NOT long ago Joanna Pike, of Sandford View, Newton Abbot, was at a crossroads in her life. For years she was a PA at Exeter University but, having given up work, felt bored and unfulfilled. 'What are you passionate about?' her brother asked. To which she replied: 'The only things which make me passionate are poverty and injustice.' Then a seeming coincidence provided just the spur she needed. Charles, a Ugandan-born friend of hers, went home to see his wife and children and returned with a DVD showing the desperate plight of the Acholi tribe in the north of the country. For 20 years a war has been waged between the Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army, led by 44-year-old former altar boy Joseph Kony. During that time, his forces have kidnapped children as young as five, forcing them to become sex slaves, porters or soldiers. The precise number of abductees is unknown. Estimates put it between 20,000 and 40,000. Joanna said: 'They are forced into this rebel army and made to kill their parents and siblings. They do this to brutalise them and so they have nowhere to return to. They are told: "If you don't, I will kill you". It is a matter of survival for them.' Thousands have died in the bush, murdered where they stand when they are too weak to carry their loads, others suspected of being collaborators have been routinely mutilated by having their lips, noses, ears or breasts sliced off. To avoid being taken, tens of thousands of children – known as the 'night commuters' – trek miles from their villages each dusk to sleep in the safety of nearby towns. 'It was becoming so bad they abducted 200 kids from one school. One of the nuns went after the group and they let half of them come home again,' said Joanna. In a preliminary draft report on a visit to Uganda and Sudan made in February by Baroness Cox, the situation has been described as 'slow genocide'. The reports contains heart-rending testimony of escapees enumerating the rapings, beatings and senseless murders in which they had to take part. Kony, the rebel leader, has said that he wants to end the fighting, and peace talks are currently under way. But the trauma and suffering of the people is likely to continue for a long time to come. About 95 per cent of the population is in displaced people camps, their villages abandoned. The people exist in insanitary cramped conditions, unable to fend for themselves and almost totally reliant on aid. Joanna was no stranger to Africa, having been born and brought up in Zanzibar. She determined to set up a charity and within four months had registered Women and Children in Africa, or WACIA, with the Charity Commission. She recruited her accountant husband David and two resourceful friends to act as trustees. Her brother set the fundraising ball rolling by climbing Mount Kilimanjaro with his wife and three children to celebrate his 50th birthday and raised £1,000. In March, Joanna visited the region with David and trustee Joy Wishlade to see what was needed. Despite being told that the big charities were working in northern Uganda, she said they saw little evidence of this on the ground. 'We really did feel the small charities are the way to go. You can have a much more hands-on project. People know where their money is going,' she said. Their first stop was Keyo Primary School. They arrived on a public holiday and were ushered in to meet the PTA and fed goat meat, cassava and soda. 'We all sat on one bench and they expected us to give a presentation, which was terrifying. They were just the most hospitable, gracious, gentle people.' The school has 2,000 pupils, 26 teachers, no electricity, no running water and little equipment. The Cox report highlights the hunger expressed by children for education. Joanna said: 'What I would like to do is help with education materials. I've asked the head teacher to let me have a list of what they would like. One of the biggest problems is the cost of shipping, which costs £120 a cubic metre.' Next they visited the Norwood Business Centre, a two-room windowless hut where child mothers, female orphans and ex-soldiers can learn secretarial and business skills. 'Girls as young as nine are taken as wives and then get pregnant. If they manage to, the community doesn't want them because they have got a child of killers,' said Joanna. While the centre has computers, the electricity is erratic. Charles and Joy took part in the Great West Run and raised enough to send out a generator. Said Joanna: 'The girls and staff are so keen and motivated. We want to find bigger premises with windows. Getting a netball court would be perfect.' At Palenga Internally Displaced Person's camp they found that children were regularly getting killed by trucks hurtling along the Kampala/Sudan highway which runs through the middle of the camp. Money has since gone out to pay for fencing. Their next venture is a child's roundabout, which ingeniously doubles as a water pump. This has the dual benefit of allowing children to play and saving women from having to walk miles each day to fetch water. There are more projects in the pipeline in Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa. Joanna is now appealing for help from local volunteers.
