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The script on the news of the 6-year-old gathering empty plastic bottles for survival on the NTV news bulletin ended with a new chapter in Shakur Omiat’s life and his family.

The new lease of life comes after Bravo Shoes Community Support Organisation (BSCSO) took him to Namuwaya Education Centre in Bweyogere, Wakiso District for school.

Flamboyant with a smile, the smart, jolly Omiat breathing new life, was already behaving like a king before the arrival of the Bravo team, at his home. Shakur was full of joy, dressed in his best shirt with Vaseline glittering off his shiny face, thanks to the happy sunshine above the horizon.

Different scholars say that whatever happens in life, happens for good. Every incident in life has a connection with future incidents, which we are not able to see at that point in time.

We are only able to relate it back once that connecting future incident happens, on Friday 10, February, it had to be Leila Hayat, the girl from Terego, West Nile who was picked under tense conditions by the BSCSO.

Leila came to represent on behalf of Sam Bright MUHINDO – Bravo Shoes Community Support Organization Education Brand Ambassador.

MUHINDO, another boy from Kasese, Kyasenda whose story is similar to that of Shakur Omiyat.

Picking Omiyat was Leila’s maiden trip to the eastern part of Uganda since she left Aiivu, Terego districts a few months ago and had to travel deep down to Dwalata, Kiwumi Village, Pallisa Town Council in Pallisa District to take Shakur to school.

To Leila, this journey was a study trip to trigger her mindset and to learn about what happens outside school class in social studies. The trip to the east which is marked by a variety combined with nature and industries was a memorization for the young Leila from Terego.

However, the similarity lies in subsistence crop agriculture and animal husbandry her home district shares with Pallisa as the two major economic activities in the district but, fishing, fish farming, and beekeeping are increasingly practiced in Pallisa District and are still alien to her.

Left or right, along Jinja Road, from Mabira, tea plantation, sugarcane yards and the clumsy tributaries of River Nile did not leave Leila the same.

“I have never seen these before, in Terego we spend most of the time fetching watch,” said a soft-spoken Leila.

Leila was up to the task and Sam Bright Muhindo, the boss was impressed, upon reaching Shakur’s home, she took through him all that was behind being responsible and a good learner in school.

The 6-year-old Shakur despite the fact he, is a happy boy with tones of hope as evidence of his resilience. An interesting chap, whenever we could ask him anything, he could just smile back and you read between the lines of his smile.

Luckily, Shakur’s mother was home, she told us her story about why Shakur is fatherless and was abandoned.

According to Tino Beatrice the mother of Shakur, her son came at the time when he visited her uncle while in Primary Seven, there was a boy working as a potter at the construction site who proposed to her.

The boy disappeared after sleeping with her and later she learned that she was pregnant. Her uncle sent her away back to her mother in the village.

After delivering Shakur, my mother took all the responsibility and she has been supporting Shakur since then. Am grateful opportunity, I least expected that Shakur would turn out a blessing, Shakur’s vision is to become a doctor,” she said

Tino’s message to the girls out there is to stay in school and avoid being lied to by the boys and those going through similar challenges, and never to think of aborting or abandoning their children.

She appreciated the Bravo team and all its partners for helping Shakur and commanded him to be a very disciplined boy and respect his teachers and fellow students.

Not even a heavy downpour or electronic thunder can shatter their dreams, nor floods can derail their determination and zeal to attain the basic education possible in Tororo, Eastern Uganda.

Eyes focused on the prize; nothing could stop the two young girls despite trekking close to 6 miles for years on daily basis to grab a slice of knowledge at Rock View Primary School in Tororo town.

Nandabi Zaituni 9, and Nangoma Fatuma 7, were the Bravo Shoes Community Support Organisation (BSCSO) champions of the day for girl child education after their viral video of them enduring a heavy downpour surfaced on social media.

Upon seeing the video, the Bravo Team embarked on the search through an appeal on the social media organization’s social addresses, the vigilance of our followers in the east specifically in Tororo raised the dust high, and this motivated us as we stepped in for a casual reconnaissance mission though the chase did not come so easily.

One of our followers Musa Mandu an accountant with Wash & Wills Hotel in Tororo took the task to sacrifice some time off his desk work to identify the location in the video though he had no idea about the young girls in the video.

“I came to know about Bravo Shoes Community Support Organisation activities on LinkedIn, as a humanitarian activist, the post touched me and I commented that if you’re you can help, am willing to help,” Mandu said.

