Four Salesian priests and four women religious serve a population of over 90,000 South Sudanese refugees in Palabek, Uganda. Between education and spiritual needs, they have their hands full, but they can count on the help of ACN.
The Salesian priest Fr Ubaldino Andrade, or “Fr Ube” as he is known, laughs a lot. In fact, he laughs so much that one would not imagine that he currently lives in one of the most desolate places on earth, the Palabek refugee camp, in Uganda, near the border with South Sudan.
Fr Ube was raised in poverty, in a slum on the outskirts of Caracas, Venezuela. “We were five brothers and sisters on my mother’s side, but 29 on my father’s side, because my father was a truck driver, and he had a wife at each of his regular stops,” he explains, laughing, during his visit to the headquarters of Aid to the Church Need (ACN).
When he finished his studies, he decided to join the Salesians, beginning a journey that would lead him to Sierra Leone during a civil war and an Ebola outbreak. Part of his work there involved saving the children of Ebola victims: “When somebody died, they would lock the children in their houses until they died as well, for fear of contagion. We would go and get them, quarantine them for 21 days, and then let them join the others. We took care of 51 children, and we only lost two of them.”
Harsh as that reality was, the toughest experience was yet to come. After a period in Ghana, Fr Ube was sent to Uganda, to Palabek. What he saw defied belief.
“When we arrived, the refugees had no clothes, they were dirty, they had no hygiene products, no food. We didn’t have a house; a catechist let us stay in his and the families shared food with us. I arrived with my bag and was waiting for my room, night came, and a lady took me and showed me a place on the floor where I could sleep. There was nothing!”
Yet when the four Salesians started getting to work, they were surprised by the requests they received from the refugees, many of whom deeply traumatised by violence and sexual assault. “We would go around asking people what they wanted. Food? Money? Soap? And they would always give us the same answer. We want you to help us pray. They felt that God was not present, because of everything that had happened to them,” says Fr Ube to ACN.
Palabek is currently home to over 90,000 people, 83% of whom are women and children. With the Salesians unable to cope with all the demands of a growing population, a group of religious sisters came to join them. “They are from a local Ugandan congregation, the Little Sisters of Mary Immaculate. But none of them are little,” says Fr Ube, with another roar of laughter. “They are very big and very tough. The four sisters live in very poor conditions, but they help a lot! We now have four nursery schools, with almost 700 children. Attached to the nursery we have a project for 155 disabled children. When we arrived, some of them were tied to trees, because they didn’t know what to do with them,” the priest explains.
“We also have a vocational school, with around 300 students and a variety of courses.
Because they have no money, the students pay their fees with firewood and two rolls of toilet paper.”
Another constant concern is religious formation. Though the refugees have a deep faith, many of them require stronger catechesis. To emphasise his point, Fr Ube explains that of the dozens of catechists that help the priests in their pastoral work in Palabek, only two can receive communion, because the others are not married in the Church, since they cannot afford to pay a dowry to the family of the bride. “We are constantly doing new evangelisation!” he adds.
Despite all the hard work the priests and religious have put into helping improve conditions in Palabek, the outlook is still quite grim. Uganda receives more refugees in a month than Europe receives in a year, as Fr Ube explains, and currently hosts around two million refugees. The situation in South Sudan, meanwhile, continues to be too unstable for them to contemplate returning home, and many of the aid agencies that once worked there have left since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, and more recently due to American cuts to foreign aid.
Yet Fr Ube and the other Salesians and sisters remain, struggling to bring dignity, spiritual support and material aid to the thousands of people who depend on them.
ACN has been supporting their efforts in Palabek for a number of years, including the provision of Mass stipends and formation, and is currently helping to build a more suitable house for the religious who serve the refugees.
By Filipe d’Avillez.
