Susanne & Friends; Jinja District, Uganda
Photo by Susanne Behnke, Uganda 2003
The German photographer and teacher Susanne Behnke hanging out with her newfound friends down in Jinja District near Lake Victoria, southeastern Uganda. Thanks Susanne for the use of your wonderful photos on Jewels in the Jungle during our first year in the Blogosphere.
Update May 12th: I've made a few corrections to the captions on photos of schoolchildren that I posted yesterday. The primary school where these photos were taken in 2003 is located in Iganga District of southeastern Uganda. All photos of Uganda (lots of them) I have published to this blog up until today were taken either in Jinja or Iganga districts, in the Busoga Kingdom.
I always confuse Jinja city on Lake Victoria at the source of the Nile river as being in the south of the country, but now we've got that corrected all by ourselves. You can study and download maps of Uganda at the U.N. Cartographic Section site and the U.S. State Department's Bureau of African Affairs has a good background summary on Uganda.
I will have more on how the kids are doing down in Iganga and Jinja districts as soon as we can get some reliable information out of there. That's a whole 'nother story all by itself and I haven't had any substantial information from people in this area working with these children since I'd say June last year. I apparently stumbled upon some information last year about a suspicious group of people (supposedly) working with orphaned children that I wasn't supposed to see or know about, but it would be unfair of me to say more until I know more. I will find out somehow and fortunately it does not involve the children shown in these photos. In the meantime you can learn more about Uganda and their President Museveni at the BBC News Country Profiles and the IRIN News section on Uganda.
2 comments:
May 2005 is so long ago. Is there anyway to get an update on how the people in this article are doing today and what they are doing? I'm concerned about the well being of Ugandan's in general but especially those in the areas haunted by the LRA.
Yes you are right, it's almost two years now and that is a very long time. As far as I know the children received some assistance to build a new shoolhouse in their district but I do not know about the status of the project or the well being of the children in this photo.
The photographer, Susanna, is a teacher here in Germany and I see her from time to time. She's fine but she desperately needs to return to Uganda to follow-up on these children in the photo. Fortunately these kids are hundreds and hundreds of kilometers to the south of the districts in Uganda where the LRA pose a serious threat. Nonetheless they are still in a "relatively unstable" region that borders the eastern DRC to the west and Rwanda to the south.
Thanks for stopping by again Ingrid. Hope that all is well with you over in the U.K.
Post a Comment