Kampala orphan care program rescues 23 street orphans; plans to improve orphan home, Children’s Hope Center School, women’s rehabilitation home

Photo: These orphans are extremely grateful to have a safe place to sleep, 3 square meals a day, and enrollment at our local primary school.

Today we bring you the good news that our native Kampala team is now caring for 23 rescued orphans (10 boys and 13 girls, ages 4-15). These children came under our team’s care late last year after being rescued off the streets by our Kampala director and the local police. The children were previously living in very dangerous situations: alone on the streets, eating from garbage, begging for food from strangers, and without access to clothing, medical care, or an education.

While we do not yet have the funding needed to optimally care for these children, our local leadership felt compelled to take action and provide at least basic shelter, medical attention and education for them — the alternative was intolerable to witness in their own neighborhood.

Now these children are living in safety under the loving care of our field director and volunteers from his church, and they receive nutrition support and an education at our Children’s Hope Center School. However, so far we only have 10 mosquito nets and 8 beds, and 3 children sleep in each bed, so when any of the children get sick, illnesses such as malaria, measles, head lice, and diarrhea tend to spread quickly amongst the other children.

We are teaching the children the importance of hygiene to stop the spread of infectious diseases, but we also are praying for donations to cover the costs of 16 more beds and 14 more mosquito nets to create a healthier environment for these children. Thus, we are seeking to raise $1,800 to purchase the additional beds and mosquito nets.

Meanwhile, we are happy to report that all of our students at the Kampala Hope Center School did very well on their final exams in November, passing with excellent scores and moving on to their next grade levels. We currently have 168 children enrolled in our Children’s Hope Center School this semester which began in February — they are studying Luganda (one of the native languages of Uganda), English, science, social studies, math, reading, and physical education.

We were recently able to purchase 21 benches for the children at school, but we are still seeking to raise $1,486 in order to purchase 10 more new desks, 10 tables, and 100 plastic chairs for the children’s comfort as they study and enjoy fresh-cooked meals at school. We also need to raise $1,000 to cover the costs of cement and labor in order to complete the pit latrine toilet construction since the rainy season has already started and the rainfall will increase in April.

Despite the positive progress of education being offered in the Kampala slum colony, the school continues to face challenges, mostly from damage caused to our vulnerable facility during severe flash floods. Thus, we desperately need to shift the Children’s Hope Center School to a temporary structure near our team’s local church which will keep our children and teachers on dry ground even during the rainy season. To build this temporary structure, we need to raise $3,254 in order to purchase iron sheets, poles, roofing timbers, nails, plywood, and chalkboards. We are thankful for your support to date which has enabled us to start building this temporary structure — in February we began laying down concrete sand and cement for the floor, and we have started building some new tables.

We currently have 2 tailoring machines for the 2 girls living at our ‘She Has Hope’ rehabilitation home, but we are seeking to raise $1,200 to purchase 8 more tailoring machines ($150 each) in order to be prepared for more girls to learn the skill of tailoring together in the future. In addition to learning to make necklaces, bracelets, hats, and other handmade crafts, we expanded the girls’ development coursework to include tailoring, an extremely valuable skill to learn which should provide steady work for the girls after they graduate from our rehabilitation program.

We also need to secure a higher quality rental home for our team — currently the home is not adequate for our needs and the safety of our girls. With your help, we are planning to build a fund of at least six months’ rent and utilities which comes to about $1,800. With a larger, improved facility we hope to further expand the skill training being offered to the girls to include hairdressing, catering, computer skill training, and teaching them practical life skills to help them be self-sustainable.

In addition, our local team has dreams to buy land where they can grow their own food to sell at market to earn income, and to build a hen house and piggery. Our field director reports: “All we need is start up capital. We want to set up a business that can keep us moving so that we do not have to beg people all the time in order to live. Our prayer is to start these projects that will bring in an income to help us obtain daily necessities such as food, medical care, clean water, and electricity.”

We are currently seeking more monthly donors to help us strengthen our programs — please consider filling a heart on our Monthly Sustainer’s “Heart Chart” today. The needs are extensive, but when we come together in a consistent way, we can make a lasting, life-changing difference in the lives of our children, our field director and teachers, and the trafficking survivors.

Take a Closer Look: view more photos from this project and others

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