By Rob Adams
Sentinel Reporter
Sister Rosemary Nyirumbe is sitting outside, enjoying a warm spring afternoon in Greenwich when a visitor approaches for a chat. Engaging and friendly, with an easy delightful laugh, she welcomes the guest.
“I like it,” she says. “The last time I was here it was very cold. This time it’s different.”
Pleasantries of weather aside, smiling at the thought of the unpredictable northeaster temperature roller coaster, the Ugandan nun turns serious as she recounts her talk on Monday night at Round Hill Chruch.
“It was good,” she said. “I saw some people I knew and some new faces as well. I felt like a homecoming.”
Sister Rosemary, one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World, has been honored for her work in saving the lives of thousands of girls during the rebel wars in northern Uganda and South Sudan. She has received the United Nations Impact Award, been named a CNN Hero, and been honored by the “Women in the World” summit conferences in this country and around the world.
She is also the subject of the book Sewing Hope, as well as a documentary of the same name, narrated by Academy Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker.
“My message to people is that they should not forget what happened in Uganda, and think that it can only happen in Uganda” she said. “Anything which happens to humanity anywhere in the world should by something that all of us should take note of. We should not be taken by surprise.
“A lot of people do not even know about child soldiers who are women; girls who are trained as soldiers.”
Sister Rosemary said she wanted to put destiny in the hands of Ugandan women, and women around the world.
For years, Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army terrorized villages and stole children from their families, forcing them into slavery. Armed with only a sewing machine, Sister Rosemary openly defied the rebels in their reign of terror. Since 2002, she has enrolled more than 2000 girls, who had been abducted and abandoned by their families, into her Saint Monica’s Girls Tailoring Center in Gulu, Uganda.
She has made it her mission to provide a home and school for women and girls whose lives have been shattered by violence, rape, and sexual exploitation and given them ways to support themselves through job training in tailoring, catering, and other practical skills to restore their dignity, independence, and hope.
Kony remains an elusive figure. The United States has offered up to $5 million for information leading to his capture.
“The children are quite innocent,” Sister Rosemary says. “The need to be given a future. If we don’t do that, there will be a big generation who will continue doing the same. My struggle is to try to break that circle of violence and try in the best way to create a different future. Let them see the future with hope.”
Sister Rosemary said that her Greenwich audience was happy to hear the progress that is being made, but it is an ongoing issue.
“A lot of people received the message quite well,” she said.
She added that one attendee had been to Uganda and understood the atrocities.
“To see that there are people who have known this situation and can confirm that it is a brutal situation” she said. “[The audience can] hear that I am talking about not only pain, not only conflict, but also talking about hope. I think that is a message they took quite well to.”
Sister Rosemary spoke of talking to an audience in Cleveland about equality and stressed differences as well.
“I would like women to know that we are all created differently and actually God created us in His own image – men and women,” she said. We are not the same. We are totally different.
“The most important thing is – much as we’re struggling for equality – it would be very important to do the best you can do as you are. It’s like we’re putting the two human beings into conflict for no reason. You have to bloom where you’re planted.”
Asked about equal pay for both genders, Sister Rosemary speaks emphatically that a woman has carried a child and cares for her children.
“It’s a great injustice that we shouldn’t tolerate,” she said in regard to equal pay.
She left home at 15 to become a nun, having been a babysitter to nieces and nephews in Uganda. Inspired by the need to care for vulnerable children, she followed her calling. However, she found a few unexpected surprises.
“I am a great sleeper,” she said. “I like to sleep. One time I asked, ‘am I going to do this for the rest of my life?’”
“That was a great tragedy,” she said, laughing heartily.
Her trip to Greenwich served as a reminder of how grateful she should be. She produced a list that she was writing just that morning that indicated how pleased she was to be surrounded by “great people.”
“I don’t know why,” she said, laughing. “I would have written more. When I come to places like this, I always thank God, because I have the opportunity to speak on the behalf of people who cannot speak for themselves and let people know exactly the situation we live in.”
She is driven by her faith and the call that she feels that God has given her.
“I feel that I am doing something that is going to bring a change to somebody,” she said.
Next on her agenda is a trip to Boston as well as speaking engagements in Oklahoma, Portland, Phoenix, and Alabama. She didn’t intend to travel during Holy Week – but also feels that is part of her calling.
“Yesterday I was quite happy,” she said, reflecting on her talk in Greenwich. “There is no one who is just called for nothing.”
She laughed at being a woman of power – a conference she spoke at in Cleveland – but time spent with her makes it clear that’s exactly what she is.
