April 17, 2007
Introduction
Welcome to the House of Hope blog!! This is the beginning to a wonderful adventure and we hope this blog will provide you with up to date insight into the happenings at House of Hope, Uganda, East Africa.
I will be the one writing the majority of the first blog entries along with Jenifer, the woman who founded this project. My name is Ally and I’m the first mzungu (white person) volunteer at this project, and I’m honored and excited to be here!! We hope this blog will provide future volunteers with a feeling of comfort before they come on their personal journey to Uganda as well as provide those interested in donating, or past donors with some direct contact to how their money is being spent. So keep posted!
What is House of Hope?
In 2005 Jenifer found a way to save the lives of orphans in the Kyazanga area (about 65km from Masaka). Her father had been given a piece of land by a woman. This land was in the small village of Kyazanga, and just so happens to also be probably the only piece of infertile land in all of Uganda. She was 21 when she started this project and had been working as a teacher. Although she had not long been in the working world she took all the money she had saved up and put it into building a safe haven and school for the needy children of the Kyazanga area. First she reinforced some of the mud houses already standing on the property so that they would be more sustainable. Those buildings currently serve as offices, storage areas and homes for the teachers at the school. Then, by happenstance or perhaps a miracle, a woman from the far off country of America donated about 2,500USD in her will to Jenifer and to House of Hope. This sum amounts to about 5million Ugandan shillings... enough to build an entire school with four class rooms for all the students at House of Hope. This school stands today at the upper part of the property and is called “House of Action Junior School.” Their motto is “If others can, we can.” Because Jenifer was is young and was essentially penniless when she started the project, others often talked down to her for starting such a “ridiculous” project. Those who didn’t talk down to her just laughed and concluded she would be done within the year. This is why Jenifer picked this as her motto: she knew if others could change the world, she could to.
Today there are 100 students attending House of Action Junior School. Unlike other children they come to school everyday (ie. Saturdays, Sundays, even holidays). Before House of Hope was started these children had nothing, some had never even seen a motor car before! Now these children are provided with the priceless feeling of hope. The school currently goes up to P3 (so about grade 3) and the students are all between the ages of 3 and 13. It is Jenifer’s hope to expand the school by one grade each year, eventually finishing with a sort of vocational school to give these children a hope of a career in the future.
All the children attending are orphans. Last Saturday I went for my first home visit to see their current living situations. The students living closest to the school are about 25 minutes away up a brutal hill here in the hill filled portion of southern Uganda. They come to school with no breakfast and wait until lunch to have a cup of porridge, their one meal of the day. The home situations vary between students, but it would be true to say that none of these students live well to do lives. The qualification for an orphan in Uganda is the loss of only one parent. Some children are living with one of their parents (usually their mother). However, in none of the cases does the parent have a consistent income and with between 4 and 9 children these single parents have to live with the constant guilt of inability to feed their children. It is suspected that the usual cause of death of the parent, parents or guardians is AIDS. However, because so few are tested there is no way of knowing for sure. If this is the case, it is likely that more then the majority of kids at House of Hope are HIV/AIDS positive themselves. Other children have no parents and are living with relatives. In many cases the relatives will take all the possessions these children were left with when their parents died and keep them for themselves; leaving these children with no possession but the clothing on their backs (in many cases the uniform Jenifer has provided them with). Those who have no parents or relatives to take care of them are either taken in by neighbors (already struggling to take care of their own children) or are forced to live in child-run homes. The definition of a child-run home is a home where the head of house is under the age of 14. Some of the child heads of homes have been the replacement parent since Jenifer has met them, so from the ages of perhaps 10 or 11; an age too young to be working to feed a family, not to mention be a parent.
The horrors of these children’s family and home situations do not differ so much from their living situations. Most homes are insufficient to the number of people living their. Most families all share one small room for sleeping; sometimes 7 to 10 to a room about one third the size of a classroom. For those who have the resources they are fortunate enough to sleep on mats, even sometimes with one or two blankets. However, most children sleep in the dirt and have nothing to cover them in the cold. They also face the problem of malaria exposure since none of them have a mosquito net to protect them during the night. Basic prevention like a mosquito net (about 10,000USh, 6.50USD) could save these kids from the pains of malaria. Sometimes caretakers will not let the children go to school and force them to stay at home to dig or take care of their other children. Just in going into some of the homes the holes in the banana leaf roofs or in some fortunate cases, tin roofs, are significant and surely a pain during this rainy season. In short, the help needed by these children and their families is urgent. Many of the homes we visited we were welcomed with open arms and in one case we were fed bread (a delicacy their own children probably have never tasted). However, in one case the caretaker hid and would not come out because she was so ashamed of her home and of the fact she had prepared nothing for her surprise visitors. Other children ran ahead of the group to get to their home on time to clean and make it look presentable. I wish only for these people to know that I could never judge them based on their homes but only fall to my knees and cry for them, with them.
