“It has become very painful to live like this; I cannot sleep if I have not taken pain killers.”
Alfred Onen, a second year student of Economics and Management said. He has been living with this pain for the last 18 years and he says it is getting worse each passing day.

At the age of ten, Onen, was involved in a life changing accident while fleeing from the Lord’s Resistance Army Rebels (LRA) who had attacked his village.
He crushed the ball of his femur bone in the incident.
He seeks Ush3.5m financial assistance so as to have an Open Reduction and Internal Fixation (ORIF) operation that his family cannot afford to pay for and neither can UCU.
“We cannot help you because you got the injury before you came to UCU.”
He was told by the Director of Health Services; Dr John Mutumba.
Mutumba said that Onen could not get support from the University for an operation of his crushed bone because it was an elective surgery that the university does not cover in their current medical services policy.
It all started with the war and the troubles keep on adding up.
“In 1992, I fell and got a dislocation on my right hip joint while escaping from an abduction attempt by the LRA. This happened while my family and I were crossing ‘Wii-aworanga’ spring to the safety on the other side,” said Onen.
He adds that the very next morning his hip joint was fixed back at St Mary’s Hospital in Lacor, only but as a temporary measure because as a child his bones were still growing and would dismantle natures healing process.
In 1997, however, Onen injured the same hip while playing football.
“I got another injury while playing at the football pitch on the same hip joint where the ball of the femur bone had a crack on the neck and resulted into a septic arthritis which then led to a collapse of the ball of the femur bone and then my eventual disability,” said Onen. 
In 2004, Onen visited a surgeon at Mulago hospital who instead gave him crutches. These crutches, Onen said brought nothing but pain and misery to him so he preferred to wait for an operation.
Raised in a single parent home, Onen is in school on the hospices of Legacy Scholarship Programme and his Aunt.
“I did not grow up with my father and Legacy Scholarship Programme only pays my tuition and other fees while my aunt pays for my other need, so it is hard for them to raise the required Ush3.5m alone.” He adds.