Social Capital and Generosity

There is a saying ‘Some people are so poor, all they have is money’.

As we enter the Christmas period it is good to reflect on the importance of the people around us and note the affection, support and care we provide each other.  Development workers and economists call this ‘Social Capital’ and describe it as the wealth we receive from our social interactions: the relationships we trust, the people we co-operate with and the reciprocal favours we provide.

In Uganda, where most families we support have little financial wealth, we observe they belong to extensive networks of family and friends who prioritise community participation in order to be there for each other in times of difficulty.  This was embodied on one of our trips when we asked an old man how many grandchildren he had. The answer was “between 20 and 30”.  No exact figure was given because so many children had been welcomed into his family network as crisis hit their own. There was no formal adoption, no paperwork, just an acceptance that community works best when there is generosity, and that generosity extends to raising someone else’s child.

Families rely on each other and their community

The children who HUGS sponsor benefit from the generosity of our donors. We use money because that’s transferable across 6500 miles but this only happens because HUGS is a charity which is entwined with social networks within Uganda. We respond to the calls of our trusted representatives and facilitate teachers, carers, mothers to help each other.  

Like Albert who is helping parents learn sign language or Molly, a teacher, who has a passion for helping children with disabilities enjoy dance, or Ronald who, owning wellington boots, carries children home when the slum is flooded.

Please take a look at our current fund raiser, the HUGS Christmas Craft and Gift Auction. This year we have included many items made by people in Uganda at a range of prices which acknowledges that many people in the UK currently face financial constraints. Every penny we raise will help primary aged children at the Little Shepherd School.

Thank you for being a vital part of our social network. You offer us your social capital, and we, in turn share this with vulnerable children in Uganda.  

Destined to help shape a better future for Uganda

The HUGS sponsorship scheme has supported 100s of children and young adults to attend school, college and university.  There are many stories of success. 

There are now engineers, doctors, nurses, town planners, teachers (and other professionals) who are contributing to their communities in creative ways because of their HUGS-sponsored education. During our trip to Uganda, in September, we met many of these bright people. It was obvious they are destined to help shape a better future for Uganda.

This photo shows the HUGS Chair with (Left to Right), Sebastian Waiswa, Head teacher of St Frances de Sale School, (about to embark on a Diploma in Special Needs Education), Yayeri Basira (newly qualified Social Worker, and blind herself), Doreen Namujjuzi (in her second year of a degree in Information Technology) and Ronald Kawauki (newly qualified Optometrist who now gives his time for free to assess children with sight loss at our schools). All have been part of our Sponsorship programme.

 

Education ignites passion. This is Rita Kenyange who is just about to sit her 'finals' for a degree in Medical Lab Technology.  She was so inspired by the work of global health experts during the COVID pandemic that she intends to continue to an MSc in Biomedical Technology and Genetic Engineering.

Education helps each and every household.  HUGS has teamed up with CEFOVID, a grassroots development NGO in the Kosovo slum, Kampala, to help train local young single mothers in tailoring.  After a six month fully funded course, they graduate with National Ugandan recognised qualifications which they can use to certify their skills anywhere in the country.  We have helped ensure every one of them, on completion, receive a ‘start up pack’ including material, thread, needles and a pedal driven sewing machine.

It's no surprise that the commonest use of their improved income, is to pay for their children’s education. 

Thank you to each and every one of our donors for supporting our work.  You are helping us change the lives of 1000s of individuals. If you know anyone who would like to contribute to our sponsorship programme, and help pay for the education of a primary school child (£150 a year), secondary school (£300 a year) or university (£500-1000) please invite them to make contact.

Seeing First hand. The importance of visiting projects.

Later this month 4 HUGS trustees will be travelling to Uganda.  This is an important part of our work as it builds trust and respect with our partners in Uganda.  We asked our Ugandan friends, if they wanted us to bring gifts or essential items.  The reply highlights the reality of the lives of children we have committed to support. 

‘Yes, please can you bring pants for girls, flip-flops and tops for them to wear, aged 5-11.’ It pulls at your heart.

We also travel with bags of sports kits, and equipment, kindly donated from many teams and individuals.  We may donate educational equipment, IT hardware or medical supplies, but it’s the sight of a new football which receives the greatest cheers from the children.

