Road to Recovery

We are excited to kick off The Power of Compassion story series with Charles Obuk.

We will feature 40 stories for 40 days in celebration of our fourth anniversary this September, these stories are meant to encourage people from all social spaces to embrace the spirit of generosity and to celebrate the heroes that selflessly make a difference in the lives of others.

Charles Obuk in his own words, be inspired.

Compassion and kindness are the things that changed my entire world"- says Charles Obuk.

Growing up as a child, I was fed compassion and kindness by those who cared to give them to me. 

My mother had a very unsuccessful relationship with my dad, with whom she had two children - I and my elder sister.  However, they had split up before I was born in 1997. It was only four years when she moved into a new relationship and left us in the custody of her brother, Mr. Olung David (R.I.P). 

This was the beginning of my encounter with compassion and kindness firsthand.

 At the time, the LRA war was still on and people barely slept at home. My uncle's wife, Oyella Florence had more than six (6) children of her own, hence we became eight. She cared for us without any discrimination.  She bathed us, fed us, loved us, and raised us like her own. No one would notice that I and my sister weren't her children. Much as the war made life difficult as people had to flee homes into the bush almost every night, there was no single day that my uncle and his wife left us behind.

Thank God, in 2003, we moved into the Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) camps where all the sub-county people were congested in one area guarded by the military and we relied solely on monthly food distribution by the World Food Program (WFP) until 2008.

 My uncle took me to primary one in 2004 while in the camp. By 2005, my mother returned, this time after a break-up with her husband again. It was from my uncle and his wife that I felt, received, and experienced acts of compassion, kindness, and empathy and they made the difference. Unfortunately, my uncle passed away in 2006. 

Even though life had returned to normalcy and people went back to their villages after the war, the effects of the war were still very visible in our lives and homesteads. Parents struggled to support their children in school. 

I completed my primary seven with the school’s best aggregate of 20. I had no hope of going to secondary given my family's economic background. 

I relied on kindness and compassion from others again. During my vacation, the Butterfly Project -an organization that sponsors gifted and talented but disadvantaged children came to our sub-county and I passed their interviews. 

They brought me to Kampala together with other children and sponsored me from senior one to senior six where I emerged as the best A-level student in my school, St. Kizito SS Bugolobi with 18 points in History, Economics, and Literature. 

My dad, whom I met less than five times in my whole life passed on in 2015 due to Hepatitis B. 

 My mother never received any formal education since birth. And, I wasn't successful in the government sponsorship schemes despite my excellent performance in Arts. I thought it was the end of the road for me. I didn't have any rich Uncle or Aunt to ask for help. 

The sponsorship had ended but the Director advised me to do online fundraising for my tuition.  I got admitted to Makerere University for a degree in Economics but later on transferred to Makerere University Business School for the same course of Arts in Economics. For three years (six semesters), I paid my tuition by fundraising on Facebook and other crowdfunding websites like Just Giving and GoFundMe.

 People who didn't know me and I didn't know them paid my tuition through their acts of kindness and I graduated as one of the best Students with a CGPA of 4.80.  

As they say, to whom much is given, much is expected. I was given kindness and I will give kindness. The empathy, compassion, and kindness that I received from those who cared to give them to me shaped my personality, and my career and changed my entire world. 

When I graduated, I got my first temporary job with the very organization that paid for my secondary education. Out of my earnings, I helped a young man from within the village trading center stay into business when his shop was broken into by thieves and his stocks and money stolen. To date, his “thank you” words still rings in my mind.

Later on, I joined Teach for Uganda – an organization that works to improve access to quality education for all children in Uganda, particularly the underserved rural communities. With my first-class degree, I served the community of Namutumba District while placed at Budwapa Primary School where I taught Primary one. 

I currently work with Makerere University Business School as a Teaching Assistant in the Department of Economics. However, I still do charity outreaches where I donate scholastic materials to the schools in the districts where Teach for Uganda operates. 

My life story can be best summarized as; 

“The nature of humanity, its essence, is to feel another’s pain as one’s own, and to act to take that pain away. There is nobility in compassion, a beauty in empathy, a grace in forgiveness.” – John Connolly.

It's stories like these that make us who we are. Thank you, Charles, for sharing.