Miss Africa Denmark supports Save the Children

The proceeds (DKK 75,000) from this years' Miss Africa - Denmark has been used in partnership with Save the Children to build a playground in Uganda. Miss Africa Denmark 2008 will act as an ambassador for the project and will personally be visiting the playground in March 2009.

The playground is 900 m² situated by a primary school in Bwobomanam which is 15 km from Gulu town in the Amuru district of Northern Uganda

The support from this function is aimed at making it possible to build and improve a playground and create more co–curricular activities for the children who today are very much in need of help to get back to their normal lives. Read more below to understand why simple playtime and recreational activities are an absolute necessity for these children.

The photos above shows how a similar playground was made by Save The Children in Gulu, 2006

Children as soldiers in Uganda

For many of the 11 million children who live in Uganda, life is a constant deprivation of their human rights. The children in the northern parts of Uganda have fallen victims of a local resistant army that calls itself Lord’s Resistant Army. This so called Lord’s army has kidnapped more than 25.000 children in the past few years and has forced them to be child soldiers. Young girls have been taken as “wives” to the officers. The same children were forced to commit the most gruesome murders towards people from their own villages, making it impossible for them to ever return to their own families.

Save the Children’s work in Uganda

The Save the Children organisation together with a local partner programme runs a rehabilitation centre for those children who are trying to pick up the pieces of their lives, after they had been victims of the Lord’s Resistant Army. The centre offers psychological help to try and help them to deal with the awesome ordeals that they have been put through as child soldiers. This is done through talking, drawing, dance, songs and sports. Save the children makes sure that the same children are sent back to school and the same time another part of the project which involves tracing the parents of the children is in the pipeline. They would like to find some ways of reuniting the children with their families and hope that they can work towards sending some of them back to their villages again.

Stability through playing

One of the most important thing when working with children who have grown up with war and violence is to try and create some form of stability and give them a sense of normality in which they can feel safe and have a chance to be children again. This is why a good playing centre is a very important tool. Save the children establishes playgrounds every year in the northern parts of Uganda. They work together with two Danes who have extensive experience in building playgrounds. These playgrounds include swings, balancing polls, spider nets, and basketball and volleyball coats. These playgrounds are made to strengthen muscles and improve motor co-ordination, balance and enhance creativity ability. Local material is used and therefore the local handymen are also involved and they can also train how to make things like swings and other things needed in the playground.