About Us
The organisation
Gulu Support the Children Organisation (GUSCO) is a vibrant local NGO, which has been operating in the district of Gulu for the last ten years. The impact of GUSCO’s work in the area of psychosocial rehabilitation of war-affected children has been felt beyond the boundaries of Gulu district. GUSCO was honored with an Anti-slavery award of Anti-slavery international in the year 2001 in recognition of its efforts in supporting disadvantaged war affected children in northern Uganda. GUSCO has been working in this noble endeavor in partnership with Save the Children Denmark. The consolidation of Save the Children Alliance member operation in Uganda has meant that the relationship that used to be between GUSCO and Save the Children Denmark is now between GUSCO and Save the Children in Uganda.
Brief History
The three women (Honourable Betty Akech Okullo, Mrs .Geraldine Onguti and Sr. Mary Oker) who founded the organisation were driven by love and compassion for the returning children, only to realize later that they had created for themselves a number of challenging issues ranging from programming to policy development.
In 1994 when the organisation was established, there was no mechanism either by government or Non governmental organisations put in place to rehabilitate and reintegrate child soldiers who return from captivity.
The common practice by the Uganda army (the escapees made the first contact with the army) was to parade the emaciated, wounded and poorly dressed formerly abducted children who escape from the rebels before in a public rally so that they could be identified by their parents or relatives. This process humiliated the children and implicated whoever associated themselves with the “rebels” prompting some relatives to deny “their” children. It was then (1994) that these women thought of establishing a “shelter” where the returning formerly abducted children would be nursed as well as meet with their parents or relatives in a more dignified manner.
Context.
Northern Uganda has experienced incessant insecurity for the last 19 years, arising from the operation of the rebels of Joseph Kony in northern Uganda, and the government attempt to flush the rebels out of the bush. Communities have been uprooted from their homes and displaced to deplorable arrangements called “protected villages”; thousands of children have been abducted and forcefully conscripted into the rebel army to fight and be used as sex slaves, for the case of girls. The experiences the children undergo are indescribable: many have been forced to participate in killing their own family members, subjected to the extreme brutality, fought numerous battles and been exposed to other debilitating situations which have left them in emotional and psychosocial turmoil. Over the years, many children have been escaping or are rescued by the army. These have needed special psychosocial support to enable them resettle in the community. Moreover thousands more children remain entrapped in the clutches of the rebels with no hope of escape.
Addressing the need of the children and preparing the community to accept them is thus paramount to effective reintegration of the formerly abducted children in the community.
The northern Uganda and Gulu district context
It is generally agreed that the North is the poorest region in the country. Although the general poverty level in Uganda declined by up to19% from 56% in 1992 to 35% in early 2000, the situation in northern Uganda did not change much. According to Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development (MOFPED) 2003, poverty level in northern Uganda only declined marginally from 72% in the 1992/1993 periods to only 66% in 1999/2000. Between 1997 and 2000 poverty level in the north rose from 60% to 66%. According to the report, nearly half of the poorest 20% in Uganda live in the northern part of the country.
Geographically the north covers 35% of Uganda’s total land surface but it is the least populated region with an estimated population of 5.4 million people in the 2002 population and housing census. The key challenges for northern Uganda are insecurity, internal displacement, high population growth rates, high HIV/AIDS rates and historical marginalisation.
The northern war has been going on for 19 years now and it has been noted to have passed through different phases. But whatever the case this war has wreaked untold havoc on the populace of northern Uganda. The northern war has been described by the Jan Egeland, of the United Nation Emergency Relief Operation coordinator as the worst and forgotten humanitarian crisis in the world.
