Photo: Students in our programs are so grateful for the existence of our education programs which make quality, affordable education available in a region of Uganda where it is typically very scarce.
We are happy to report that this month we are celebrating our 10 year anniversary of partnership with our rural Uganda native team. Before we partnered with our native team in 2009, their outreach had just started in a remote village with a limited capability of reaching their community. But the desire and the heart were strongly present.
School classes were held in weak makeshift structures, and students of many grade levels were mixed together due to the lack of adequate classrooms. There was no electricity in the area, and we did not have a security fence around the perimeter of our properties. We did not have any desks for the children, so they had to balance writing materials on their knees. We did not have any computers or a science laboratory, and our high school was not yet accredited.
But since partnering with our Uganda team, the majority of these needs have been met: we constructed the high school building, we installed a solar energy system, we acquired science laboratory equipment and 10 refurbished laptops for the high school students, we built security fences surround our school premises, and our high school is now fully accredited. We built a house for our field director and his family and purchased a truck to help our team make the difficult journeys from the village to other areas. We also constructed a permanent school building for our primary school campus, replacing a dilapidated makeshift structure.
When we first embarked on this journey with our native team in 2009, our earliest step was to drill a clean water well that has served thousands in our high school and in the local community for ten years now. We were able to launch our rural primary school in 2012 where we have since enrolled 1,039 students and employed 53 teachers and 22 other staff members, the latter creating jobs for the Ugandan population.
Our native team officially began the high school at our main campus in 2007 where we have since enrolled 1,385 students, and 766 of these students have graduated with a high school diploma. We have also employed over 102 teachers and 37 other staff members at the high school which is now a boarding school home to 250 students. Our local team has included orphan care as a key focus at the boarding school, and thus during the last 10 years, we have provided complete residential care for 748 impoverished orphans.
In 2012, we launched our on-campus Rapha Medical Clinic where we have treated 851 children and 2,506 adults, employed 11 doctors, 24 nurses, and 15 other staff members. Our faithful medical clinic staff have treated many diseases of the local population such as malaria, typhoid, and cholera, and have raised awareness of how to prevent AIDS as well as provided counseling to people already living with HIV.
Many women in the area have also been empowered by learning valuable skills such as how to make handmade crafts and the art of tailoring, while also participating in our catering services and harvesting crops on our farmland enterprise — all for the sustainability of their income, thus being able to support their families and children.
In 2010, we launched our farmland enterprise in Uganda and since that time, our native team has harvested the following — we’re very proud of them for being innovative and resourceful in working hard to grow their own food:
- 14.1 tons of corn
- 6.7 tons of beans
- 6 tons of passion fruits
- 3.9 tons of watermelons
- 3.2 tons of bananas
- 1.7 ton of tomatoes
- 2 tons of eggplants
- 1.9 tons of onions
- 1.6 tons of potatoes
- 0.9 tons of collard greens
- 1 tons of green peppers
In closing, here is a message to our generous donors from our field director in rural Uganda:
I am very grateful for your unsparing efforts to support the vision, mission, and objectives of our ministry in order to make it meaningful in its existence in Uganda. It is through the support and giving of every gift from you, our donors, that we were able to achieve the programs that are helping so significantly in this community.
Therefore, I pray for a very big blessing for you donors as the Bible says in Proverbs 19:17, “Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord, and He will reward them for what they have done.” Also in Matthew 10:42, “And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is My disciple, truly I tell you, he will never lose his reward.”
I also make a humble appeal to you, that though we have achieved much, many of the programs still need much more support in the next phases to make them more effective, and to make the work self-sustainable so that it can serve the intended vision, mission, and objectives for the people of Uganda.
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