SEEDS OF HOPE

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The Life and Work of Patricia Brenninkmeyer.

EPISODE 3.2: THE REALITY OF SOCIAL WORK IN UGANDA.

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As a social worker, Patricia was almost embarrassed by the wealth her family possessed since many were quite unfortunate in her newfound community. However, her wealth was substantial in bettering the lives of the poor in Uganda. She eventually persuaded her father to invest in a new purpose-built babies’ home. The Nsambya Babies’ Home under the Child Welfare and Adoption Society was eventually redesigned as a fully functional solid building aimed at housing the less privileged babies. Patricia also fully funded the education of some of the orphans at the babies’ home for example Aloysius Byekwaso, a smart yet poor boy who was able to attend secondary school courtesy of Patricia’s selflessness, he went to one of the prominent schools in Uganda, St. Mary’s College School. Aloysius would always write to her sharing his academic progress and to-date attributes his success to Patricia.

During her free time while in Uganda, Patricia and a couple of her friends would tour around and they even encountered Mountain Elgon, a dormant volcano in eastern Uganda. However, the Priest friend with whom they had trekked the mountain fell ill with malaria and eventually succumbed to the disease while on the trek. Patricia and another friend had to carry his corpse down the mountain as other trekkers and camp members had fled earlier on. This bad experience and many other good ones are some of what made Patricia’s experience in Uganda an unforgettable one!

Another unforgettably sad experience Patricia faced while on her social work journey in Uganda was when Lillie Millie one of the teenage girls she had been taking care of escaped to Kenya with an older friend of hers in a bid to secure jobs at the Kenya Airways. While in Kenya, the two girls were reported missing and eventually found deceased, their bodies stuffed in sacks floating down the Athi River. Patricia, who was on an English break in England would eventually be notified about this sad and horrific occurrence, the culprits were apprehended and the bodies of the two girls were brought back home to their families in Uganda where they both had a decent burial they much deserved. Patricia’s attachment to these children meant that she shared in whatever sorrows or joys they experienced hence Millie’s death being such a blow to Patricia. She had to ensure that the other nurses and sisters offered limited care to the babies without getting too attached, a task that proved difficult as many of them would want to mother the babies.

In 1966, an appraisal regarding the running of Uganda as a multi-ethnic country sparked off between Sir Milton Obote the then Prime minister of Uganda and the then president Kabaka Muteesa II. Over the next few months, the military and state security services increased pressure on the Kabaka who eventually fled to exile and was eventually overthrown by Obote’s government. During this period, Patricia’s family was worried for her safety and urged her to leave Uganda, she eventually did.

Once the tension had subsided, she returned to Uganda, but a lot had changed! Obote’s regime was characterized by authoritarian rule! Political opponents were being tortured and there was increased food shortage and corruption. Unfortunately, once she thought all had calmed, in January 1971, while Obote was in Singapore for the Commonwealth Heads Of State Government Meeting, his government was overthrown by that of Idi Amin Dada. The previously peaceful Uganda was under political turmoil yet again! Patricia was again forced to leave Uganda due to the great bloodshed the country was facing under the once welcomed and praised, Amin regime.

  1. Patricia shares a photo moment with some of the mothers and sisters from Nsambya Babies’ Home, they assisted with looking after the babies. ↩︎
  2. Patricia poses with the then Governing Board members of the Nsambya Babies’ Home. ↩︎

Written by Karungi Mary Providence.

SEEDS OF HOPE

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The life and work of Patricia Brenninkmeyer.

EPISODE 3.1: AND SO TO AFRICA!

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On a cold morning in 1964, at 25 years of age with a passport in hand and such high hopes, Patricia embarked on her journey 4000 miles south of London to a country that straddled the equator, Uganda. All came into place following the usual Sunday evening dinner meetings while the family conversed with Dr. Magdalena Oberhofer a friend of Fr. De Reeper, who had been working with the grail and had recently returned from Uganda. In 1953, The Grail (a community of religious lay women from Holland, England and Germany) had established themselves in Uganda at the center of the Catholicism administration head quarters at the Rubaga Hill. It was through this society that Patricia was able to travel to Uganda even though she had not joined them as a member.

