In Moroto District, northern Uganda, the International Rescue Committee is helping working children to get out of the workplace and back in to school.Children who come from poor backgrounds often have to drop out of school to earn money to help their families. For example, Lemukol-Betty, 15, used to work in a quarry, breaking up stones for just 5,000 Shillings a month – that’s about US$3. She says, “I worked all day and sat in the sun for many, many hours. The work was very hard and I didn’t get any food or water while I was there.”

Korobe-John and Lemukol-Betty are happy to be back in the classroom. Before, they worked selling goods on the street and breaking stones in a quarry.

The IRC is sponsoring children – like the class pictured here – to attend school and to get basic school materials such as uniforms and textbooks. We’re also going to train teachers and work with the Department of Education to improve the quality of education on offer for these children.

Lemukol-Betty’s classmate Korobe-John, 17, used to be a street-seller. He says, “If I come to school, I will make friends and we can share things. I am learning skills that will help me help my family back at home. They are happy that I come to school. They don’t want me to keep working.”

July 27, 2008  First day.  Boots on the ground.  We arrive in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, and meet with several of our IRC colleagues.  One teaches us a few words in Amharic, the national language. 
 
We know that Ethiopia is Africa’s oldest independent nation and its second most populous.  As we wander around the local market, we learn that Ethiopia has yielded some of humanity’s oldest civilizations and that Addis is, according to some scholars, a central point from which human beings first migrated around the world. 

Ethiopia is also called “the land of a thousand smiles,” but as we drive further away from the capital, those smiles turn to something more like apprehension.
 
And why not?  It’s the rainy season now – this should be the happy time — but we are told that the green expanse before us will soon turn to sand.  The rains have been sparse this year and inadequate to ensure the harvest this autumn.

On our way to West Hararghe, a region east of Addis, we drive past circular, thatched huts and the occasional mosque and church.  We see young children collecting filmy water from a muddy pond in jerry cans.  Women drag entire unearthed trees home on their backs for firewood.  Young boys lead herds of anemic animals to pasture.  The animals, cows and goats, are little more than ribs and horns.
 
Still, now in West Hararghe, we encounter pockets of hope.  IRC staff describe the wells and tap stands we’ll be visiting tomorrow.  Women who once walked two to three hours one way to collect water for their families now have a clean and healthy source of water right in their village –10 to 15 minutes’ distance on foot.
 

Daniella and kids in Ethiopia. Photo: Emily Holland/The IRC

Young children, victims of child labor, are now going to school thanks to the IRC’s KURET program.  Finally, we’ll meet a teenage girl whose extraordinary life story – escape from an early marriage — is helping change a village’s mind about child rights.
 
Speaking of children, a group of children are playing a game of foosball on a dilapidated and well-loved table right outside the IRC’s West Hararghe office.  Their skill and concentration are striking.  You can tell that they’ve been playing at the table everyday.  Daniella decides to join them.
 
Closing thoughts:  we are eager and honored to meet the faces behind the need tomorrow.  Being in a position to report on humanitarian endeavors, one can’t help but feel a bit conflicted, too:  forced to prioritize a seemingly endless list of needs and issues.  We’ll do our best.