Photo: Joris Lugtigheid
Alice is 44 years old and is the mother of twelve children, one of whom is Mouna. "I take care of the children as if they were my own. I play with them, talk to them and help with their homework. I am their mother. I feel everything a mother would feel. We are a real family."
Photo: Joris Lugtigheid
"Mouna likes to play with her friends Fiona and Odong from kindergarten. These children again have opportunities, and I want to give them the very best I can. I want to do this job for the rest of my life, so that Mouna and other children can become happy and independent adults", said Alice.
Photo: Joris Lugtigheid
The war in northern Uganda has left the country deeply scarred. For twenty years now, the government under Museveni has been in conflict with Joseph Kony's rebel movement, the Lord's Resistance Army, who have perpetrated horrible crimes against the civilian population, including thousands of children. The peace process that began two years ago has brought relative peace to the northern part of the country, to the extent that the population no longer has to live in constant fear of acts of violence and leading a normal life seems possible.
Photo: Joris Lugtigheid
But peace is not yet guaranteed, and the last two decades of unrest have left the country in a deplorable state. The children suffer most under the poor conditions and the feeling of constant threat. Many thousands of children are alone, their parents have died or have simply disappeared in the chaos of this conflict.
Photo: Joris Lugtigheid
Uganda is one of those countries in which children become victims of political conflict, poverty, natural disasters and abuse; one of those countries in which children are forced to look after themselves, even though they can't. That's why Mouna embodies all those countless children who need our help, so that they, too, can one day have a family, a home, a future.
Photo: Joris Lugtigheid
That's Mouna: Cheeky, cheerful, curious, liverly, open...
Mouna from Uganda / part 1