The Batwa are a pygmy tribe located in the southwest corner of Uganda. They are conservation refugees who were evicted from their rain forest home so that the Bwindi Impenetrable Rain Forest could be made into a World Heritage Site to protect the 350 endangered mountain gorillas. The land they moved to was without a forest and was foreign to them. As one of the oldest documented tribes in Africa, thousands of years of living as the "Keepers of the Forest" changed to becoming "land squatters" and "living scarecrows".
The Batwa have been held under captivity of both being separated from God and as conservation refugees. The struggle has been real. The hope is that through being the hands and feet of Jesus, Hope Ministries Uganda will help free the Batwa from captivity and they will discover a relationship with the living God. They will no longer be called unworthy. They have a new name and a new life. God is not done with them.
The Batwa children have been forgotten by society. Thought of as animals by local tribes, we are raising up a new generation of children through our sponsorship program which focuses in on education, health care, and nutritional feeding program. Local tribes consider the Batwa to be animals and they are highly discriminated against. The children cannot go to local schools or medical clinics because they are considered animals. According to a 2000 report by the BBC, 40% of the Batwa children die before the age of 5. Conditions have not changed since 2000. Through our sponsorship program, we are hoping that these numbers will begin to decline as the children will receive more consistent health care and food. $40 is a month is all it takes to sponsor a child on a monthly basis. You can also choose to give an extra $25 on your child's birthday month and at Christmas to make these two days extra special for your sponsored child!
Through Hope Ministries Uganda:USA's partnership with Hope Ministries Uganda and Pastor Gerald Tugume our mission is to build awareness of the plight of a forgotten people and to bring the hope of Jesus Christ to them through a holistic approach. Part of this holistic approach is understanding the extreme poverty and discrimination from which the Batwa come from and recognizing that poverty is more then just low income.
WHAT IS POVERTY?
Poverty is about hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy, unsafe drinking water, lack of access to basic health care services, social discrimination, physical insecurity, and political exclusion. It comes down to human suffering.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE DISCRIMINATED AGAINST FOR THE BATWA?
The Batwa were a people group who depended on hunting and forest gathering. With their eviction from the forest, they were pushed into poverty.
Because other tribes whom the Batwa try to live with do not understand their cultural practices, they choose to hate and discriminate against them.
The Batwa are often humiliated, the children are not allowed in local schools or to receive medical care in local medical clinics.
The Batwa women are denied education in their communities because they are women. Non-Batwa men often rape the women because they believe it will heal them from backache and cure HIV/AIDS.
“Those from among you will REBUILD the ancient ruins; You will RAISE UP the age-old foundations; And you will be called the REPAIRER of the breach, The RESTORER of the streets in which to dwell.”— Isaiah 58:12 (emphasis mine)
Our mission focus is the four "R's":
REDEEM. The Batwa have been held under captivity of both being separated from God and as conservation refugees. The struggle has been real. The hope is that through being the hands and feet of Jesus, Hope Ministries Uganda will help free the Batwa from captivity and they will discover a relationship with the living God. They will no longer be called unworthy. They have a new name and a new life. God is not done with them.
RESTORE. To restore is to bring back into existence. The Gospel message restores the relationship that God had originally intended to have with the Batwa. It restores families as they learn about how God originally created family. The goal is to restore families as they begin to understand the importance of family and especially the father figure and of course the Father figure. Through restoration of the family, the hope is that child abandonment and the number of orphans will decrease. Through restoration we hope to have opportunities to find land where the Batwa can settle, have a home, and begin a new life through our programs to move towards self sufficiency. Research shows that when families become land owners and can be taught to grow their own food, that the child mortality rate decreases. The Batwa children have the highest mortality rate in all of Uganda.
REBUILD. To rebuild the ancient ruins is a beautiful vision. As the Batwa understand and learn that they have been redeemed and restored, their lives can be rebuilt. The vision that Pastor Gerald has been given has been to do this through education, vocational training, demonstration farms, entrepreneurship programs, medical outreaches, church planting, nutritional food programs for children and nursing mothers, caring for orphans and abandoned children, and counseling and discipling families, men and women.
RAISE UP. The final goal will be to raise up a new generation who will rise up and out of poverty and be restored in their relationship with Jesus Christ. Through rebuilding the ancient ruins and educating local tribes, the Batwa will no longer feel forgotten and hopeless. Hope is rising up.
“Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible.”— A West Point Cadet
