Pictured is Renee Bach, an American missionary who moved to Jinja, Uganda at age 18. She is not a Doctor, not even a Nurse. With no formal medical training, Ms. Bach started experimenting with medical procedures she’d learn from Youtube.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz1rw6Uvnhk
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https://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2019/06/neo-liberal-racism-will-not-give-us.html
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Neo-liberal Racism will not give us white saviors: When beautiful Ugandan Children fell into the hands of an extraordinary devil amidst the silence of Uganda’s Neo-liberal state
https://watchmanafrica.blogspot.com/2019/06/neo-liberal-racism-will-not-give-us.html
MUST READ:
When Neo-liberal
Devils Test Biological Weapons on African Guinea pigs: Let us Use Ebola to
Divert people from the Minerals we are looting from DRC: Record 26 Ebola deaths
in DR Congo in a single day
West Africa: What are US Biological Warfare Researchers Doing in
the Ebola Zone?
When White Saviorism Turns Deadly: American missionary played doctor, children died, when will there be justice?
When I first
visited Uganda in 2010, I was 20-years-old and chalk-full of the white
savior complex. I volunteered for 3 months at an orphanage in Jinja,
Uganda and I really believed I was making a difference. I fundraised for my trip, raising thousands of dollars from family and friends to fill a role that was absolutely not necessary,
even though I believed it was. The Ugandan women who cared for the
children in the home were far better equipped to love and care for these
children. They knew the culture, language and were a constant in the
lives of the at-risk kids who came into care.
One of the hardest but
most important lessons I have learned over the last 8 years has been
that good intentions are not good enough. No matter how well meaning I
have been or continue to be, the impact of my actions on the community I
claim to be helping far outweighs my goodwill.
While in Jinja my white
savior complex was only reinforced as I met other young, white American
women who had moved to this same town. I watched in awe of young women
who moved halfway across the world at age 18 with no experience, no
college education. They were starting organizations and adopting
children. How amazing? If they
could do it, why not me? So I did. With only a bachelors degree and
little-to-no experience, I co-founded an NGO in the same town as Renee
Bach and her project – “Serving His Children.”
Initially, I admired Renee for her sacrifice and tireless commitment to helpingchildren battling malnutrition. It was not until January 2014 that my perspective really started to change.
There was a child referred to our center who had previously been at
Serving His Children (SHC). He and his Grandmother stayed with us for
several months while he received much needed medical care. The day after
we had received some good news about his heart condition, he died of a
sudden heart attack. His 3-year-old body had been through a great deal
of stress and it had finally given out.
We found out that this
little boy had suffered a severe case of malnutrition and was brought to
Renee’s NGO in Masese. They got him fat and healthy and then sent him
home without so much as any consideration for the root cause of his
malnutrition. There was no follow up, so he fell sick again, so sick
that his body was not able to come back from it this time.
Renee and her Social
Worker at the time came out to our office to discuss this case, as I
made it clear I held her partially responsible for this child’s death. I
explained that had she training or experience in child welfare, she’d
know how critical it is to follow up on cases like this. I was frustrated at that point but all I was asking was that Renee and her team do better follow up moving forward to prevent kids from falling through the cracks and ending up right back where they started.
It was soon after this
that my concern moved to terror, as I learned that the poor follow-up
procedures were far from the most dangerous thing happening at Serving
His Children. It was reported by multiple parties that Renee was actively practicing medicine on children that came to the center.
She had medical professionals on staff but she herself, with no medical
training, chose to actively treat and respond to serious medical needs
of children in crisis.
Below is a screen
capture of a blogpost Ms. Bach published on the Serving His Children
website. This post, among others, have since been taken down. Nothing published on the internet really ever goes away.
We were able to recover a number of troubling posts just like this,
that were taken down after evidence was submitted to the Jinja Police
and Ministry of Health in Uganda in 2015.
Here you can find a detailed account of just some of the direct, self-taught medical
care this American missionary engaged in. She writes, “I hooked the
baby up to oxygen and got to work….As I took her temperature, started an
IV, checked her blood sugar, tested for malaria, and looked at her HB
count… I was attempting to diagnose the many problems that could
potentially be at hand…After doing a search for blood around Jinja town,
we found her type and it was a match! We started the transfusion…”
According to previous volunteers and former staff, the above account is nothing compared
to the high level medical practices Ms. Bach would engage in at Serving
His Children. Taking children from actual hospitals and medical
centers, Renee and her team would bring children back to the center in
Masese. Renee herself would openly talk about how much she enjoyed
“hands on medical care”. An unknown number of children have died in the care of this center.
Proper protocol was not followed after the children died, so it could
be quite challenging to find the total number of lives lost due to such
serious negligence.
