(VIDEO: Yellowhammer travels to Uganda to capture the Sozo story)
Sozo is a Greek word that means to save, to nurture, to rescue.
You will quickly see in the video above that no word could better describe what Sozo Children, a non-profit organization started in Birmingham, Alabama, is doing for children 7,869 miles away in an impoverished east African country.
When two recent college graduates, Jay Clark and Allen Nunnally from Alabama, decided to go to the Republic of Uganda in March of 2010, they had no idea what they would find upon their arrival.
“We ran across situations of suffering that we had never seen in our communities before,” Nunnally explained.
They began bringing food to a poorly managed orphanage outside of Uganda’s capital city of Kampala. They realized the children there were not eating but every two to three days. Many had signs of physical abuse and malnutrition. They drank impure water and were plagued with malaria with no way to seek medical attention.
“The children there were suffering,” Nunnally recalled. “There was lots of abuse… Our relationship with these children just grew over time and we realized that their suffering was much deeper than we had ever imagined.”
Nunnally went on to describe the incident that he now refers to as “the last straw” that compelled them to do whatever it took to help these kids.
They were walking along a dirt road and noticed one of the young girls had sores bleeding on her feet, so they asked her what had happened. The girl explained through a translator that since they aren’t able to bathe, the rats chew on their feet as they lay in bed.
“We couldn’t walk away from that situation and not feel responsible,” Nunnally concluded.
In only weeks, a house was found, completely furnished, staff was hired, and children were welcomed into a new home. Seventeen children were moved from the previous orphanage into the new Sozo Children’s Home.
Back in Birmingham, Suzanne Owens was working to turn Sozo Children into a non-profit organization that could support this newly founded mission.
Today there are three Sozo houses, and over a hundred children on the other side of the world continue to benefit from the generosity and sacrifices of families in Alabama.
But this success story hasn’t been without intense hardship.
During the 2010 World Cup, the Alabamians were in a restaurant in Kampala when an Al-Qaeda linked suicide bomber came in and detonated an explosive device. While many Ugandans were tragically killed, the Sozo team miraculously survived without a scratch.
“I remember thinking, ‘this doesn’t happen to kids like us. I mean, we’re Birmingham church kids.’ My mind couldn’t even grasp that it was real,” Nunnally said.
In spite of the dangers and challenges, the Sozo team continues to push forward.
Yellowhammer’s videographer went to Uganda last month to capture the Sozo story first-hand. We believe this is a story worth sharing, and hope you will take the time to pass it along.
If you’re interested in supporting Sozo’s efforts, head over to SozoChildren.org to see all the ways you can get involved.
Below are a handful of still images from the video Yellowhammer captured while in Uganda.
(Note: This story was originally posted June 2014)
