Author: Ulf Sandström

At 22 Alex Munyambabazi lost his right leg to a landmine, and almost his left one as well. His life came to a painful stop. When he got a prosthesis he tried to hide it. He put on trousers and tried to walk as if he had both legs, he wanted so much for it not to be.

It all changed  when he was asked to talk to a 14 year old girl with cancer, who was refusing to have her leg removed to save her life. For the first time since his loss, he told his story to somebody, to her. He wanted to explain that there is life after losing a limb. When he was about to walk away she said ”but you said you lost your leg?”. He stopped and showed his prosthesis and has never hid it since. 

That night the girl’s parents called and were so relieved, the girl was accepting her leg to be removed and was even in a good mood about it, inspired by Alex. He realized the healing power of his story and has walked in shorts ever since, always showing his leg. 

Alex therefore initiated the Amputee Self-help Network Uganda( ASNU) to create awareness and support for those loosing limbs by amputation – often after traffic accidents.

ASNU is on March 25th organizing a 80 kilometer walk from Kampala to Jinja to raise funds to buy prosthetics for young people who cannot afford them. 

Alex and ASNU needs your help: A basic prosthetic costs between 800-1000 USD. They allow life to restart for young people who otherwise would be left behind. Imagine. 

You will be helping John who lost his leg as a 3 months old baby to an accident he got stuck in a motorcycle tire that damaged his leg hence the amputation. He is an above-knee amputee. 

You will be helping Mary who lost her leg to cancer. These are two of over twenty kids.

You can contribute with donations, and you can walk with him on March 25th, starting from the post office in Kampala. Link in bio tree. 

https://www.asnufoundation.org/
Paypal: email hidden; JavaScript is required

#amputee #prosthetic #help #children @asnu #trauma

The life changing story of Miss Kabiite

Miss Kabiite was in such a devastating state when her friend contacted us seeking support and guidance for her. She is a single mother with two boys, the eldest son being 5 years and the other barely 2 years old and still breast feeding. She has been working in a local private security company in a province in Gulu City, Uganda. Kabiite narrates that she saved up some money and purchased a plot of land hoping to develop it as she rented an apartment in a meantime; she took 100 percent responsibility of being a mother and father to her children because she never received any child support from the father of the boys.

All the difficulties started when she went for months without being paid her salaries, this meant she couldn’t provide, she couldn’t afford to feed the boys, pay school fees, rent and other essential needs like health care and clothing. She was then forced to move in with her parents in law. After some few months, the family turned against her claiming that she brought bad
omen and so they sent her away and the boys and she so her and the boys moved in with to a friend’s house.

Her friend too mistreated her and the boys and made false accusation concerning her 5 year old claiming that he tried to sexually harass her 4 years old daughter. This meant she had to look for another ways of finding shelter. Meanwhile, the peace of land she had bought on loan was being reclaimed by certain individuals who claimed that the person who sold the land to her was not the rightful owner.

Kabiite became so stressed and saw an end to her life and did not see any ways out of her troubles. It was at this point that we were contacted because she had attempted suicide with the intentions to first kill her two boys and then take her own life knowing that no one would be there to support them. She felt useless, cursed and rejected by everyone at that time.

One of our volunteers Charity Achom took on the case and had a daily conversation with her to help her with her emotions and offered her regular counseling, follow-ups and always prayed with her. Charity also invited her for our Tapping session (Trauma Tapping technique) a technique that is used to relieve one from stress and other mental illnesses that was conducted by Ulf Sandstrom of Sweden and Placide Nkubito of Rwanda from an organization called Peaceful Heart Network.

This session marked a new beginning for her. Kabiite now says she is stabilizing normally and she is involved in doing different small jobs to be able to raise her boys, however, the tapping helped her learn how to control her thoughts andemotions, her stress levels have reduced and she no longer has suicidal thoughts. In her own word she said, “I have learned and improved tremendously. I literally rarely react to peoples negative comments and when I get relapses, I often breathe in and out and it helps me calm down.”

She is so grateful for the follow-up, the therapy sessions and everyone who has played a role in her healing journey and believes that these tools have been very impactful in shaping her life today.

End

Miss Kabiite is one of the many young people that Move NETwork International has directly supported together with the Peaceful Heart Network, and continues to support in order to overcome mental health challenges like stress, suicidal thoughts, trauma and anxiety.

Here is Derick Ongeiwun telling how tapping has helped teenage mothers through their organization Move NETwork international.

Last week of November 2021 @goodnewsrwanda_ through the support from Peaceful Heart Network trained 60 inmates representatives including men and women from Musanze Prison on mental health issues and needs in prison as well as their role in communicating with peers who have a mental illness.

Inmates representatives were also trained on Trauma Tapping Technique an easy way to help themselves and other inmates with mental health difficulties. They were also commit ted to using this technique to ensure mental health care in Musanze Prison.

Together with social worker and tapper Festus Adarkwah Yiadom in Sierra Leone the Peaceful Heart Network created a radio program explaining stress, trauma and how to resolve it. Festus wants to use the radio to reach all of Sierra Leone. You can help make it happen.

FIRST PROGRAM
Guests Gunilla Hamne, Ulf Sandström

SECOND PROGRAM
Guests Kristin Miller, Gunilla Hamne & Dr Roberto Ravera

YOU CAN SUPPORT THE SHOW

Festus report:

“Our great thanks to PEACEFUL HEART NETWORK for their support in this program God bless you all. Thanks to Gunilla and Ulf Sandstrom of the Peaceful Heart Network, for their contribution and participation of the program from Sweden on air here in Freetown . Many thanks to all supporters of Mother Child Ravera center activities

Much was discussed in the radio program , based on the topic we talked about.

Stress and trauma healing with the unique techniques from peaceful heart network, some topics were discussed were how stress can affected us and how it is like a virus that can be pass on and on to people and how to heal it with the techniques from peaceful heart network used to heal stress and trauma that is TTT the three t”s: Trauma Tapping Technique.

Reactions were about the youth behaviour these days, many are stressed and traumatized because of the conditions of living here and because of many of the disasters that happen they use drugs just to forget about the problems . They become addicted to them and lead to crimes rates rising. A vicious circle.

It is good people do TTT every day as part of care for your health,  it keeps you in good order and reduces your stress for the day.

Callers were very happy for this program and now they know much about stress and how to heal, which was the most important part of the program.

A caller called we should move TTT around the country it will help people in the deep villages to know what that stress can make them think there are demons when people talk strangely or have nightmares becuase they don’t know stress causes it.

Princess Bioma called and asked for the web to get the tools when she got it she called back and said the tools are easy to use. Try them.

Next was caller from Mambo who said teaching people about stress and trauma will help us all understand it and if we know how to heal it we can help ourselves and also help other people who are stressed.

We should get a healing center that people will go there for counselling and advice.

Abdual Barrie lummly car park driver said “We want this program everyday so passengers will listen because they trouble us so much. We also need stickers and posters to paste on our cars, walls and more tools to share to people so people will know.

Peaceful heart network should join with partners to make a tour to share the techniques with people, the people that don’t have chance to get the tools that are in deep villages because they need it so much with problems like child marriages and more young people that don’t go to school suffering from stress.”

Thanks to you all for you support and ides given to me till this time of my work you are always remembered
yours faithfully
Festus Adarkwah Yiadom
Acting director MCRC coordinator Peaceful Heart Network

SUPPORT THE RADIO SHOW HERE