The search for two Girl Children in Tororo

The Bravo Team drove straight away to Tororo to search for Nandabi and Nangoma, our clue was a school banner that appears adjacent to the roadside the two brave girls took, on the orange wall, read “Victory Junior School”.

The team reached the location and interacted with the people around the place just opposite Victory Junior School. Many of the people we talked could still remember the two young girls gracing the rain on the purpose that day.

“Remember these two children? We have arrived in Tororo to check on, and identify them. In the near future, we shall come back, pick them and add them to the list of our beneficiaries,” said Yesigye Brian Bravo the Team Lead.

On arrival at the scene on Maguriya, Mbale Rd.- Tororo district, we got in touch with a lady on the verandah on a sowing machine chatting with friends.

The ladies narrated that on that day it rained so heavily, they saw those kids coming from school but they later disappeared somewhere.

“They were coming from school going home. Mzee that day you were organizing the water tanks,” a lady said.

After seeing the video, another lady we asked said that she saw the girls and pitied them.

“I saw them, I asked them to come and take shelter here and they obliged. I said eeh….maama wabaana bano aliwa? (Where is the mother of these kids?… I was raining so heavily,” she wondered.

The lady remembered that in August 2022, the kids were coming from a place known as Mile 3, Maguriya, off Mbale Rd.

“It is not the first time seeing them here, one of them veils. I saw them the second day in dirty uniforms going to school,” she added.

The team later moved on to Tororo town where we got in touch with the Tororo Senior Community Development Officer Emmanuel Odongo who clearly identified by the look of their uniforms that they were learners at Rock View Primary School.

According to Odongo, the school is highly populated with over 1,000 learners, it serves villages like Aturukuku, Achilet, Agururu, Amagoro, Nyangole, Morukatipe, Maguria among others.

With the company of Odongo, the team pushed back about 5 miles away from the Tororo town, on the right side of the road, we locate kids fetching water on the bore hole, we suspect they could be in the know of the children in the video and our van packed.

Odongo interacted with the kids along with his ipad and one of the people he interacted with was a 16-year-old girl who was waiting for her jerrycan to fill before she lives.

“Yes I know them…..” the girl nods. She points at a certain direction to indicate where the two girls come from. Luckily, the young lady leads us without hesitating.

We walked quite a distance on zigzag short paths for about 50 minutes off the main road and we were in Lubonge Sub- County, Magulya Village A which is demarcated into small size plots with faster-rising development.

Our first attempt was not futile and here we found Fatuma Nangoma, the youngest in the video, her friends were able to identify her on video and she was right there.

“That is Fatuma, her sister is there…that’s where they stay,” pointing at the immediate neighborhood.

Upon reaching home, the two girls stood next to each other in dismay, they were wondering what has really happened to them before their mother came out of the house looking visibly terrified.

Their Mother Nerima Asina the 31-year-old mother of 6 looked so humble and speechless, her description does not qualify you to ask why she doesn’t apply a lotion on her face or do a hot comb to her hair. You could be asking too much if you wanted a touch of bar soap to wash your hands.

“They are my children in primary one, they came back soaked that day at around lunchtime from Rock View since there is no school nearby. They wake up at 6:00 am every day but sometimes one of my neighbors gives them a lift to school,” she said.

Nerima opened up that their father Watindi Juma lives and works as a driver in the Soroti district. He rarely returns homes and spends months without returning home and her mother helps sometimes because they don’t have enough land to till.

“He was poisoned in April and got sick, he used to drive a taxi but since Covid, he has been looking for a proper job. My husband got sick for some time and he was not working,” she added.

Asked if she would want her children to acquire better education, Nerima express happiness and can’t wait to inform the father of her children.

Following up on the news of the 6-year-old gathering empty plastic bottles for survival on NTV news, Bravo Shoes Community Support Organisation had to step in to save the future of Shakur Amiyat.

As the wave of development descends to the east, there is a spirited boy with the heart of a lion ready to defy the odds that come with development and civilisation as it is in developing countries.

The 6-year- old Shakur despite the fact he, is a happy boy with tones of hope as evidence of his resilience. An interesting chap, whenever we could ask him anything, he could just smile back and you read between the lines of his smile.

He speaks Ateso with little or nothing in English, he lives with his 45-year-old sick grandmother, Asiyo Christine and his one uncle and an aunt who are in the same age bracket in Dwalata, Kiuomi Village, Pallisa Town Council in Pallisa District.

