Text by: By Sr Grace Candiru, MSMMC

After forty-seven years of service in various missions, he returns to his home country, to take up other assignments in the institute. The priest’s first posting saw him work for seventeen years in Katikamu Parish (present day Kasana-Luweero Diocese), then still under the pastoral jurisdiction of Kampala Archdiocese.

He immediately embarked on learning the local language – Luganda – interacting with children. Fr Archetti spent hours each day in class with primary one pupils, who spoke to him Luganda.

His next assignment saw him appointed to head the Catechetical Centre in Gulu, before he was transferred to Namugongo as Novice Master at the Comboni Novitiate. Archetti in 1997, was posted as parish priest to Our Lady of Africa, Mbuya.

Here, he worked closely with the parishioners, with whom he would soon set up an affordable, but quality secondary education institution at St Kizito, in Bugolobi. His flock had identified an institution for reasonably priced secondary education for their sons and daughters, as one of their pressing needs in the parish, which already had a thriving but cheap primary school, also at St Kizito.

Reaching Out To The Needy
In the beginning, Archetti did not see the need of starting another school, for as he puts it, “there were already many schools in Kampala.” But, events of the conflict in northern Uganda, coupled with the modest economic status of many of his parishioners, made him appreciate this want for the flock.

Mbuya Parish, which some residents equate to a “United Nations” of sorts, for having almost all ethnicities and nationalities, bears the other side of some of the poorest people in the city.

And for those who fled the turmoil in northern Uganda, Mbuya is a haven away from home. The Combonis, who initiated the Catholic faith in the north, still manage to support some of these less fortunate people in Mbuya.

In the same line, Fr Archetti felt the school would be fruit for ‘needy’ children, particularly some of who were displaced from northern Uganda. He asserts; “Yes, there were several secondary schools, but most were too expensive for the poor people, who had run away from a decade-old conflict, between the government and the rebels of Joseph Kony.”

A statement of one of the St Kizito Primary board members, further strengthened Archetti’s belief that “the only way to help children from less privileged families in the parish, was to educate them.” The missionary recalls “being moved” by the testimony, following which, he would start close work with parents, to see to fruition of the secondary school project.

St Kizito Secondary School would eventually open doors to its pioneer forty students in 1997. Its humble beginning was birthed in a building, which originally served as a dispensary of Mbuya Parish.

Out of the school’s seven members of staff, the headmistress, Mrs Elizabeth Odyek was the only one hired on full-time basis. Today, just twelve years on, St Kizito SSS, Bugolobi, has more than 1,000 students and over forty members of staff.

The Fruit Of Love
In 2001, another project of the parish aimed at helping the sick to access medical help started the same way. Archetti embarked on home pastoral visits in the parish, to interact with all residents, not only Catholics.

It was during these visits that he encountered bedridden poor people, suffering with AIDS. Later on, a Danish medical doctor Margreth Juncker, also a Mbuya parishioner, teamed with him to help out on such visits

. Her car soon became a ‘mobile clinic’. Other volunteers later on joined, thus the foundation of what is today Reach Out Mbuya Parish HIV/AIDS initiative was laid without a particular prior strategy.

“When we started the work, we did not know what we were doing or how we would manage. We simply visited the people and then understood their situation and we just began,” Fr Archetti reminisces.

“We started working without a particular framework. We were only attentive to the voice of God.” The Italian missionary says, however, with the help of different collaborators the project picked up.

“This work has been the fruit of love.” He says, many of the people who contributed money were also poor themselves, but they were willing to give the sick a second chance.

Among the local donors, he remembers a couple from Luzira, which had the partners wed at Mbuya. The two were touched and approached their friends to contribute, and eventually managed to raise close to one sh1million.

The priest, who shies from any credit given to him for the projects the parish has seen under his term at the helm, says it has been the contribution of everyone. “These are acts of faith for us all,” he smiles.

On Sundays, the celebrants would brief the congregations of the progress of the project, encouraging each and every person to contribute. For the Reach Out project, they called for volunteers and many promptly signed up for specific periods. Some have even stayed on with the organisation.

Meanwhile some clients, who got better after treatment, also volunteered. Today, they account for 51 percent of the workforce at the Mbuya Reach Out project. Even so, there are two clients on the Board of Governors. Besides local volunteers, Fr Archetti reveals that the organisation also benefits from foreign volunteers.

Challenges
But, while both St Kizito Primary and Secondary schools are self-supporting – with the exception of extraordinary projects like construction of the laboratory – Archetti says the Reach Out organisation
is entirely dependent on donations, mainly foreign.

He feels the administration needs to take on the local community so they can fully embrace the project like it was at the time of its foundation. For example he said the food given to clients could be locally sourced.

Already the organisation has some income generating projects like Roses of Mbuya (the tailoring section) that makes clothes for both children and adults. Recently, during the farewell for Fr Archetti they launched the Reach Out Mbuya Children Talents Club comprising a brass band and seasoned young artistes for music, dance and drama.

One of this group’s landmark performance was at the national celebrations of the Day of the African Child, on June 16, 2009, when the Talents Club landed an invitation for its brass band. These can be hired in a bid to raise funds for Reach Out.

The other potential for raising funds involves the crafts products, which clients at Kinawataka make

.According to Archetti, Reach Out lacks medical doctors. Currently, its clients number over 3,000. The organisation only employs six medical doctors, so, nurses carry out most of the work.

Because Reach Out is entirely dependent on donor funds, there is this uncertainty “of what if the funding is cut off altogether.” That, according to Archetti, puts a lot of pressure, because one is never sure of how long funds will last.

Missionary Experience
On his missionary experience in Uganda, Archetti says the witness of the Uganda Martyrs has been the most important for the Church. But, his observation is that this “richness” has not been fully exploited.

“The Catholic Church in Uganda is rich in witness – no need to write theories – because the Church must be founded on the witness of these martyrs.” The witness and the presence of the Uganda Martyrs, he notes, have played a big role in the faith of the people, giving rise to spontaneity of worship.

He acknowledges his greatest experience in this country as having been always the celebration of the feast of the Uganda Martyrs, every June 3. As a Novice Master, also, he remembers he was able to appreciate better, the important role of family.

“With the youth you understand the importance of the families from which they come and yet we often tend to downplay the role of families,” he explains. Archetti is, however, happy to note that a family in Mbuya Parish had their marriage blessed in the church and that all their five children too, have had their own marriages celebrated in the same church.

There is need for married people to give witness. He adds that families need to carry out apostolate. Fr Archetti reveals that in Mbuya, there are parents who attend Mass daily together with their grown up sons and daughters; “that is the kind of witness we need. Even for the other sacraments like Reconciliation, parents can show their children this love, whatever the age.”