Dear friends of African Dream,

I send you my most sincere regards and wishes for a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Christmas ! Already !... Christmas !
I do not know what this word or festivity raises in your heart or mind. By now, I no longer remember what a Christmas stands for in Italy. My Christmases are filled with sunshine and lots of people … poor people.
Today I celebrated Christmas in one of the Lusaka prisons. 1.100 prisoners, torn apart and undernourished: for them Christmas was celebrated today with a nice plate of rice, a piece of chicken, an apple, a piece of soap and a shirt.
In fact, I accompanied the Sisters of Mother Teresa to this place of pain and misery to share with them the bread of life and love. Of course, my thoughts go to many western families: the clothes, the presents, the laughs (???), the diners…
So, I no longer understand the meaning of Christmas. Better still, I do not know what people are celebrating.

I would like to share with you a Christmas that I spent with prisoners in “death row”.
In the year 1998: a marvelous morning on the equator. At 8.30 I enter “death row”: there are 250 prisoners that are condemned to death. As always, they all smile and are busy washing their own clothes and dishes on the different inner courts. They all greet and smile, also the Muslims and the ones with a different confession of faith. On the inner court everything is ready for the praying that will take more than two hours.
At the end, preparing myself to get my things together, the leader of the Christians comes up to me and asks me solemnly to sit down as there will be a “Christmas Party”!!! Inquisitively I sat down: they bring me a thermos flask of tea, a plate with a handful of biscuits. Then, from under the table they pull out a plastic bag with some biscuit packages. All prisoners sit down in silence whilst one biscuit… I say… one biscuit gets distributed to each single individual.

Each one reaches out and receives with a smile the small big gift of … one biscuit. They eat it with calm and in silence, almost as if they are celebrating a sacred ritual. I can no longer go on with my tea. Seven or eight biscuits are left over: they are crumbled into pieces and the distribution ritual gets repeated: every single individual will receive a crumb… it is the sharing of love and solidarity amongst the poor! End of the Christmas Party!

I would like you not to forget these two facts when celebrating your Christmas. I wish it to be full of joy and love and, whilst you exchange your presents, above all, I wish that you will be able to exchange and to give lots of love.

An embrace, a congratulation and a memory to all of you and your beloved ones.
Thank you for your friendship and for sharing the dream of the African Dream.
Love,

P.Enrico Colleoni

And here comes Christmas

And here comes Christmas.... another year comes to an end.
It is time for wishes and for evaluating our situation with African Dream .

“Our” school continues to grow and we would like to offer you in a synthetic overview what we have been able to realize during the year 2008 thanks to your support and generosity. As you do know already, the school is already operational and has got 130 students.

The actual structure (which is, as you already know, consisting out of a number of classrooms, a library, a bedroom, washrooms, kitchens and a number of small buildings to house the teachers that work at the college) has been expanded this year with a big laboratory and the building of a second bedroom to lodge new students that subscribe for next school year.

Also, at our return from Nebbi last month of May, we realized the need to multiplicate our efforts not only to finish the building of the school, but also to help a number of students that find themselves incapable to further pay their annual subscription.
Antonella launched convocation to “adopt one student” and we got 32 contacts. A great success thanks to your solidarity.
The students ended their exams on November 12 and first investigations show a great result overall,… amongst the best of the district. Final results will be published before the end of January 2009.
The tam tam of these results brings good publicity and the President of our school Padre Raphael Okumu demonstrated great optimism regarding the number of new students and where the parents showed the will to proceed with their registration.
But there is still so much to be done.

The objective is to start and complete soonest the building of a second block of classrooms and to equip all buildings with lighting based on solar panels. This will enable the accomodations, alimentation and education of approximately 300 students, allowing the school by then to be autonomously operational.
Finally, we need to find the funds to install a security system for the school and to purchase a vehicle to be used for the frequent supply travels to Kampala. We will need approximately between 85 and 90.000 euro to complete this first project of our Association.
We count on your help, also for next year and we still believe that it is possible to end all the works as planned before the end of 2009.

Merry Christmas to all of you, also on behalf of all our students. That 2009 may turn our ‘African dream’ into the beautiful reality of what has been realised already thanks to your contribution.

Thank you,
Vincenzo and Antonella.

News about the students of Nebbi

A message from Raphael, The Director of the College.

"Dear Vicenzo and Antonella

Greetings and best wishes to you.