Our visits are important to ensure projects have progressed as planned and funds have been spent wisely.  On this trip we will see first-hand, St Francis de Sales School, The Kosovo Slum projects, Good Shepherd, Little Shepherd and St Zoe’s schools.  We do this to give you, our generous donors, confidence that we have used your donations well to help the most vulnerable people.

Its worth reflecting what we have achieved this year so far:

We have sponsored the school and university fees for 83 students, 10 are from a Kampala slum.

St Francis de Sales School

• Completed two buildings for teachers’ accommodation house
• Built a new Kitchen with a fuel-efficient stove
• Purchased 8 acres of land for food cultivation
• Provided sports equipment, a sports field and disability aids for children
• Helped with staff costs, to get the school set up
• Stocked the treatment room and provided an emergency medical fund
• Helped 6 very poor families create a small industry to generate money for school fees

Kosovo Education project

• Purchased 10 acres of land, produced architects plans for a new school and prepared the land for building work
• Worked with Rotary to provide 200 new water connections
• Supported textiles courses for single mothers to get qualifications to generate income to pay school fees families to pay school fees

Asili Girls School

• Provided IT hardware and power supply for a new computer lab

Good Shephard School

• Purchased 3 acre of land to grow additional food

Dokolo Girls Secondary School

• Provided funds to build a new Kitchen with fuel efficient stove and solar lighting

Little Shepherd School

• Purchased 2 acres of land to grow additional food
• Built a new boys latrine

Along the way we have had the privilege to provide humanitarian aid for children who had desperate needs. One has had a new prosthetic leg, another emergency eye treatment to prevent blindness and urgent surgery to repair dreadful birth injuries. 

None of this would have been possible, without the kindness and generosity of our donors.  Thank you for your support. We will review all of these projects and ensure we give you an honest appraisal of what we find.  

Education and Resilience

Education, resilience and tragic life events

There is an undeniable truth: once a child receives an education, it cannot be taken away from them. Education profoundly changes how a child views the world and gives them new ways to interacts it.  It is a key ingredient for future opportunity and lasts a lifetime.  It can be shared with family and passed onto future generations. According to the world bank, people in developing countries have improved chances of recovering from tragic life events if they have been to school. In Uganda, such events are frequent, unexpected and severe, and throw hard working families back into the jaws of poverty time and time again. Last year, HUGS sponsored a new water connection for a poor family in the Kosovo slum, Kampala. They have been able to make a small profit selling clean water to their neighbours, and chose to spend the extra cash on their children's education.

Last week, sadly, they experienced a tragic life event; a house fire destroyed everything they own. Though they are now experiencing levels of destitution most of us can hardly imagine, the fire hasn't changed their children's education.  They are still able to read and write and there is hope their learning will provide them with the ability to find new ways to achieve a better life for all the family. Last month, Sebastian, our trusted representatives from St Francis de Sales School, met a girl aged 12.  Her tragic life event was a near fatal infection which lead to the amputation of her left leg, below the knee, and loss of several of her fingers.  She was doing well at school. She made a simple request: to have help to return to education. We are pleased to tell you she is now enrolled in the HUGS sponsorship programme.  As is a 4 year old boy who recently came to our attention because he has such severe cataracts he can only see objects inches from his face.

Our school heads know the life changing effects of education and the importance of this gift for children from the most precarious backgrounds, but face a constant battle to keep exactly those children in class. They report currently about half of all families are unable to pay the full amount of their child's school fees, because of cost of living rises.  The children are desperate to learn and the teachers passionate to help, so our schools continue to educate with reduced income and shoulder the financial risk.

The teachers at Little Shephard School

This is where you help. With your generous donations we are able to provide substantial support to our schools.  You have funded projects which reduce costs, increase income, grow more food, house more teachers and protect more children.  In return teachers continue to change the future for vulnerable children by giving them an education, a life long resilience and the cognitive skills to bounce back from catastrophic life events. To quote a saying from Malcolm Forbes: Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

 

Stop and Applaud Teachers

Stop for a second and think about the last time you learned something. Learning is essential for living, especially in our rapidly changing and unpredictable world.  That’s why in this HUGS update I’d like to applaud teachers. Teacher like Albert, working at Good Shepherd School who completed a HUGS sponsored Diploma in Special Needs Education.

