Teacher couple to set up school for
lost children of Burundi
By Lorraine Shearer
(from The Orcadian dated 25 May 2000)

Several pairs of huge brown eyes stared up at Angus Ross and he was hooked.

Clutching at his legs, the lost children of war-torn Burundi smiled up at him. They were looking for the love and affection that had been so brutally taken away from them.

And now Orkney couple, Angus and Janice Ross, from Finstown, are planning to join their daughter in helping the orphaned and maimed children of Africa’s Burundi. They are heading out to the country in September to set up a secondary school for the children.

Their daughter Annelie is already in Burundi where she has been for the past two and a half years running an orphanage.

Annelie met her now husband, Jacques Uwimana, from Rwanda, while working for the same organisation called African Revival Ministries (ARM). She has worked in Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi since November, 1997 and her home doubles as an orphanage for 15 children – more than ten of them aged under three.

Looking upon them as her own, she is up every morning before 7am to get the older children ready for primary school.

“The first time we went out there and arrived at Annelie’s house all these little children came running and put their arms around our legs,” Mr Ross (52) said. “They are so affectionate and so grateful for everything.”

Angus and Janice are both teachers. Mr Ross has 29 years’ teaching experience behind him and is currently head of German at Kirkwall Grammar School in Kirkwall, while Janice Ross (50) is a primary teacher at Glaitness Primary School in Kirkwall.

They were approached by ARM who were interested in setting up a secondary school in Burundi for the orphaned children.

Angus said: “A primary school set up for the orphaned children has really taken off and is doing really well and now they see the need is arising for a secondary school.”

The couple spoke to the educational authority in Orkney who have been very supportive and agreed to grant a leave of absence for two years from September.

It is not simply a case of setting up a school, Angus explained, but they will be going out to work in the primary school, helping to plan language curriculums while also working towards developing a secondary school and attracting the necessary funding.

Initially it will be for a two-year period, however if after that time the school is not up and running, the Rosses have the option of whether to resign their posts in Orkney and remain in Burundi, or come back and take up where they left off.

A great year of change is ahead for the Rosses with Annelie (25) expecting their first grandchild in August. She is returning to Britain for the birth following the earlier heartache of losing a child close to the birth date.

“Her child will be one of 16,” the expectant grandfather said. “She has not officially adopted the other children, but looks upon them as her own.”

Annelie has been in reasonable health until recently when she contracted amoebic dysentery. However, because of the baby she is carrying, Angus explained that doctors had been able to do very little. “It’s a case of grin and bear it basically,” he said. “She is due home to Orkney on June 4, with the baby due on August 1.”

She plans to travel back to Burundi with her parents, Jacques and the new arrival.

“They are incredibly busy and need a break; working with orphans and being involved with a refugee feeding programme, they do not get a day off at all.”

Annelie works in the emergency baby care relief unit, involved in many different areas of work in Burundi and the surrounding countries, but specifically with widows and orphans. Angus said his daughter was still very enthusiastic about her work and on a positive note did not see quite so many deaths among the young children anymore.

Having visited once – Janice has been twice – he says the couple are going to Africa with their eyes open.

“We know what we are going to; the situation can be very volatile. There are still a lot of potential problems that come up now and again. We cannot go out in the country – it is too dangerous and there are a lot of restrictions in the city itself. But the people are fantastic and the children wonderful.”

The Ross’s youngest daughter, Kirsten (23), visited Burundi in March and took back photos of the children wearing clothes donated from people in Orkney. And following a successful appeal for more clothing recently, the couple will be taking another batch with them.

“We have as much as we can take at the moment,” he said. “We also have to take clothes for ourselves and household equipment, such as cooking utensils.”

They will be living in a little house nearby Annelie and Jacques – an old colonial type building. “We certainly won’t be living in a mud hut,” he said.

The Ross family are looking forward to the challenges ahead, building a school from scratch.

“The bonus is obviously being close to Annelie, but we wondered about invading her patch kind of thing. We also had reservations about leaving our other daughter. She is a physiotherapist in Perth.”

While the temperatures will certainly be warmer than in Orkney, Angus Ross said that having been down on the beach before while in Africa, with the cool breeze coming off the water, it will be possible to imagine being back in Orkney.