I have been in a Diocesan Meeting the whole of this week. On Monday before going for the meeting I wanted to send you an update but was disappointed when the e-mail services did not respond.

The school is going on well. The Senior 4 finished their final exams on the 12th November and went home and the results will not be out till the end of January 2009. Then I will send you a copy immediately. The rest of the classes will begin their exams next week on Monday and again the results shall be ready by the middle of December then I will send to you the ones of those on sponsorship.

I talked to the students on sponsorship one by one and they wrote the "Thank you" letter which I posted to you on the 8th of this month about two weeks ago and they should be arriving to you soon. Four of the students that time had gone home to try and bring the little they could as fees from the parents and I sent their letters later. Two have not written, that is, Kasamba Cosmas because he is waiting for the new year to come and repeat Senior 4. He is not in the college. And Alan Jero who fell sick and went home last term is still at home and will come back next year.

The work on the new dormitory is going on well. The wall should be finished in the next couple of days latest in two weeks time and we start the roofing. THANK YOU for the donation.

We are giving holidays for the students on the 5th of December. On the 3rd of December we are inviting all the parents of the students to the college for a general meeting and together with them see how we can break even.

We hope to get a good number of students in Senior 1 next year. Many people have picked interest in the college and want their children to come and join us. This has manly been because of your efforts. The new buildings are attracting the people and the dedication of the teachers is also good.

As you meet over diner tomorrow send our best regards to everybody. I fully know it is a lot of sacrifice the people are making to contribute money at this time of hard economic crisis world over. We pray to God to continue to bless all of you people. We keep on remembering you people in our prayers. Greet everybody and God Bless you all. We hope next time many of the people helping us will come to see the fruits of their efforts. Thank you very much.


Thank you.

Fr Raphael OKUMU
DIRECTOR"

The future of the boys in Nebbi starts also with you!!

Being a child in Uganda, as in most African countries, means to live each day with the hope to survive. When arriving in countries like these, you are immediately touched by the manoeuvres, the glances, the smiles, the handshakes of the children representing the present, but also their hope for a better future… Today, the average age expectation for a person in Uganda is 45.
Every single day, thousands of young children die from famine, lack of water and sanitary help, suffering diseases such as malaria and AIDS.
Lots of them become orphans; they become marginal and have no opportunity to go to school and to get appropriate education, enabling them to live a dignified and better life then the ones before them. Up until today, still too many children are being deprived of a “child’s life”. To lots of them “a life” is being denied.

What are these children in Uganda missing? All that we simply consider acquired, to them it does not exist and it represents a daily struggle to achieve it. Water, the source of life and a daily need is the luxury of a few people only, the ones that live close to a spring, strewed about in the area at kilometres’ distance.

The first morning trip is dedicated to the provision of water… one can see roads with lines of women, children, also small children, 7, 8 years old, under a burning sun, barefoot and with wearing four cloths, walking for kilometres and kilometres back to their village these heavy water tanks. Besides getting the water, these women and children also have to gather wood to make a fire, indispensable for cooking the few things that they can grow or amass from nature: polenta made of matocko, chicken- or goat meat, milk from the few goats or from the skinny cows that they possess and where one may wonder how much milk they can still produce.

Food is a gift of nature, each area with different products that go from bananas to papaya, mango or other fruits unknown to us… and everything is distributed, nothing being left over. But even food is a luxury because it depends on the rainfall that may vary from year to year…
These children have little time to play… nevertheless they always know how to offer you a smiling face.

To me, this has been a beautiful sensation, knowing how to read in every single face a desire, a different dream. These faces, these glances and these eyes that know how to look at you with an absolute profoundness… they all have a specific message: they ask for our attention, our help, and our affection. I would never have stopped making pictures… each and every time it brought a new message and, I did not want to lose a single one of them.
In order to understand this experience, one simply needs to live it.
Until today I only saw such scenes on TV, but they never brought the same sensation that one experiences when face to face…

Visiting the Nutritional and paediatric division of the hospital of Angal, guided by a person that is so deeply devoted to these children and to their future, Claudia Marsaj, made me understand how distant this reality is from us, from our sons and daughters that live in a world that offers EVERYTHING and where yet it never seems to be enough. Many times over again I have been listening to the stories of Mario and Claudia, both living this experience for many years already. However, the emotion caused by seeing it all with my own eyes has been quite different to imagining it all.
Believe me, it would happen to all of you… and as such I’m asking you not to be indifferent but to open your eyes, your ears and above all to open your heart to this sad and cruel reality.
To quote Maria Teresa, if we all contribute with one single drop, together we could create the ocean and make the difference for many of these manoeuvres, these little hands that are crying for help and comfort.
Even without words, looks can talk…
I hope that my words can catch your interest and open your heart.

