Plight of Uganda’s youth

Courtesy Joseph Ambayo

Joseph Ambayo, executive director of the EENU, poses with children helped by the organization, which has sponsors in the Phoenix Diocese.

Parishioners hear cries of suffering African children

GLENDALE — He flew nearly 10,000 miles to tell anyone who would listen of the plight of the children of Uganda. 

Joseph Ambayo, executive director of Efforts to Educate the Needy Children of Uganda, visited St. James Parish July 11 to bring members of the community up to speed on the organization’s progress.

Five years ago, St. James parishioners began sponsoring children in Uganda through the program. For $60 a month, the organization pays the tuition, room and board for children who otherwise would not receive an education.

Ambayo knows firsthand what it is like to grow up in dire poverty, fatherless and with little hope.

A Catholic priest, Fr. Robert Aliunzi, AJ, saw potential in Ambayo and paid his school tuition. At the time, Fr. Aliunzi was paying school fees for 11 other students in the struggling nation.

Ambayo eventually graduated from Makerere University with a degree in education and economics. Today, he works fulltime for Efforts to Educate the Needy Children in Uganda, visiting sponsored children who study at boarding schools throughout country, checking up on their grades and behavior and meeting with their teachers.

The connection with St. James Parish began in 2005 when Fr. Aliunzi’s religious order, the Apostles of Jesus, sent him to the United States where he was named pastor of the Glendale parish.

Almost immediately, one of his parishioners, Rosalie Weller, approached him wondering what she could do to help the people of Africa.

Not long after, Fr. Aliunzi founded Efforts to Educate the Needy Children of Uganda.

The need is tremendous.

Uganda, a nation of 31 million, has been plagued by civil unrest, violence and inter-tribal conflict for decades. AIDS and HIV have decimated the population, leaving 1.2 million children orphaned.

With a literacy rate of only 65 percent and a life expectancy hovering around 50, it’s a crushing poverty that prevents most children — especially orphans — from obtaining an education.

Ambayo traveled to the Glendale church to tell parishioners about the children who have been helped by their sponsorship. He also brought photos of the students and letters for their sponsors.

A letter from one such student, Gloria Bithum, expresses her deep appreciation.

“I will always thank God for the gift of your caring heart,” she wrote. “I thank you for the great gift of education you have given me.”

Rehabilitating victims 

Fr. Aliunzi’s organization rehabilitates students who have been victims of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a brutal rebel force that sweeps into villages, abducting children, forcing boys to become soldiers and girls to become sex slaves. About 60,000 children have been captured over the years.

The Lord’s Resistance Army has been pushed out of Uganda, retreating north, mostly to Sudan. Still, its victims need care, and the EENU sees that they receive counseling and rehabilitation. 

 “My appeal is to ask for good-hearted, generous Christians to come out and at least take on these children so as to make a difference in their lives,” Ambayo said. 

Word of the effort has spread beyond the walls of St. James and Catholics from throughout the Phoenix Diocese have pitched in to sponsor children.

Ambayo, for his part, is so thankful for his education and the chance to help other children that he named his firstborn child “Robert Weller” in honor of Fr. Robert Aliunzi and Rosalie Weller. The two have led the effort stateside.