Officials of Rocco Paco, a charitable and non-partisan revival movement seeking to rebuild Acholi following decades of insurgency, have urged Christians and church leaders to intensify efforts to fight poverty, improve education and promote sustainable economic development in the sub-region.
The officials said the Church and local communities must complement prayer with practical interventions, including improved agricultural production, greater access to knowledge and initiatives to strengthen household incomes.
The call was made at Wipolo Shrine during the annual commemoration of Blessed Daudi Okello and Jildo Irwa, two young catechists who were killed in 1918 because of their commitment to the Catholic faith. Their martyrdom remains an important symbol of faith and sacrifice for Catholics, particularly in northern Uganda.
Eng. Ivan Otim, an official of Rocco Paco, said the martyrs’ example should inspire spiritual renewal, hard work and socioeconomic transformation in Acholi, a region whose development has been shaped by years of armed conflict and persistent economic challenges.
Otim said although education had helped some families improve their living conditions, it had not always been sufficient to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. He illustrated the challenge using his family’s experience, recounting how his father grew up in extreme poverty and abandoned his education to support his two brothers after their parents died.
His father reportedly grew cotton to raise school fees for his siblings before the disruption caused by the insurgency. “My father always told us that if you can die of studying, let it kill you,” Otim said, describing the determination that drove his father to prioritise education for the next generation despite the hardships he had endured.
Otim said his father’s sacrifice helped his children escape some of the difficulties he had experienced. However, he noted that poverty remained a challenge in his own family despite his efforts to educate his children. The experience, he said, raised questions about whether education alone could deliver lasting economic security without complementary livelihood opportunities.
“My slogan is that poverty shouldn’t be inherited but fought,” he said. Otim argued that families needed to look beyond meeting immediate expenses such as school fees, food and transport to invest in sustainable economic activities capable of generating reliable household incomes.
He said Rocco Paco members had been engaging community leaders to identify practical ways of addressing poverty, emphasising grassroots mobilisation and collective action rather than relying exclusively on public discussions about the problem. The movement, he added, was also seeking spiritual guidance to identify workable solutions, acknowledging that its members had not yet established a definitive formula for eliminating poverty.
“Our prayer is not silent. We are praying to God through Daudi Okello and Gildo Irwa to relay our prayer to God. We don’t only want God to give us, but to show us the way we can work together with the Acholi to develop our land,” Otim said.
Moses Onono, another Rocco Paco official who also serves on the Gulu University Council, said Acholi needed to confront persistent poverty by improving agricultural practices, expanding access to knowledge and strengthening the culture of productive work.
Onono, who said he had spent 20 years farming with hand hoes, argued that communities could improve their livelihoods by committing more resources and effort to productive activities. “We are tired of poverty as Acholi,” he said, urging residents to address factors contributing to persistent deprivation, including ignorance and limited access to knowledge.
Onono also questioned the level of financial support churches receive from their congregations, suggesting that low offertory collections could reflect the economic difficulties facing many households. He cited churches in Paicho, where he said congregations sometimes raised between 8,000 and 12,000 Shillings in offertory despite having approximately 2,000 people in attendance.
He challenged Christians to reflect on their financial priorities, contrasting church collections with the money some people spend on activities associated with football clubs such as Manchester United and Arsenal. Onono argued that greater financial support from congregations would strengthen the Church’s capacity to sustain its work.
Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Okello, the curate of Holy Cross Parish in Kanyagoga, under the Archdiocese of Gulu, said the Church was also praying for an end to poverty, laziness and ignorance while encouraging Christians to embrace hard work.
He said the annual commemoration offered believers an opportunity to seek spiritual guidance and wisdom in addressing challenges affecting both their physical and spiritual lives. However, he urged Christians not to treat prayer as a substitute for practical efforts to improve their circumstances. “Let us try to also work hard and pray hard,” he said.
According to figures attributed to the Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) and the National Planning Authority, monetary poverty in Acholi stands at 20.5 per cent, above the reported national average of 16.1 per cent. Multidimensional poverty affects approximately 63.6 per cent of the sub-region’s population.
Monetary poverty measures whether people have sufficient resources to meet a defined minimum standard of living, while multidimensional poverty captures overlapping deprivations in areas such as education, health and living standards-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