Asked by Yesigye Brian Bravo the Executive Director of Bravo Shoes Community Support Organisation if he would want to go back to school, Shakur responded in the affirmative that maybe he has been scotched enough by the relentless sun.

“Shakur 6yrs old is a happy and interesting chap, whenever we could ask him anything, he could just smile because of the Language Barrier. He speaks Atesot and Uncle Bravo does know Atesot. When we asked him if he wants to go to school,” Bravo said.

Shakur is driven by the spirit of leadership and responsibility and without any permission, the young boy treks between 2km to 3km to look for plastic bottles.

He would also devise other means to raise more money by sorting rice on another journey of 5km away from home, he would later take home to take care of his grandmother who stays at home.

According to Okwaja Joseph innocent, the waiter at Pallisa Gardens in Pallisa Town Council, it has been 2 years since Shakur started coming to their premises to collect plastic bottles- this means Okwaja started recognising Shakur’s presence when he was just 4 years old.

“It is 2 years since he started coming here collecting empty bottles, during school times, he comes in the afternoon. When there is no school, he comes as early as 8:00 am, he picks and takes them to get money and get something to eat. We keep them for him even if he doesn’t show up that day,” he explained.

A small distance away from his home, there is a school, West View Primary School and according to Ronald Ssemakula the director of the school which says is home to over 300 learners, not many parents in Pallisa see anything in taking children to school.

“The problem lies with the society and its background, many parents here did not go to school and many children don’t go to school, most of them are looking for money,” he said.

His grandmother Asiyo told Bravo team that the boy keeps skipping s hool without her consent to go and loom around looking for money.

“He is a student at Odwalata Primary School in primary one, sometimes he dodges school to go and collect plastic bottles and before you know it, he comes back home with food. I started falling sick during Covid and when he sees me sick, he feels bad and instead of going to school,  he would concentrate on taking care of me,” he said

Asiyo said that her grandson was abandoned to her by her daughter after giving birth and she has single-headedly raised the boy despite her mother Beatrice Tino being unavailable.

“She was 20 when she gave birth to Shakur while in Primary 7, she gave birth and dropped him here. I think she got married in Jinja.,” he said.

Our effort to reach Tino was futile despite various attempts to call her on her known contacts as shared by her mother who is also grappling with debts which remain unclear, the remaining portion of her land will be gone.

It is explained that Asiyo got a loan of Sh1.8 million to do business but with her illness, the money never achieved its purpose and it could be taken.

Aaron Kabona Jamal the activist and youth leader in Pallisa claims to make Shakur’s video go viral on social media and said that many young children are into informal employment something contrary to the laws of Uganda.

“They are 3 children in this family all involved in this activity and buy food at the end of the day, I found Shakur picking bottles a long time ago and I took a video which went viral,” he said.

Ugandan legislation prohibits the employment of children under the age of 12. National labour law prohibits the involvement of children 12-13 in any employment except for light work carried out under the supervision of an adult.

As population pressures mount, sadly the number of toddlers like Shakur also shoots. The 2002 national census estimated the population of the district at 255,900 but it has since continued to sour and in 2012, the population of Pallisa District was estimated at over 426,000 yet few opportunities emerged.

According to Okirakol Aggrey Paul, the Senior Community Development Officer, the district has alarming cases of child labour and many are looming on the streets as hawkers and basically working in 3 areas.

“They are on streets doing hawking things like eggplants, bananas, onions and others are hired rice plantations to scare away birds, others are in sand quarries among others,” he said.

Okirakol said that as Town Council, they are engaging with different stakeholders like the local councils, Community-Based Organisations (CBOs) and Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) to address the situation.

“We have engaged communities and we have received more reports and we have since rescued many from trafficking,” he said.

Child labour is defined under the Children (Amendment) Act of 2016 as “work that is mentally, socially or morally dangerous and harmful to a child and the circumstances under which it is performed jeopardizes the health, safety, morals and education of a child”.  The minimum age for employment is set as 16 years.

According to the Uganda National Household Survey (2016/17) by the Uganda Bureau of Statistics, over two million children are engaged in some form of child labour.

Such a statistic indicates that Uganda is at risk of losing a future productive workforce. It is therefore important to note that child labour, job creation and labour productivity are strongly linked.

According to the ILO, child labour is work that is mentally or morally dangerous and harmful to children; it interferes with their schooling by depriving them of the opportunity to go to school, forcing them to leave school early, and forcing them to try to combine school attendance with excessively long and heavy, often dangerous work