Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe, a member of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart
of Jesus, displays strings of paper beads made by students at her
school located outside Gulu in northern Uganda. For her efforts in
educating outcast youths and those affected by war, she was named
a 2007 CNN Hero by the cable broadcaster.
CNS PHOTO/NANCY WIECHEC |
Nun runs school for
victims of war who
are now ‘child moms’
By Regina Linskey
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe said
babies are “all over” her boarding school in northern Uganda.
One hundred of them are watched at St. Monica’s Tailoring School
outside Gulu while their teen mothers — many of whom were kidnapped
as children and used as sex slaves by rebels — go to school.
The so-called “child mothers,” who could not return to their
former communities because of rejection, because they were orphaned or
too embarrassed about what they were forced to do while kidnapped, are
taught trades, human dignity and love, said Sister Rosemary, a member
of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
“We teach them how to love” their babies, she told Catholic
News Ser-vice in Washington Dec. 13. “These girls need love and
care, and that goes right to their babies.”
For more than 20 years, rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army have
been fighting government troops in northern Uganda. More than 200,000
people have been killed and more than 1.7 million people have been displaced,
with many forced to live in makeshift camps. The war also has spilled
into southern Sudan and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of
Congo.
In 2006, the Ugandan government and the rebels started peace talks.
In recent years, some of the child mothers, now between the ages of 12
and 18, have been able to escape with their babies.
In 2002, Sister Rosemary decided she would help these and other disenfranchised
young women. Seeing that the school had a capacity for more women than
the 31 enrolled at the time, she appealed directly through radio announcements.
She told the girls to come to the school where they could take classes
for free; 100 women enrolled that first year.
Last month Sister Rosemary came to Washington, D.C. to receive a 2007
CNN Hero award from the cable news broadcaster. She was nominated for
her efforts as a “community crusader” by a rabbi whose daughter
volunteers at St. Monica’s.
Today, 300 women attend St. Monica’s and the babies are cared for
at a day care center on the school’s compound, built last summer.
Sister Rosemary said six of the babies were fathered by Joseph Kony, the
rebel leader who has been charged by the International Criminal Court
at The Hague, Netherlands, for the mutilation of civilians, forced abduction
and the sexual abuse of minors.
Holding a bag of colorful necklaces made by her students, Sister Rosemary
explained that the girls are also taught cooking skills, sewing and secretarial
work.
“I told the girls never to come to me to ask for money — come
to me to ask for work,” she said.
Sister Rosemary, who “loves to cook,” said the catering school
is extremely successful and hotel employers line up at the school to hire
graduates. The success, she joked, is because “the eating industry
will never die.”
St. Monica’s also helps another segment of Uganda’s youths
who have lost their childhood due to the war.
“Night commuters,” as the children were known because they
left their rural homes at night to commute to safer urban areas to avoid
being kidnapped, used to come every night to the school, where they were
fed and sheltered, said Sister Rosemary.
But now the 100-150 children only come on Sundays for the School of Peace,
an “opportunity (for the children) to play,” and a way for
the school staff to check on their interaction with other children and
their hygiene, she said.
(For information on how to make donations to
St. Monica’s Tailoring School go to: www.stmonicagulugirlsrelief.org.)
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