From Nobody to Somebody: Franco’s Journey of hope

Before the war, Franco, his brothers and sisters lived very happy life.

One morning when Franco woke up and opened the door, the rebels surrounded the entire compound. Everyone ran and scattered around the compound. Some of his cousins were abducted by the LRA rebels and never returned. That night all their huts were burned to the ground. The black night-sky was filled with the glow of fire as it engulfed his family’s village. They spent nights in the bush hiding from the rebels scared, worried and traumatized, wondering if the rebels would find and kill them.

Since everything was destroyed, Franco’s family and relatives put up a temporary shelter (hideout) in the bush. They faced life-threatening challenges - lack of food or shelter, no medical care - but at least their parents and siblings were still alive.

His parents couldn’t bear to see their children starving to death. They decided to go back to their home with his older brothers go get food from the fields they had planted. It was dangerous walking back through the tall elephant grass to their village. They didn’t know where the rebels were, if they would be abducted or worse yet, killed. But they didn’t have a choice; they were desperate for food and were willing to risk it all for their family. Since Franco was too young to work in the garden or carry the supplies, he stayed with his sisters.

They waited until it was dark to leave the fields so the rebels wouldn’t see them. It was a long journey so they carried the food and provisions on their heads. Then, the trees began to rustle, branches began to break and out of the darkness the rebels emerged and ambushed the family. They forced his brothers, under threat of torture and death, to kill their parents brutally with machetes. As their parents lay in a puddle of blood, his brothers were abducted and dragged into the bush with the rebels, never to return.

Franco’s stepmom escaped and ran for her life back to the “reasonably” safe hideout. Living every day and night in terror, anxiously expecting the rebels would return, they made the three-day torturous journey to the town of Gulu where many others relocated during the war to find shelter and safety. His stepmom and sisters built a mud hut for them to live. Life was difficult. Finding food to eat and water to drink was near to impossible. His stepmom ran off with a man and eventually contracted HIV/AIDS and died. Since she was their only close relative, they had no one to care for them. They had to beg for food or work any meager job they could find to provide a little bit of food.

Franco and his sisters had to split up from one another so they could find a kind person who would give them space to sleep on the floor of their homes. They went for days without food unless they worked in a local restaurant where they were given the left-over food as payment for working the entire day. Sometimes they worked in people’s gardens in exchange for a small ration of food. Sometimes they were so desperate they would steal cooking pots filled with hot food. If they were caught, they knew the consequences: hot boiling water would be poured on their hands. It was worth the risk because their stomachs were empty.

Without money to pay for school fees and other school requirements they dropped out of school. They had no clothes to wear, no one to pay for their medical needs so they would suffer from sicknesses without any medical attention. Above all they were growing without any adult care or direction, no shelter and no love after all the hardship caused by the war.

Franco always prayed for their lives to get better again, for him and his siblings. God answered his prayers the day Village of Hope came to their rescue and brought them to the Safe House (Rose’s home). He never dreamed there would come a day when he and his siblings would live under the same roof again.

Franco gave himself totally to his education. He wanted to have a better life than the destitute one he came from. He was one of the best students in the nation of Uganda because he studied so hard and wanted to excel. He said, “I will always thank God for having turned me from a nobody to a somebody. I have a home, enough food, shelter, clothes, medical care, a mother (our house mom’s), and new brothers and sisters who also live at the village. God has used VOH for all of this. I feel so lucky to be under the support of VOH.”

Franco graduated from university with a bachelor’s degree in biosystems engineering.