Upon her arrival in Uganda, Patricia noted with disappointment that life at the grail was pretty much the same as that in Europe with a lush view of Kampala and hot water running from the taps, just like in Europe. She expected to live a life totally different from what she was accustomed to back in Europe. It was at this hill that Patricia met Elizabeth Namaganda, a woman in her early 20’s that just like Patricia had devoted her life to social work. She wore a stern faced that carried authority but her smile would always put those around her at ease. Elizabeth and Patricia would soon become good friends and enjoyed their experiences working with each other

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At the time of Patricia’s arrival, Uganda had gained her independence two years prior and agriculture was a booming sector where 75 per cent of cultivated land was devoted to subsistence agriculture and the remainder to cash crops. A revenue of £118 million was being collected from the peasant farmers into the development of the country. However, a lot was lacking in the health sector of the country, high maternal mortality rates and infections were the norm at that time putting the lives of the nursing mothers at great risk.

While still in Britain, Patricia had secured a job with child welfare and adoption society (C.W.A.S), a catholic organization aimed at catering for the vulnerable children in Uganda. Patricia narrated to her family that working with C.W.A.S was her absolute calling . Due to the high maternal mortality rates, often times, the fathers of the children would get stuck with the babies most times abandoning them at the hospital. Therefore Patricia had to work closely with the law in a bid to reunite these children with their families and that is how she crossed paths with Ms.Matilda Sengooba, a then magistrate at the Kampala Juvenile Court. Matilda was full of praises for Patricia as it seemed like she knew all the children personally.

Patricia placed advertisements and announcements in the national newspapers such as the Munno in English and the different local languages, she solely funded this. She would go as far as Gulu and regions north of the Nile to areas as far as Tororo near the Kenyan border and as far as the terrains in the South where Uganda met Rwanda and Congo. She eventually purchased a Volkswagen beetle car to ease her trips.

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  1. A few of the sisters from The Grail pose for a photo moment. ↩︎
  2. The late, Sister Elizabeth Namaganda ↩︎
  3. The Volkswagen Beetle Patricia used on her trips packed at The Grail ↩︎

Written by Karungi Mary Providence

SEEDS OF HOPE:

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The life and work of Patricia Brenninkmeyer.

Episode 2: LIFE AS A SOCIAL WORKER.

Patricia with some of the nurses and sisters together with the babies at Nsambya Babies’ Home.
Patricia carrying one of the babies at the Babies’ Home.
A group of some of the babies having breakfast at the all new redesigned babies home

The seeds of Patricia’s passion to work in a children’s home were sown as she sat by the windowsill in Perugia, gazing upon Umbria. It was at this moment that she decided she would choose the vocation of residential social work that would involve immersion in a children’s home. Indeed luck was on her side when she wrote to a friend of her mother in Belgium who ran a children’s home requesting a months work experience in order to get a feel of the vocation. In fact Patricia somewhat felt the urge to skip her postgraduates degree at St. Andrews that her parents wished for her. Regardless, she went on to pursue her degree at St Andrews hence putting off her social work training for 4 years.

Upon finishing her degree, Patricia went on to do a two-year diploma in applied social studies at Liverpool University in 1961. courtesy of this course,Patricia was sent off to the poorest areas in Liverpool where she was yet again faced with the harsh realities of life as those she was helping lived lives totally different from that she was accustomed to. “I had loads of sympathy for people and plenty of common sense but boy, did i lack experience!.” she best described her situation in Liverpool. The true nature of difficulties of fieldwork made their keen impact felt. She worried that there was little she could do to improve these people’s lives. Patricia later managed to secure a work placement with immigrants in London in 1962 which she met with great excitement as it would be of valuable experience to her as a social worker. Patricia was shocked by the living conditions of the west Indians with whom she worked in England following the Nottingham race riots of 1958 that sparked a great deal of racism in the area.

It is by this profound love for residential social work that would later lead Patricia to Child Welfare and Adoption Society (CWAS), an organization that had been founded by Father Rawlinson in 1958 with an aim of providing a better future for the city’s vulnerable, orphaned children by providing them with good care and protection.

Written by Karungi Mary Providence.

 

 

 

SEEDS OF HOPE:

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The life and work of Patricia Brenninkmeyer.

Episode 1: The early life

          Patricia as a baby.

