After nearly two decades of life in camps in Northern Uganda, more than 90% of the displaced population in the region have now returned to their homes/villages although according to a recent CAP report an estimated 300,000 extremely vulnerable persons are still stuck in camps in Attiak. Most of these disadvantaged persons are women living with HIV/AIDS, formerly abducted young mothers with their children, persons with disability and old aged persons.  They have been rejected by their own families, relatives, friends and the community, and are faced with discrimination, stigmatization as they continue to live hopeless lives in the community. They cried for help to be build homes locally in vein.

However, through Caleb’s Hope their cries reached Canada, and immediately a group of oversee volunteer started mobilizing themselves and resources to come and build homes for 21 women in Attiak. The oversee volunteers arrives in Uganda via Kenya on the 29^th November 2010, teamed up with their counter part in Attiak shortly, and build 21 homes for 21 women in Attiak within three weeks (21 days). No body including myself expected this result but the strong commitment and spirit of voluntarism in hearts of the volunteers, and amazing team spirit among the volunteers made this possible. This was remarkable in the history of Attiak!

I often go to Attiak for meeting with the beneficiaries of our projects and during my time in Attiak, every body in Attiak including our beneficiaries and local leaders that I meet and interact with after saying “hello” to one another, the next questions follow will be “How are the volunteers? When are they coming back? How did you manage to convince those volunteers to come to Attiak in particular? How long have you trained the oversee volunteers with skills of building the local homes? Also it was amazing to the community seeing the oversee volunteers Ladies playing both roles of men and women in building process. Traditionally in building homes, men and women play different roles and never will you find women playing roles of men in building process. A woman said, “we have to learn from those oversee volunteers and start playing any role in the building process”. These are some of the talks people in Attiak continue to say Five months after the extraordinary work of the volunteers in Attiak, and to all the volunteers I remain proud of your work and indeed you made history in Attiak!