This was the first time I’ve ever been this far north in Haiti. I accompanied Felix Joseph, CARITAS’ Location Coordinator for the Haiti child sponsorship programs, to visit the schools at Rivière Mancelle and Bassin Bleu. It was a bit of an adventure.

Sr. Elizabeth's university education is sponsored through CARITAS For Children's Adopt-a-Nun program. In an effort to support our ministry partners in Uganda, CARITAS initiated this program to seek assistance from our CARITAS community to help advance the education of the Little Sisters. Sr. Elizabeth shares her story here.

I am Sr. Elizabeth Barisal Ologe. I belong to the Congregation of the Little Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi, whose Mother House is located at Nkonkonjeru in Mukono-Uganda and its Generalate House at Jinja-Uganda. In May 2011, I qualified as an enrolled Midwife after studying in Kamuli Midwifery School-Jinja and thereafter worked in Cumuli Mission Hospital for 2 years. In November 2014, I qualified as a registered Midwife after studying in Lubaga Training School-Kampala for one and a half years.

After enjoying the music blasting from Stella Maris Primary Boarding School for a few hours, I decided to walk up to the school to see what was going on. To my surprise, the whole school was out dancing on the common grounds, with a DJ at the top of the school stairs, and trophies and cake on a table out front!

I was lucky to arrive in Nkokonjeru on the weekend before the start of Term 3. On Saturday I watched as the girls came back to Stella Maris Primary Boarding School after spending a two week break back at home with family.  On Sunday, I walked up to the Stella Maris campus to see what initially looked like chaos.

Fr. JohnBosco Wasswa is in the United States visiting the American parish with which his parish church, Our Lady Queen of Apostles in Nkokojeru, Uganda has a twinning relationship. Since many of the children of his parish attend school through CARITAS’ Catholic child sponsorship programs, he has come to meet with Chris Hoar and the Milwaukee office staff as well.

Alex, another intern, and I went to the Stella Maris Primary School campus in Nkokonjeru to seek out three girls sponsored through CARITAS’ child sponsorship programs who had been named to hold an honored post among students, that of a prefect. We spoke with Bridget Kevin, Primary 5; Judith, Primary 6; and Ritah, Primary 7. Bridget is 10 years old and Judith and Ritah are 12 years old. They explained the role of a prefect and how the three of them came to serve in this capacity. Our conversation follows in a question and answer format.

We visited Blessing today! Blessing is a sweet, 16-year-old girl sponsored by teen students at the International American School of Warsaw in Poland. She attends Bishop West boarding school in Mukono, Uganda with a focus on vocational skills. Bishop West is one of only a few schools in Uganda with a special needs program. The support of her peers in Warsaw has allowed Blessing to thrive and learn valuable skills in spite of her disabilities. My fellow interns and I were able to see firsthand how happy Blessing is attending classes at Bishop West.

“I would hope that the sponsors know they’re doing an important job. They are doing the work of Christ,” said Sister Marie Délivrine Lops – Secretary of Education of the Little Sisters of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus, CARITAS For Children’s ministry partners in Haiti. Farron Horton, who is working for CARITAS’ Haitian child sponsorship programs in the position of Volunteer Mission Liaison, recently had a conversation with Sister Lops and had asked her what she hoped sponsors gain when they choose to sponsor a child. Their discussion follows in a question and answer format.

If you don’t know already, Providence Home is a care facility run by the Little Sisters of St. Francis of Assisi where therapy, education and housing is provided for the elderly and disabled in Uganda. The youngest resident is a four-year-old little boy and the oldest individual is probably around 90 years old, so there’s a wide variety of people. Besides the Sisters, the staff at Providence Home ranges from cooks to matrons to occupational therapists. One person in particular who has really made an impression on me is an occupational therapist named Ronald who is on duty seven days a week.

I am an anthropologist and a professor at the University of Virginia. My research on health, charity, religion and development takes me to Uganda on a regular basis. I am also a CARITAS sponsor. 

While I was in Uganda this summer, I was blessed to find that my regularly scheduled trip coincided with Stella Maris’s Visiting Day. Stella Maris Primary Boarding School is one of the locations where girls are able to attend school through CARITAS’ Uganda child sponsorship programs. I had planned to simply stop by and say hello to Juliet, the eleven-year-old girl my husband and I have been sponsoring since 2012.