As African children fall through the cracks, what are we doing to help?
For almost a year, Tabu Odhiek kept asking to go back to school. After years on the streets, this 12-year-old African boy decided he’d had enough. He wanted to come home. Isolated from his family, Tabu had spent the last five years living in poverty on the streets. Originally from the Republic of Uganda, Tabu left his home in the Natamula slums in search of a better life.
When he was only six years old, his father died of AIDS, leaving the family destitute. Not much later, his sister also passed away. As his mother became ill, and his older brother failed to cope with family struggles and soon became an alcoholic, Tabu found himself alone.
Desperate, then 6-year-old Tabu turned to the streets. Each day he spent hours begging for food and money to provide for him and his ailing mother.
In the streets of the slums, Tabu met a fellow street boy who offered him a way out. Promising to return to his mother, Tabu joined the street boy and left for Kenya to find jobs on farms grazing cattle. They traveled for miles, on foot and by cargo trains, until they eventually crossed the Kenya-Uganda border. Their journey landed them 40 miles east of the border in the streets of Bungoma, where Tabu has been surviving for the past five years.
On these streets Tabu met George Wesonga, head coordinator for nonprofit organization Mothers on a Mission International (M.O.M.I.), dedicated to rescuing children from the street life. For almost a year, Tabu continuously asked George to take him back to his mother and home.
As the month of August came to a close, the necessary funds had finally been raised to bring Tabu home.
Together with volunteer M.O.M.I. field workers, Tabu returned to Uganda. As the bus arrived in his hometown, an old friend recognized Tabu and ran towards him shouting, “Tabu! Tabu! Where have you been? Your mother died and we buried her on Monday.”
At the news of his mother’s death, Tabu almost collapsed. He had come too late.
M.O.M.I. director Lynn Whitlock laments on this situation: “If we had the money sooner, we could have had him home before his mom died and at least he could have said goodbye. I am in tears and feel sick to my stomach over the urgency of this mission. So many boys are falling through the cracks.”
As college students, we want to take on a global perspective. We want to care about the world. We often do care about the world. But what are we doing to care for the world? In what ways do our actions reflect we are caring for the world? As the carefree college students who many of us are, we can become pretty self-centered at times. We go to school to educate ourselves, stores and restaurants to feed ourselves, malls to spend money on ourselves and parties to entertain ourselves. We do so much to benefit ourselves. But what are we doing to benefit other people?
This is college—a time when we are free to do as we wish. What will you choose to do? Who will you choose to help? I urge you to go beyond yourself and pay attention to the injustices in this world.
I urge you to act on the issues that you’re passionate about, instead of just talking about them.
Don’t procrastinate. Act now.
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September 9th, 2008 at 9:19 am
Good story. I hope that it get’s some people thinking about those in need… This is the first in a long line of stories from you Ally that I hope to read. Keep it up and bring that perspective!
September 9th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
A. A kid couldn’t support his mother.
B. He left to make money and failed.
C. He finally got back home, but his mother died.
A to B to C: sucks to be him. Yet another personal tragedy on an already tragic continent. How could UNR students help - or learn of it in the first place, for that matter? How is the boy’s story relevant - or different from a story about a puppy dying of cancer or a girl whose parents died in a car crash?
September 10th, 2008 at 8:33 am
I have to admit that both comments are true. We do need to keep remembering about those in need and what we can do to help, yet it isn’t really different than what is already going on in the US. Everyday people go through something like this or worse. One person cant help everyone.
But we can do something, and we should help. If not the people on another continent than at least the people in our own backyard. What can you do to help?
Look at the different programs there are that are helping people right now.
I bet you could go to UNR’s website or ask around and find plenty. Not all of them have to do with money. Sometimes all people want is time, faith, and attention. Give them that and they will be quite happy.
Also congrates Ally on your article. I’ll keep my eye out for anything else you write. :)