HUGS works with so many dedicated, creative (and often exhausted) teachers.  Teaching in Uganda has many challenges. Currently, many are finding their pay is inadequate in the face of rapid cost of living rises and many state employed teachers are turning away from their profession. In response a widely publicised quote from the Uganda Minister of Education states ‘You are not in the teaching profession to make a living out of it. You have to set up other ventures like piggery and poultry’. Tough words for any hard pressed educator, who regularly works in front of a class of 100 children, to hear.

 HUGS has always prioritised the welfare of teachers.  We provide funds to create safe accommodation, support higher professional development courses and do everything possible to provide staff with well resources learning environments. Above all we show respect. 

This week HUGS transferred funds for a new Computer Lab at the Asili Girls Secondary School. Teaching staff will soon be able to use state of the art equipment, to make a huge difference to the employability of the young women they teach. This investment follows the funds you raised for the Asili science lab.  We are improving working conditions and promoting job satisfaction.

The Teaching accommodation at St Francis de Sales Special Needs School is complete and we have provided funds to make the classrooms exciting, colourful and vibrant places to work in.

Also this week we have provided money for the Good Shepherd School to purchase 3 acres of land, so that teachers and pupils can grow their own nutritious food. This picture shows Sebastian one of our school directors planting a field of beans.

None of this would be possible without the generosity and long standing support from you, our donors.  We are always looking for new support, so if you know anyone who wants to be involved please contact us. You never know, they may learn something new.

Richard Bircher. HUGS Chair

 The power of Generosity

There are some children who are exposed to such risks and vulnerability that it is difficult to know how best to help them.  The Kampala slum area of Kosovo is a place where children face enormous challenges. Their frequent experience of illness, food shortage and violence frustrates efforts to achieve a reasonable standard of living as they are repeatedly throw them back into destitution.  There is no capacity to absorb these knocks, as many families are refugees from neighbouring countries, headed by single parents and have little resources. Many children succumb to crime or become disabled, Many girls are forced into marriages at a young age and enter a life of servitude.

Children having a single daily meal provided by CEFOVID

HUGS has been working with an NGO in the Kosovo slum called CEFOVID (Community Empowerment for Village Development).  They have a dream, which we are overjoyed to be able to help turn into a reality. Together we will be building a new school. It will be in the country, north of Kampala and provide a space where 300 primary aged children, from the slum, will be able to run, play and grown without threat of violence. It will provide nutritious food and quality education.  It will remove children from risk and harm, and give them improved chances to develop self-worth and capitalise on future opportunity. 

This has only been possible because of the power of generosity from a private UK donor,  and the support of three small UK charities who share our vision.  Bury Africa Outreach, Friends of two Tone and Jamie's Legacy. Together we already sponsor 100 of the Kosovo children to attend school in Kampala, (though the quality of these schools is not ideal).  Once our new school is competed, they will be first to be asked to attend, guaranteeing the school an initial income and improving sustainability.

The school will have:

• 10 acres of land
• 8 classrooms
• Performance hall
• Dormitory
• Play equipment and sports field
• Teachers accommodation
• Solar lighting, clean water and good food

Levelling land at St Francis de Sales School

We also give our thanks to Cameron Taylor who completed a mammoth cycle ride, around Ireland to raise all the necessary funds to develop the sports pitches at St Francis de Sales Special Needs School.  Physical activity for children who are ‘differently abled’ is an essential ingredient to help then gain confidence, health and learn to work and be accepted by others.  St Francis de Sales in a beautify school, and is flourishing thanks to the you, the HUGS supporters, and the power of your generosity.

 

Good Food, Good Education

It is not possible to teach a hungry child. This is known by all teachers in all parts of the world, even the UK. The BBC published an article in March, featuring a school in Edinburgh were every Monday, after work, staff would shop to replenish the school food bank. Parents were given food so their children didnt have to came to school hungry. Accessing nutritious food for students has always been a challenge for all the HUGS sponsored schools, and is currently more difficult as global food prices rise. All our schools are situated in poor areas and have children who board.  Head teachers know when nutritious meals are provided regularly, physical growth, educational achievement and joy of life all rapidly improve. This has been seen most dramatically in the children who started at St Francis de Sales Special Needs School in January. Children with disabilities are often so undervalued they are the last to receive any good quality food at home, but thanks to your donations these kids are growing, learning and laughing. The children at Good Shepherd School (also a special needs) grow with such strength, stamina and confidence that prior to COVID lockdown they entered the inter-school football tournament. Initially jeered for being the under-dogs, they secured victory game after game. The school sports teacher, said good food (and a team made up of 50% children with ADHD) was the secret of sporting success. Every spare square meter of Good Shepherd School is used to produce food; fruit, chickens, pigs, fish, beans, bananas and eggs. HUGS, with your generous support has allowed St Francis de sales School to recently buy a further 8 acres of land and we are raising funds to help Good Shepherd acquire two more (£5000, if you know anyone who could contribute). The second year of coffee crop at Little Shepherd School is being harvested and along side the banana and beans they planted is helping may disadvantaged children afford a place in school and have the health to learn.  Our new school for the children from the Kosovo Slum, is going to be developed on 10 acres, as these children are the hungriest we have ever cared for.   As global food prices rise, the UN and FAO predict a deepening inequality in entitlement and access to food. We are working hard to protect our children.  Thank you for your help and support.

