They spent decades teaching children and pushing for better health care in Uganda. Now the sisters themselves are aging — and the question of who looks after them has no clear answer.
NPR reported Friday, June 20, on the sisters of Uganda, a group of Catholic nuns whose working lives were built around service: running schools, advocating for patients, and filling gaps in communities that had few other options. Some are now in the final years of their lives.
The report doesn’t name a specific convent or congregation, and it doesn’t put a number on how many sisters are in need of care. What it does lay out is a straightforward problem: the women who spent their careers helping others are reaching old age in an environment where formal support structures for aging religious are thin.
In many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, elder care — even for people who dedicated their lives to public service — falls to whoever is nearby. For women who entered religious life young, gave up family ties, and moved where they were sent, “whoever is nearby” can mean very little.
The piece, reported with photographs by Stuart Tibaweswa, frames the situation as an open question rather than a solved one. No relief fund is announced. No government program is named. No outside organization steps in by the end of the story.
NPR hasn’t published a follow-up indicating that a coordinated response is in place.
Originally reported by NPR. Read the original report.
