Kaikara's story SOS Children's Village Gulu, Uganda

A home at last
Kaikara is three years old. She lives in Uganda. Like millions of other orphans, she had to fend for herself. No father, no mother, no home, no future. She lived on the streets with her alcoholic mother when she was a baby; she was neglected and slept outside. Eventually, her mother couldn't take care of her anymore and disappeared. For a year now, Kaikara has been living at SOS Children's Village Gulu and has found a new home there, along with a new mother, new brothers, and new sisters. She is loved and pampered, can play without a care in the world and goes to kindergarten. Kaikara has a future.

Kaikara is doing well
Many children who come to an SOS Children's Village are severely traumatised. They are often introverted and shy at first. "It was like that with Kaikara, too," says her kindergarten teacher Lilian. "It was difficult to have contact with her. She wouldn't play with the other children and was very withdrawn. But with time, she opened up more and more. She has now completely left her "inner cave" and is much more accessible. She plays with other children and her brothers and sisters. When you talk to her, she looks at you and keeps on chatting and chatting." In spite of her difficult past, Kaikara is a healthy and alert child who trusts the people around her and is developing nicely. She feels particularly good when she's with her SOS mother. Later on, she'll go to school to become an independent woman - the key to a good life.

I love Kaikara as if she were my own daughter
Mavis is 44 years old and is the mother of twelve children, one of whom is Kaikara. "I take care of the children as if they were my own. I play with them, talk to them and help with their homework. I am their mother. I feel everything a mother would feel. We are a real family. Kaikara likes to play with her friends Achen and Dembe from kindergarten. These children again have opportunities, and I want to give them the very best I can. I want to do this job for the rest of my life, so that Kaikara and other children can become happy and independent adults."

Uganda
The war in northern Uganda has left the country deeply scarred. For twenty years now, the government under Museveni has been in conflict with Joseph Kony's rebel movement, the Lord's Resistance Army, who have perpetrated horrible crimes against the civilian population, including thousands of children. The peace process that began two years ago has brought relative peace to the northern part of the country, to the extent that the population no longer has to live in constant fear of acts of violence and leading a normal life seems possible. But peace is not yet guaranteed, and the last two decades of unrest have left the country in a deplorable state. The children suffer most under the poor conditions and the feeling of constant threat. Many thousands of children are alone, their parents have died or have simply disappeared in the chaos of this conflict.

Kaikara - a symbol for the orphans of this world
Uganda is one of those countries in which children become victims of political conflict, poverty, natural disasters and abuse; one of those countries in which children are forced to look after themselves, even though they can't. That's why Kaikara embodies all those countless children who need our help, so that they, too, can one day have a family, a home, a future.