Where you live and your child's Education

Where you live has a profound influence on your child’s education and prospects in life.  Every parent wants the best for their child, and choosing a good school is part of this.  However if you live in a slum in Uganda you have no choice.  Your child, has to walk to school, along some of the most dangerous streets in the world, and attend a class of over 100 chi
ldren, many unwell or hungry.  You get taught, if your teacher turns up, but commonly they are absent.

 

Children born in the slums of the world need a new way of living, a new way of learning: new schools.

Proposed new school

Helping Uganda Schools has forged a new close relationship with a Ugandan NGO called Community Empowerment for Village Development, who work in the KosOvo slum in Kampala.  33,000 live in this square kilometer, two thirds are children; 20% do not go to school.

We’d like to change this and have agreed to help build a new primary school, in the country, where 100s of children can live, run free, have regular nutritious food and enjoy the taste of safe uncontaminated water.  Most children, who live in KosOvo, remarkably, never step outside the slum before age 14. Their expectations of life are formed by their restricted realities.

This project is a huge undertaking, and one which HUGS is committed to for many years to come.  The impact is going to be significant.  We are targeting help at some of the most disadvantaged children in Africa.

 

We have teamed up with a group of small charities; Jamie’s legacy, Bury Africa Outreach and Friends of Two Tone, to work together to make the school a reality.  We are working with the generosity of a new donor, who has joined our cause with a compassion and commitment that will never be forgotten.  The task ahead of us, is not just to construct the buildings but, also to safeguard future sustainability.  This will be challenging as many parents are destitute and cannot afford even small school fees. It is paramount we consider income generation, farming, food sufficiency, water catchment and child sponsorship.

Working together

If anyone wants to be involved in this amazing project, please email the HUGS team hugs.chair@gmail.com. If you know of anyone with a generous heart who wants to leave a lasting legacy and to donate to help us, please encourage them to make contact.

All skills are welcome.

DONATE 

Schools are open

Schools Re-open

The past few weeks has been momentous. Our children have returned to school after the long Ugandan COVID lockdown; and they have returned in droves, exceeding all our expectations and dispelling many of our worries.

Thank you to everyone who has supported HUGS over the last year and has helped provide necessary aid and home education to so many of our pupils.  You have extended a life-line to so many vulnerable children.

Our schools now face renewed challenges. All report financial difficulties, as bank accounts have been run down to empty to maintain school buildings or keeping staff on small stipends to retain their skills ready for when the classrooms will be full again. The Asili Girls Secondary School has more girls enrolled than ever before, and have asked us to help provide desks, beds and places for the girls to sleep.  The dormitory at Little Shephard school, which HUGS funded last year, is now full to capacity as 100 more than usual students have enrolled.  The HUGS schools provide a quality education which is often better than other local schools it comes as no surprise that parents have chosen to bring their children to our gates.  

Amongst these children are those with special needs and disabilities.  It gives us great joy to announce our second Special Needs School, St Francis de Sales, officially opened this week. This school has been funded entirely by HUGS donations and cares for primary aged children with sensory and physically challenged lives. This short video sums up our emotions. Faced with such enormous hurdles in life, one of our new pupils is overjoyed to be at school for the first time. What a difference an education is going to make to his life.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your support.

We would like to pass this thanks to Bob Blundell who stepped down as a Trustee of HUGS this month.  His dedication to the charity has been unwavering and he has made an enormous difference to many children’s lives. His wise words and encouragement has helped us achieve so much. Thank you, Bob.

If you would like to make a donation to help buy desks, beds, shoes, sports equipment or books please visit our Website. www.helpingugandaschools.org