Helping Hands Uganda

Six year old Cecilia lives with her parents and twelve siblings in a small remote village. She is a Musoga by Tribe.

When we met her, Cecilia like many of her siblings was sickly, mostly due to poor feeding and lack of proper medical attention.

Sponsorship helps the whole family: Cecilia's family got lucky with the goats that were provided to them. They have bred a number of times and the family now has about eight of them, enough to exchange for a cow. This will provide milk for Cecilia's malnourished siblings.

Faith (5 years) and Philip (7 years) live with their grandmother who is about 72 years old. This grandmother has many grandchildren who she is taking care of because their parents are doing casual labor in different scattered areas in search of survival.

Last year in primary one, Philip stood at the top of his class and Faith came in fourth. As funds permitted, the project began providing school fees for an additional child from this family, Catherine (9 years, in back), in February 2008. Catherine was originally passed over for sponsorship in favour of her younger siblings.

The family are Kenyan immigrants and she had already learned the Kenyan languages when they immigrated, so it was thought that she might fare less well at the school. However, her teacher reports though that she has made great progress in the last months!

William is an orphan who lives with his elderly grandmother, who is unable to provide food for him. His only sister died recently. William used to go to the homes of the neighbours at meal times, hoping they could give him something to eat, before going back to his grandmother to sleep.

Since being sponsored, William has begun school. His grandma and him have been provided with warm blankets as well as the regular sponsorship components. William recently fell sick and the local doctor wasn't able to cure him. Doreen's mother found a motorcycle man and sent William to Margaret's house. Margaret brought the boy to hospital, where he quickly recovered.

Six year old Doreen lives in a single parent household with about 12 siblings. Doreen has many siblings because her mother tends to give birth to twins.

Doreen's mother was chosen by the group of 5 families to be their liaison to the program director. We were surprised because the people making this decision were mostly the fathers and it is more usual for a man to be chosen for a decision-making position. However, Doreen's mom is known to be very hardworking. In fact, she recently may have saved the life of one of the sponsored boys in her care.