The current teachers at the school are volunteers and are only paid in room and board. Aria, the P3 teacher, is Jenifers cousin. Peter, the baby, middle and top class teacher is an orphan himself and wishes to help others as he was helped. The two women teachers are named Molly and Angela. Neither have husbands and both have children living at the school.
Future Plans
Jenifer is a woman of great vision. She plans on expanding the school each year by one grade in order to provide the eldest students with a future. The current teachers and workers are volunteers and it is her hope that they be provided a small income for their great service. Jenifer herself is only putting money into her project (such as paying for the students’ one meal) and receiving none in return so it is my hope that she may be given a salary. Furthermore, to make the project self sustaining we are reaching out to NGO’s around the world and pleading for their help. World Action Help (WAH) has already shown some keen interest and we are looking forward to the visitation of the representative sometime in the next few weeks. My continuous belief in the UN system (despite it’s plural failures which I have taken personally, especially in the category of genocide) is leading me to write a proposal for WFP to provide these children with at least some nutrition. Furthermore, Jenifer is going to be sending out the message that new students may begin attending the school next year. For the current students school is free, but newer students will be permitted to come after paying the school fee of 10,000USh per term (only enough to provide each student with their one meal). This will allow the school to expand and more students will be provided with an education they might otherwise not get because of such high school fees in other facilities. There is so much potential in this project between being headed by one of the most determined and beautiful spirited woman I have ever met and also being attended by some of the most special children I have ever met (and I have met a lot of children). There is something about House of Hope that gives me personal hope so and I know that it must be supported and funded.
Recently, a volunteer has donated enough money to have all the children at House of Hope tested for AIDS, as well as any caregivers also interested in being tested. Already 25 students have been tested, and all were positive. This shows that a large portion of the students most likely is suffering from AIDS. Along with some education and some counseling we hope that most caregivers will sign in support of having their kids tested. From their we are going to be looking for an organization which provides free ARV drugs and begin some treatment for the children. More information on this is to follow shortly. It will be good to get testing done as one of the first steps I hope to take is to begin individual folders for each child at House of Hope. Keeping an update on their status in life will help prioritize the urgency which should be associated with each student.
Currently we have a new budgeting project happening!! It is very exciting. Many of the students attending the school come from such devastating backgrounds that our hope is to provide them with a boarding facility so that they may have safe living situation and place to study. Unfortunately, to begin not every student will be able to attend the boarding facility, but the most severe cases will be given a safe haven. Here is an example of one of the students who may stay at the boarding facility: Her name is Agnes. Her caretaker is neither her biological mother nor her relative. She is only 7 years old, but is currently living this woman, who is a prostitute. The two share one room, both sleep on the dirt floor. However, because of Agnes’s caretaker’s income method the 7 year old sleeps next to not only her caretaker, but her clients as well. We currently don’t know if she has been sexually abused. Understandably, we know that once she becomes of an age where clients see her has being sexually appealing there will be no stopping them from sexually abusing her also. A couple of volunteers at the Real Uganda (the NGO I am volunteering with, based in Mukono) have shown interest in sponsoring her to go to boarding school. However, once this idea was proposed to Agnes’s caretaker she told Jenifer she cared too much of her “daughter” to allow her to be take away from her.
This is only one example of many of the students who would be using the boarding facility to escape the pressures of home life. Furthermore, having some children at the boarding school would also relieve some pressure from caretakers and parents who have too many mouths to feed.
Much money has already come this way from volunteers. Generous donations from my home in Canada have been given and others volunteers have also donated generously to the project. We currently have just over 2millionUSh to begin building the boarding facility. The total budget for the facility is suspected to be around 16,950,000USh, so as you can see we are still looking for much money for the project. However, if you translate about 17 million shillings you will see it is about 9,000USD, 30 iPods, a student car, or 18 prom dresses. Just a little bit of perspective.
Conclusion
In future blogs, I hope to include the information about specific home visits, current building projects, updates on individual children, school results and other general anecdotes. My wish is that this blog provide the reader with a sense of hope for these children as well as a sense of desire to help and continue helping. I personally will not rest until these children are provided for. Perhaps you will find a way to help me on my quest.
Contact Information:
If you have any questions, comments or wish to donate please contact:
Jenifer at House of Hope: jenifertumizere@yahoo.com
Ally: life_z_good@hotmail.com
(Please title your e-mail “House of Hope” so I will know its urgency, and not delete it in my Junk Mail inbox)
