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From Vermont to Uganda: non-stop help
By Mariana Lamaison Sears
Free Press Staff Writer
April 20, 2006
Sheila Morrissey went to John Collins' Burlington office last week to show him the pictures of her trip to Uganda. When she started the slide show on her laptop computer, the images of the babies and toddlers the two have been helping from afar came to life.
Collins, a lawyer from Williston, and Morrissey, a stay-at-home mother from Shelburne, have been devoting their personal time and resources for the past year to help Robert Fleming of Shelburne found the International Partnership for Social Equality, or IPSE.
Through the organization and with the support of family and friends, these three Vermonters are providing a chance of survival and hope for a decent future to these children who otherwise would die, they said. The organization recently received tax-exempt status as a nonprofit.
Fleming, 36, is living in a rented house in Entebbe, Uganda, with seven babies ages 4 months to 2 years. He has been in Uganda since October working with local residents and officials to develop the Malayaka House program to provide safe refuge and medical care to the abandoned babies.
Morrissey returned April 12 from an 11-day trip to the east African nation. She traveled with a physician and a medical student from Columbia University who are helping IPSE. Morrissey lived in Malayaka House and helped cook, feed, bathe, play with and care for 2-year-old Jamie, 10- month-old triplets Che, John and Jimmy, 8-month-old Margaret and 4-month-old Malayaka, after whom the house was named, she said.
Three Ugandan women hired by IPSE are helping Fleming in the house, Morrissey said. "Cooking is an ordeal, not only because we have no refrigeration, but also the women cook over a kettle of coals," Morrissey said. They also have to iron all the cribs' sheets to kill any insects and boil the water for the babies' bottles, she said.
"I was amazed that these people who had so little in terms of worldly possessions and have experienced such hardships and horrors could have so much joy, love and compassion," Morrissey said describing Ugandans.
A few days after Morrissey left, the police department contacted Fleming to see if IPSE could care for another baby, Fleming said by phone Wednesday morning.
"Nobody knows anything about him or his life. He was cold, dirty and sick" when some children found him abandoned in the woods, Fleming said. The baby is between 1 and 2 years old.
Full-time devotion
Before quitting his job to devote all his time to Uganda's children, Fleming worked for St. Michael's College as a tennis coach and co-leader of the international service learning program. Through this program, he coordinated students' trips to India and Africa and worked at the Imvepi refugee camp in northeastern Uganda.
Fleming said he planned to return to Vermont by the end of this month to teach tennis at a tennis club and resort in the Mad River Valley to make more money for IPSE's cause. He will return as soon as possible to Uganda. The children need his help, he said.
"It's hard to explain the situation to someone who hasn't seen it," he said, trying to describe a country dealing with civil war, refugees from other countries, AIDS, malaria and extreme poverty. Even though he recognizes there are children in Vermont who also need help, the level of misery cannot be compared, he said.
Children helping children
In March, Collins' 11- year-old daughter, Mary, was awarded a $2,500 Special Initiative Grant from the Trinity Fund to help Jamie and Malayaka, who were the first two babies to be sheltered at IPSE's house. The Trinity Fund was established by the Sisters of Mercy after they sold Trinity College in 2000.
Mary wrote in her grant: "They started having meetings at my house, and I would join them occasionally, then Robert and I had the idea that this non-profit organization might reach out to more people and grab their attention more if a child was helping with it all." In her essay, Mary also described how Jamie was found. "His femur (the largest bone in your body) was found broken along with his arm (from abuse)."
Wednesday morning, Mary gave a presentation about Uganda and the Malayaka house to fellow classmates at Williston Central School.
"I wanna help out," Mary said.
The need is great, Morrissey said.
"These children are not receiving international attention and aid because the civil war in northern Uganda is not perceived as an international problem," Morrissey said. She said IPSE is only "scratching the surface" helping these kids.
"There are countless children who have been victims of kidnapping, abuse and rape." At least the ones in the Malayaka house are saved from what otherwise would be "a horrible fate," she said.
Contact Mariana L. Sears at 660-1867 or msears@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com. How to help The International Partnership for Social Equality is looking for professional volunteers in the areas of Web and newsletter design and office management.
Sheila Morrissey: spike.vt@verizon.net
John Collins: 238-9680 Uganda situation For 20 years the government has been fighting a war against a religious group called the Lord's Resistance Army, or LRA, in the northern part of the country. LRA is known for abducting children to train them for the war.
More than 1 million internally displaced people do not have access to health services and look for protection at camps to avoid abduction and violence imposed by the LRA.
Malaria, typhoid, tuberculosis, dysentery, HIV/AIDS and malnutrition are prevalent in camps for internally displaced people and refugees.
The situation has emerged as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Source: International Partnership for Social Equality
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