Thanks for having listened to me…
Antonella

A trip to Nebbi

Finally we arrived in Uganda.
Leaving from Kampala we drive towards Omyer in the district of Nebbi.
450 km, a quite adventurous trip in chaotic and disordered traffic, over incoherent and dusty roads.
Father Enrico is an expert driver in the area, mastering the local dialects.

In one way, having an expert guide is reassuring, whilst he navigates our pick up truck to avoid holes in the road that sometimes turn into huge gaps, avoiding the frequent pedestrians transporting water-casks with water they recently gathered from the scarce wells, or carrying sheaves of wood that they had to chop with their “machetes”
Cows, sheep, goats and chicken are embellishing our drive, not far away from the frequent villages with miserable cottages made of mud and with thatched roofs.

Women and children stretched out on the ground, endeavouring their play and their occupation.
These are images of the daily life and struggle that vary from the fields with vegetables, bananas, mango, papaya and other local fruits.
Limited plantations of tea and sugar canes pinch space from a luxuriant forest, making good use of the fertile ground and an ideal climate that apparently seems to ease the daily work in the fields.

These are images that are being printed in our memory; together with the inevitable thought on our privilege not having to live such kind of life where malaria, Aids and famine kill with an impressive speed, in such a way that in this area, life expectations do not go beyond 45.
Fortunately there are people like Mario and Claudia from “Amici di Angel Onlus”, who dedicated 50 years of their lives to these areas and founded a hospital where they welcome anyone in need of care.

And of course there are also the Combonian missionaries that always have been bringing comfort to all people in great need, be it morally of materially.
We had the opportunity of getting to know them in person and we officially thank them for their work and their contribution in controlling the correct use of the funds and following up on the construction works.

Thank you P.Gino and F.Gianni.

Here we are at our school


It looks like everything is under control and clean.
The recent constructions of the shelters for the teachers, the dormitories, the kitchens, the library and the class-rooms are well arranged over the vast properties of the Comboni College.


The laboratory is still under construction and a group of workers are finishing the roof structure and plastering inside.
We give a hearty welcome to P.Raphael, Director of the school, together with the team of teachers and all members of the Board.
Let’s dedicate our time to make a point on the situation.


There are not many boys at the College as it is a holiday period. However, the fourth class is complete and glitter in their uniform.
Already 126 boys visit the college and many of them sleep at the campus.

Nevertheless, some twenty of them left school due to either economical problems or for disciplinary motives.

We need to think of the college’s future, its immediate priorities and on the investments that are still required in order to create an institution that is able to support itself economically, by containing the cost and taking full advantage of the 180.000 shilling, approximately 70 euro that every student needs to pay every term.
Board and lodging as well as college expenses are included in this figure.


What do we need right now?

In order to obtain a budget equilibrium, we need a minimum of 300 students.
However, in order to admit them a second dormitory as well as another building with class-rooms will need to be built.
Let’s add to this another means of transportation for the provision of daily food and water, a millstone for the kitchen and a solar system to provide electricity for all these buildings and it brings us to a total of 165.000 euro that will be needed to complete the college.

We look forward to collect the necessary funds within the coming 18 months, either through private sponsoring from friends and relations, or by soliciting donations from businesses that we come in contact with.
The organisation of theatre- and culinary events will continue to obtain additional funding as they already did in the past.
In addition, let’s think of structuring the collection of additional funds through a program of adoption at distance and which we will present soonest.
We set ourselves an ambitious objective.

Finance the college expenses by means of this program for at least some fifty students. The selection criteria are simple. We will mainly take care of boys that are orphans and meritorious according to the scholastic profile but we will also look into the case of families having a difficulty in paying the annual college expense in total.

We also count on your generosity. Do not stay indifferent and help us in making our African dream come true, that brick upon brick becomes a reality.
The pictures that you have seen in this mail clearly show the situation of our school. We are also preparing a video that, if you would like so, we hope to show you soon.

See you soon African Dreamer,

Vincenzo and Antonella