Our Story
Helping Hands Uganda is a Toronto-based charity that supports underprivileged children in eastern Uganda.
Giving back = Giving forward
Helping Hands was founded by three women in 2006. Tracy and Erin shared a small office in a Toronto health clinic. Every two weeks, Erin watched Tracy send half her paycheque home to Uganda. Erin did not have anyone who relied on her financially, apart from two cats! She wanted to donate to a charity but needed to be sure that the money was getting to the right place. Erin suggested to Tracy that she may as well send some money to Tracy's family too. Tracy considered this but remembered all the families in Uganda who do not have someone living in the First World to rely on. She decided to pass on the offer of aid on to to someone without this support. Tracy contacted her sister Margaret, who works for an international aid organization in Uganda. Margaret identified five children unconnected to the family who were living in dire poverty. Erin and her boyfriend began sponsoring these first children.
Everything went fine for a few months, until one of the mothers came to Margaret with another child, her step-daughter, who was very sick with HIV. The nearest HIV clinic was hundreds of miles away, completely out of reach for the family. Margaret took the child and brought her to Mildmay children’s hospital, where she was given nutritional support and testing and started on a drug program. The child bounced back to health and returned to school. This was the moment when the project took shape as something bigger, when we all realized that not only 5 children but their families as well depended on us as a last line of defence. We began to look around to see who else might want to help.
Helping Hands Uganda is a Canadian registered charity; registration number: 847107950RR0001
