Uganda at a Glance
Adjumani is both a region of Uganda as well as the region's capital city. Adjumani is made of two distinct communities: the native community (which lives both in town and in the rural areas) and a community of South Sudanese refugees who fled the civil war and established a settlement community in Adjumani. Making up the native community are many different tribes, many of which speak some English. Some tribes are a combination of "Ugandan" people and of Sudanese refugees in the settlement camps.
Most families live in one-room grass huts, both in town and in the settlements. Commonly, extended families live in a cluster of huts. The layout of the clusters varies according to location. In the "town," four to ten huts may be surrounded by farmland; whereas, in the settlements, where there is little farmland, huts are so close together that one can barely walk between them.
The refugee settlements are composed of women, children, and disabled men; all able-bodied, healthy South Sudanese men are still off fighting the civil war, have run away from it in shame, or were killed in battle. Polygamy is a common practice, and divorce and remarriage are not common; due to these practices and traditions, many women and children are abandoned by the men.
People walk or use motorbikes to get around, and especially in the settlement, children walk to school if the parents can afford the school-related fees. Families work hard to provide for their own needs through subsistence farming, with surpluses being so rare that very few people go to a market to shop for food, as there simply is typically no surplus being sold. Families also raise enough livestock to feed their own family (cows, pigs, chickens, and goats). Retail options are few. Dotting the town are a few one-room stores, a strip of buildings, cell phone shops, and two hotels which are the only two-story buildings in town. And, everyone owns a cell phone -- even if they do not have electricity, they have a solar panel to charge their phone.
Lifeline in Uganda
Lifeline’s ministry in Uganda is focused on empowering community leaders to break the cycle of poverty in their community! Adjumani was a community in our BeFriend program (overseen by Lifeline and Life in Abundance). The three-year program concluded in October 2021. BeFriend connects a church in the U.S. or Canada to a local church around the world in a meaningful way. Through this partnership, the U.S. or Canadian church can fuel empowerment and break the cycle of poverty in a marginalized community.