward the school, all the kids who remembered me from last year came running, saying “Jude, Jude!” They call me Jude, which is the name of their primary school, the St. Jude Primary school.
They took me over to their village, and showed me a kitten that I had gotten last year. It is pretty big now. We went into the soccer field, and it was nearly night, but the good thing about that is that there were a lot of frogs, and we caught a bunch of them.
Megan Yarberry is Project Coordinator in Africa for RMF’s Team Whole Health, and has been facilitating acupuncture trainings in East Africa since 2005. She shares her experiences here.
We’ve been here in Kiryadongo for a few days now, but as most of us agree, it feels like much longer. Our days are full, and the stories, sights, and experiences are potent.
We first went to the camp on Thursday; driving down the dusty orange track through maize, sunflower, and bean fields. Charles gave us a rundown of the people living in the mud, thatch-roofed houses we were passing, and there are still plenty of folks living in their UNHCR tents.
Meet Judah Yarberry: RMF Youth Team, Hawaii, Uganda, and Kenya
Reporting from 
Straight into a community meeting 
At the end of all of the performances over two hours later, it was of course, speech time again. We listened for about an hour of speeches from all of the school teachers and principal about RMF’s and WCF’s school support and everyone’s hope for the future.
Who are your heroes in real life?
Update 2010
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