 

      Patricia on her graduation from St. Andrews

Born into a wealthy and renown business family of Arnold and Catherine Brenninkmeyer in 1938, Catherine was nothing short of the ordinary child. Although her family just like everyone else thought she would venture into business, little did they know that this very child would grow to have such an impact on hundreds of families in Africa. From as young as 8 years of age, a seed was planted into this little life. An urge to see beyond the affluent life in Wimbledon, England where she had been birthed. This can be attributed to her teacher at the Agatha Schule in Mettingen where she was taking piano classes among others. This teacher often told her stories of the little black children in Africa, an encounter that birthed her passion and desire to visit Africa and even stay there. Even more, Rev. Fr Jan De Reeper(Mill Hill Missionary Society) , a Dutch missionary priest friend of the Brenninkmeyers often told the family of his encounters in the African missions all while they sat together at the dining table during sunday evening dinners talking just like any normal family would. These two individuals paved the way and determination of Patricia to move to Africa, an idea her parents never welcomed.

Patricia never believed in the power of education if it would not lead her to Africa where her passion lay. Her life in school would be best termed as both humble and humorous as her good results were laboriously attained as her parents instilled more of the effort into her academic life. In order to build her zeal to learn, her parents passed on a deal to her, they would both take a trip with Patricia and Fr. Reeper to South Africa only if she would take Latin lessons with Fr. Reeper in the morning hours then they could all spend the rest of the day visiting and touring the different sites in Africa. Patricia welcomed this deal and went on to attain A’ level in Latin! This trip opened her eyes to the harsh realities of life as these times were the peak of the Apartheid policy in South Africa.

The unfair treatment of the black people in their homeland by the Dutch people did not sit well with Patricia and contrary to her parents’ expectations of her abandoning her urge to move to Africa, this encounter instead created an even bigger zeal in Patricia to make an impact on the lives of these people. Upon her completion of her return home from the trip and completion of her Latin lessons, it was arranged that Patricia take on a finishing course in Rome and Perugia, Italy living with the Grail Society (also known as The Grail), a group of religious lay women known to the Brenninkmeyers.

Patricia was happy with her exposure to all the cultural and artistic wonders that the country had to offer, and with her new found freedom away from home and its expectations.Patricia’s wonderful gift of accepting and quietly relating to people from different backgrounds and abilities, drawing them to co-operate in common enterprise, is the hallmark of her achievements in both England and later, in Uganda.

In the struggles and formative experiences of her early life, in her interaction with so many different and often strong personalities along the way, we find the seedbed that gave shape to a life of remarkable dedication to the well being of thousands who are the richer for having known her and benefited from her.

 

Written by: Karungi Mary .P

 

 

Speech to the Terego One World launch and celebration by Avril Bellinger on 3rd November 2023

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My name is Avril Bellinger, Honorary Associate Professor in Social Work at the University of Plymouth, Elder in Residence at the University of Glasgow UNESCO Chair in Refugee Integration through Languages and the Arts (RILA) and most importantly, long-time friend and volunteer with this fantastic organisation Kulika, visiting every year for 15 years.

I am honoured to speak on behalf of the Patron, the Archbishop of Kampala, the Board of Trustees, the Board of Directors, the staff team and the whole enormous Kulika family.

For over 30 years, Kulika has realised its vision of improving the quality of life for communities and environment by transforming livelihoods. It has trained thousands of farmers in ecological organic agriculture (EOA) and spread their influence through farmer-to-farmer extension.

Kulika is delighted to be delivering a pilot for One Health in two districts. It is an opportunity to demonstrate the powerful consequences of EOA to promote health through organic food production; soil conservation; plant and animal health, minimising chemical intervention; waste management; environmental hygiene; and community engagement. We all know that the problems we are facing globally are complex and connected. Kulika works systemically and proactively to increase holistic wellbeing. It continues to support activities after project funding stops and is active in over 27 districts all over Uganda.

The organisation’s core values of integrity, diversity, teamwork, commitment and learning are a point of coalescence for organisations like One Health, who recognise the power of EOA to deliver increased wellbeing to people, animals and planet one household at a time.

To end I want to thank the German funders, BMZ for awarding this third project to Kulika through Malteser whose trust, ongoing support and capacity-building are most appreciated. Finally but not least, thanks to the One Health team and its trainers for braving floods and difficult roads to get us ready for this launch. I give you Kulika! Thank you,

Avril & Viv at the One Health Day Celebration November 2023