Artists Listening Natalie Portman Listening in Uganda
Many know that HIV-AIDS is a killer epidemic in parts of Africa, but what about the victim’s children, and their chances for survival? LISTEN filmed Natalie Portman in the Ugandan capital of Kampala, where AIDs-orphaned kids told her about their lives, fears and dreams.
Wearing a dress that belonged to her mother, Irene Nakakawa is graceful and full-bodied, with a maternal gravity beyond her sixteen years. In the half-light of the dwelling she shares with three younger siblings, Irene might easily be mistaken for the woman of the house, a role that fate has sadly assigned her.
Irene’s parents died of HIV/AIDS. She nursed them on their death beds, and inherited their responsibilities when she was around thirteen.
She and her sister Sarah, 10, and brothers Bernard, 13 and 5-year old Steven are inseparable. Working together to acquire food, water and firewood, they survive – barely. These children do not live day by day, but meal by meal. In Uganda alone, there are 2.2 million like them.
Natalie Portman, Harvard-graduate and Oscar-nominated actress, is in Kirombe, a rural district of East Kampala, to listen to Irene’s story. With her family beside her, Irene speaks softly, telling how when their mother died, they had to leave school to look after their home and ailing father, who outlived their mom by just a year.
Natalie listens intently. The children have no idea who she is or the worldwide attention she commands, but relate to her as a sympathetic visitor. Dressed in torn jeans and a t-shirt, the 26-year old Portman seems almost a child herself. She learns that the children’s memories of their father playing games with them and their mother singing in the church choir are their most cherished possessions, along with the house their father built, and a small garden plot behind it.
The several banana, maize and cassava plants growing in the garden aren’t enough to feed the family, especially since part of the crop is sold to purchase other necessities. A local NGO called Aids Widows Orphans Family Support (AWOFS) used to bring Irene monthly supplies, until their funds ran out.
Working on a shoestring budget, AWOFS struggles to assist child-run households like Irene’s. With the help of LISTEN, a global awareness and fund-raising campaign, AWOFS, and other organizations helping children worldwide, could do a whole lot more.
When Natalie asked what Irene, Bernard, Steve and Sarah wished for, they said to go to school like other children, and learn how to make a decent living. Ironically, the school they once attended is just next door, but a lack of funds places it out of reach.
Before leaving to visit another family, LISTEN asked Natalie her impressions of these children. She smiled broadly and said, ‘Amazing – ’, before breaking down in tears. Natalie hugged everyone good-bye, and Bernard, the eldest boy, patted her on the back is if to comfort her.
On the south side of Kampala, in another semi-rural setting, Nicholas Ddamulira, 17, also heads a household devastated by HIV/AIDs. He wears a silver wedding band, the only parental memento he and four siblings have left.
Like Irene’s, his family once benefited from the monthly packages AWOFS can now rarely afford to give. But Nicolas didn’t always go to sleep hungry. He tells Natalie that his mother used to run a food stall, and give them everything they needed. She was the first of his parents to die, having instructed him to care for the little ones, and ‘to face whatever comes our way.’
It wasn’t long before Nicholas was obliged to make the same deathbed promise to his father, to care for Julius, 15, Adrian, 8, and Trevor, 5, and a 12-year old sister Angel. Before burying his father, Nicholas learned that he too was HIV-positive. To expedite treatment, the local hospital registered him for free medication under his father’s name. Antiretroviral therapy work best when patients are well-nourished and stress-free. Under the circumstances, Nicholas is painfully aware that along with his father’s medication, he may soon share his fate.
Nicholas and his siblings occupy a small room in a house that is collapsing. Yet even this would mean security, if greedy relatives weren’t angling to sell the land. The thought of losing their home is hard for Nicholas to bear. But despite it all, he dreams of becoming a graphic artist, and like his brothers and sisters, wishes only to return to school. For now, Nicholas mends shoes, and every cent he earns buys food. He seems unaware that his daily routine requires a heroic degree of selflessness and stoicism. He just loves his family, and he made them a promise.
In another part of town, a shambolic, AIDs-stricken slum in East Kampala, Sandra Nambita, 12, and her brother Marvin, 6, tell Natalie a similar story, but with two crucial differences. Their parents died of AIDS, but they are not infected. Moreover, they’ve been adopted, and have an adult to pay school fees, feed and protect them.
Jacqueline Namutebi, a formidably resourceful woman from Sandra and Marvin’s village, is now their foster grandmother. Jacqueline lost her husband and several children to AIDS She and thousands like her are rearing their dead children’s offspring, against all odds. With seven of her own grandchildren, three of whom are HIV-positive, plus Sandra and Martin, Jacqueline’s burden is great.
Yet thanks to her industriousness, and several small loans obtained from FINCA, a micro-credit program catering to the poor, Jacqueline is giving these kids a second chance. In the course of ten years, with loans of under US$400, she constructed a small building she now rents to several shops, and a cane-roofed pub where she sells home-brewed beer. Jacqueline and her nine children are living proof of how a little help in good hands can transform many lives.
Tony Hollingsworth, LISTEN founder and producer of global media events, thinks the world should hear these children’s stories of dauntless courage and defiant hope. He believes that people would respond if given reliable donation channels, and regular reports showing the life-altering results of their help. While governments and institutions are often expected to do the world’s caring, LISTEN seeks instead to prove that concerned individuals acting together on a global scale can make a world of difference.
