Sarah Goetz Staff Writer
Acacia O'Connor Life Editor

During spring break in March 2008, many college students will flock to tropical locations for a week of partying and relaxation. Jacquie Law ’09 and a handful of other Vassar students have a different itinerary. Law, along with a group of student Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) will travel to Uganda, bringing with them medical supplies and a passion for humanitarian work.

Law has partnered with the Asayo’s Wish Network, a non-profit which recently founded an orphanage in the small village of Kaberamaido, Uganda, to spearhead an effort to develop a medical clinic on site. Law, a political science major, said her Christian faith inspired her to do humanitarian work from a young age.

“I used to see the Christian Children’s Fund on television and always wanted to sponsor a child,” Law said. In high school she started a charity educating younger students and peers about global poverty, and also worked with charities to raise money to purchase and provide livestock to impoverished families in third-world countries.

Law’s particular interest in Uganda was born after writing a research paper on it in her human
rights and politics course. Law said that the plight of Ugandan children “really touched me in a very particular way.”

Hundreds of thousands of Ugandan children have been orphaned by war and disease in recent years. By 2002 the AIDS epidemic had left more than 880,000 children orphaned. Violent uprisings in northern Uganda by a militia known as the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have internally displaced nearly two million people. The LRA and other militant groups have abducted between 20,000 and 65,000 children, forcing them to be either child soldiers or sex slaves.

“Knowing the sheer number of children that have become abducted, and reading the escape stories—it’s different to hear those stories from a six-year-old,” Law said.

Law was already looking for a partner organization when she was put in touch with Sarah Asayo through her aunt. Law said that when she spoke with Asayo, she knew she had found a match.

Asayo, the founder of Asayo’s Wish Network, fled Uganda with her family 19 years ago because of conflict there. While living as an expatriate in England and then the United States, Asayo still wanted to help ease the suffering of the children of Uganda.

In the village of Kaberamaido there is no way to provide people with medical services; its treatment facilities are filled with beds and nothing more. The few medical professionals that do serve the villagers are not equipped with the supplies to treat them. This is where Asayo and Law have stepped in.

Asayo’s family has donated its land in the village of Kaberamaido for several facilities collectively called the Children’s Village. The organization has founded a comprehensive compound of essential facilities including a school, cafeteria, medical building, and agricultural farm. The complex will house about 400 children.

Because many widows and children in the village cannot afford even meager health services, Asayo’s Wish has partnered with the hospital in Kaberamaido. The Network will provide volunteers and supplies in exchange for treatment for the orphans.

“Jaquie offered to assist with the medical part,” Asayo said. “People don’t really have much there, they often go to the hospital to die really.”

Asayo said that different people alleviate the issues in Africa in different ways. Law, she added, is one of those who want to “go get in the mud and do something.”

“Jacquie has a passion to assist people and she’s directed that toward Africa,” Asayo said.

In order to help gather supplies and labor for the task, Law brought the project to her fellow EMTs at Vassar. She has organized a group of 15 for the service project, including 10 Vassar EMTs, two EMTs from Connecticut College, a doctor and a nurse.

“We are working with collegiate and community-based EMS programs, and every form of medical health professional you can imagine to gather medical supplies,” Law said. The team will spend spring break in the village, delivering supplies and providing medical services. They will deliver basic wound care, provide prenatal care, conduct AIDS education and teach the villagers about nutrition and disease prevention.

Law stressed the importance of the medical supplies, noting that they will be used “to serve the community when we go, but also to leave in the medical facilities once we’re gone.” A group of doctors are going to Kaberamaido in May for the complex’s grand opening will be able to use the supplies.

Law will be going to Kaberamaido in January to explore the facilities and work out the logistics of the trip. She has also organized a team-taught field work class at Vassar next spring for the participating students in anticipation of their trip.

While Law is motivated by her faith she stressed that her efforts in Uganda were not missionary work.
“The second greatest commandment is loving thy neighbor as thyself, so it doesn’t matter what religion somebody is to me,” she said. “If it mattered to me then I wouldn’t be a Christian.”

Law hopes to find a faculty sponsor to teach a course to accompany the two-week service project, to ensure Vassar students’ continued involvement in the project.

“I have incredible volunteers,” Law said. “I hope that because they are just as passionate about this as I am, that somebody will be willing to take it over.”
Asayo too is optimistic about the direction of the project and Law’s contribution to the Network.

“This work is not for everybody,” said Asayo. “Jacquie’s working hard and because she has that passion I believe she’ll come through.”

Asayo hopes that efforts like those in Kaberamaido will help change people’s preconceptions of Africa. “I want people to know that they can do something, that it’s not a lost cause,” she said. “Even if you help just one child, that child may be the one who grows up to make a difference.”
—Additional reporting by Sarah Siegel, Life Editor.