Many of us who have
tried to hold Renee and SHC accountable have been lambasted, yelled at
and referred to as “the enemy” by supporters of Renee. The “home church”
that Ms. Bach attended in Jinja, as well as a significant portion of
the missionary community there, supported and defended her. It seems as though missionaries may have a selective tendency when it comes to following the laws of the land.
Could you imagine if a young, Ugandan woman was experimenting with
medical procedures on their children and they ended up dying? These same
missionaries who have stood by and justified these behaviors would not
sleep until they got justice if this had happened to their children.
What’s worse? Renee’s
Board of Directors in America consisted of close friends and family
members. When volunteers and employees would write to the board about
these concerns, rather than holding Renee accountable, the board would
find a way to get rid of anyone who was seen as “critical” of Renee’s calling from God.
After SHC was shut down
in 2015, many of us hoped that there would finally be justice for all of
the families who had children die at the center under Renee’s care. We were wrong.
Up until now, there has not been a full investigation into the evidence
provided to authorities here in Uganda. While we are holding Ms. Bach
and SHC accountable first, we also must ask why the authorities who
should have held her accountable failed to do so.
The purpose of this article is for advocacy and awareness purposes only. Sometimes, when justice is not had by way of a country’s justice system,
the last resort is seeking public attention. When you share this and
help us spread the word, there will be more voices demanding
accountability for these families who lost their children.
Ugandan woman watches 18-year-old American woman ‘adopt’ children in her country but is blocked from adopting herself
The double standard for
foreign nationals runs deep. So deep that a young, single American girl
can travel to Uganda and take custody of 13 children, while a married,
financially secure Ugandan woman is turned down for adoption in her own
country.
Patricia Musanje is
a 23-year old woman who stays on the Lubowa side of Kampala. This past
Wednesday, 12th of September, we were able to interview Patricia on her
experience in pursuing adoption. Patricia’s husband is a dual citizen in
both Uganda and the United States.
We opened the interview
up by asking Patricia how she first learned of Katie Davis Majors, the
American woman who is known for her New York Times best selling book, Kisses From Katie, where
she details how she came to take in 14 Ugandan girls in the town of
Jinja, Uganda. Ms. Musanje explained that she had been researching the
adoption process in Uganda. While searching for videos on Youtube, she
happened across a video that CNN featured about an American couple who had found themselves in the middle of an unethical adoption.
After finding the story
detailing how a Mother was tricked into giving her child up for
adoption, Patricia found an article about a 22-year-old American woman had ‘adopted’ 13 children here
in Uganda. Initially, this seemed to give her hope. Surely if a foreign
national was able to come and successfully complete the adoption
process of multiple children, she and her husband, Ugandan born
nationals, would have no trouble completing the adoption process of one
child in need of a loving home.
Ms. Musanje would soon find that this was not the case.
It is a common misconception that Ugandans do not want to adopt and that is why we need people from outside to meet the needs of our children. This is far from true.
It is this false sense of urgency of foreign nationals to swoop in and
‘rescue’ that bypasses all of the capable Ugandan families willing to
open their homes and hearts to orphaned and vulnerable children.
This mindset is not
limited to white westerners. While researching the best way to move
forward with the adoption process, Patricia was met with comments from
Ugandan authorities explaining, “We want these kids to be adopted by
white families. It is the white families that can provide for them a
better life”. This very mindset, held by foreign nationals and Ugandans
alike, has allowed for an 18 year old American girl to adopt 13
children in a foreign country while a 23-year old, married Ugandan
woman with more than adequate finances has struggled to even begin the
process of adoption.
After reaching out to multiple babies homes, including Amani Baby Cottage in
Jinja, Patricia became discouraged. Time after time her inquiries were
ignored or she was turned down. When we asked if this had discouraged
Ms. Musanje from pursuing adoption, she answered confidently that she
has not given up the fight. She has now hired a lawyer and is speaking
with a Babies Home in Kampala about beginning the adoption process.
Children being adopted
by foreign nationals are often treated like trophies, fetishized for
their dark complexion and exotic birth countries. The ‘parents’ are praised for saving them
from the inevitably dismal future they would have surely faced if they
remained in their home country. International adoption and transracial
adoption are glamorized while the very problematic realities are
ignored. Children are being torn from their heritage and it is being
communicated that white families are preferred over families that could
preserve the child’s culture, language and nationality.
While the reality has
long been painted that orphanages and adoption by foreign nationals are
the only option for Uganda’s most vulnerable children, there are a
number of organizations working to challenge this narrative. You can
find more information by researching and following the work of Child’s i Foundation, Abide Family Center and Reunite Uganda.
We cannot
afford to continue supporting this reality where an 18 year old
American is considered a better option to raise Ugandan children than a
financially stable, married, Ugandan couple. We can do better and we
must.
