Journey of Hope Walk 2019 diary: Day 11

JOURNEY OF HOPE AWARENESS & CHARITY WALK 2019

By Joseph Kizza

@joekizza

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CURRENT LOCATION: KUMI

The crack of dawn found us in Bukedea district on Thursday. It was our 10th pit stop on our quest to walk from Kampala to Napak, Karamoja over the course of 18 days.

We started off the Journey of Hope Walk 2019 on July 1 and we are hoping to arrive in Napak on July 18. We are also hoping that by then, we will have raised enough awareness on the situation of street-connected children. This year, the #SchoolsNotStreets campaign hopes to raise funds for the construction of a secondary school in Lomaratoit village in Napak.

Take a look at how Day 11 went in these pictures:

 
The walkers were in elevated spirits, having rest at the Bukedea district headquarters.

 
Along the way, they were joined by students of Bukedea Lifeline Secondary School who walked for about 800 metres, before letting the core team carry on with the journey.

 
The effervescent students marched chanting 'Schools not streets!' while carrying huge banners emblazoned with messages about the campaign after being addressed by Rita Nkemba, the founding director of Dwelling Places, the organisation behind the campaign.

 
Bukedea district was created in July 2006 and became operational July 1 the following year. Before that, the district was part of Kumi district.

 

The district is located in Teso sub-region.

 

The walkers have been in fine form.

 

After Bukedea, their next stopover would be Kumi.

 

According to Rita Nkemba, children should be in school. Not on the streets.

 

The team was officially flagged off from Bukedea by Vincent Akol, the community manager of Bukedea.

He said what Dwelling Places was doing a great job in supporting children to stay in school and not on the streets.

 

It has been 11 days of walking along the eastern route.

 
Weary legs but pushing on.

 
In the weather department, Thursday morning was dull. But in the afternoon, the shy skies eventually opened up.

 
The walkers felt the heat but trudged on to their next pit stop.

 
30km of walking for the day.

 

Eventually, it was relaxing time when they finally got to their immediate destination. In total, they have so far walked 294km. The entire journey is 467km.

 

For its third edition, the biennial Journey of Hope campaign, has had partners give generously to make the walk a success: New Vision, Terres des Hommes (a Dutch organisation working to, among other things, end child trafficking), City Tyres, Cafe Javas and Girls Advocacy Alliance, which is aimed at eliminating gender-based violence and economic exclusion of women and adolescent girls.


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