Children's Sure House

Ekkula

2009-02-13T23:18:00.000-08:00

Ekkula is a home built in Kiwangala for girl orphans whose parents have died from AIDS. The house was constructed by the Dutch organization Livingstone last summer for students at Children’s Sure House who had no homes of their own. Wilma Schinkelshoek, a social worker, and her husband Sander were sent by Livingstone to oversee the transition of the girls into their new dwellings.

Ekkula means “something good; something beautiful”. The Schinkelshoek’s had the intention to call the house “Pearl of Africa” after the famous Winston Churchhill quote about Uganda, but in Luganda, the local language, there is no word for Pearl. If Baganda people speak about something good or beautiful they say it is Ekkula.

At this moment there live three girls live in Ekkula. They are: Vicencia, age 13, Mariam, age 12, and Sarah, age 10. All of the girls prefer staying in the house to their previous living situations.
“I like living at Ekkula,” said Sarah, because it’s close to school and it’s got electricity.”

The Schinkelshoek’s have returned to Holland, but the girls are now being looked after by Hope, a Ugandan social worker. A short distance a way, CSH has undergone construction on a home for orphan boys.

Kitchen Gardens

2009-02-13T22:48:00.000-08:00

A Kitchen Garden is an efficient way to grow vegetables on land where there is a limited amount of space. The CSH Home Sustainability Living Approach Program have been teaching farmers, who live on small plots of land in Lukindu village, to build kitchen gardens in their homes.

The Kitchen Garden has many advantages. Vegetables are grown above ground on a layer of manure so the gardens can be built on rocky and otherwise unfertile land. The gardens can be built close to the house where they can be accessed by the sick and elderly. The structure is designed in a way that frail gardeners do not need to bend down to cultivate and harvest. The manure core provides a place for compost. The soil around the core becomes fertile immediately. The height of the garden and un-compacted soil promotes roots growth.

Steps to making a Kitchen Garden:

1. 1.5 meters of manure is piled into a tower controlled by a ring of cassava poles.

2. Soil is collected in a mound 2 meters in diameter around the manure. This gives the garden a pyramid shape.

3. An indentation is created and reinforced with cassava poles to allow farmer to irrigate manure center.

4. A border of banana tree trunks is placed around the base to discourage erosion.

5. Cabbages and other vegetables are planted around the mound. A layer of straw covers the mound to prevent erosion, insulate, and protect young plants.

6. The garden is irrigated and composted by pouring water and organic waste down its core where moisture and nutrients will seep down into the surrounding soil.

Home Sustainability Living Approach Program is Launched

2009-02-13T22:36:00.000-08:00

On December 11th, 2008 the villages of Lukindu and Kiwangala came together to officially launch the Children’s Sure House’s Home Sustainability Approach Program’s model farm. The farm is at the home of John Ssentongo. He found that most of the his neighbors living in the area, many of whom are orphans and vulnerable children infected and affected by AIDS, were only eating one meal a day. Better food security was what the community needed.

A donation of seeds from Seed and Light International, an American NGO and planted them at Ssentongo’s home. His neighbors soon became interested and 25 local farmers formed a co-op. While they cleared the land and prepared nursery beds, Ssentongo and taught the importance of good nutrition, how to provide a their families with a better diet, and improved methods of farming. As the season progressed, the co-op took the seedlings grown in the garden and transplanted them in their own homes. Seedlings were also donated to students at CSH, where they started a community garden, and the local church that meets at CSH for service on Sundays.

The vegetables were ready for eating in December and the community, including several local councilmen and agricultural extensionists, gathered at Ssentongo’s home to celebrate and proclaim that his farm was a model for the village. After the first harvest, an estimated 125 people now have improved access to better nutrition. There are also countless others in the community that have changed attitudes in their eating habits.

“Before this project,” Ssentongo said. “People did not even know the value of vegetables. They did not even eat them, but afterwards, people are eager to grow and eat them. They are even aiming to get a surplus that they can sell to get income for their homes.

This coming planting season the co-op will continue their good work within the community. They will strengthen CSH’s agricultural program by offering vocational classes. The school will expand its community garden to the capacity that it can provide a school lunch for its 850 students. That way no one will have to live on an empty stomach.

Okwegatta Gemanyi Basket-weaving Group

2009-02-13T22:18:00.000-08:00

Okwegatta Gemanyi is the name of a local basket-weaving group that lives in Kiwangala, a small village in rural Uganda. Okwegatta Gemanyi means “Unity is Power” in Luganda, the local tribal language. Kiwangala is located in Southern, Central Uganda. It straddles the Rakai District where the first outbreaks of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa were first documented in the 1980s. The disease has affected most families and left the area impoverished. The group is made up women who want to make some extra money to pay for food, clothing, and their children's school supplies. They currently work from their homes making baskets from sustainable materials that have been collected from the local swamp. Okwegatta Gemanyi also teaches weaving to teen-aged girls at Children’s Sure House, a school in Kiwangala that provides free education to orphans and vulnerable children. Richard Ssenkindu, a teacher who is currently pursuing an education degree at a local University, assists them. Another man in the village helps haul materials from the swamp. The women want to work together to eventually develop a co-operative.

Okwegatta Gemanyi has agreed to follow the tenants of Fair Trade. These include creating opportunities for the disadvantaged; transparency and accountability; capacity building through improve management skills; promoting Fair Trade through honest advertising; payment of wages at a fair price; encouraging gender equity; working conditions; discouraging child labor that affects their well being, education, need for play; ensuring good environmental practices; and not taking advantage of small producers for middleman profits.

For more information on how you can assist Okwegatta Gemanyi or to purchase a basket, contact childrenssurehouse@gmail.com.

International Older Persons Day

2009-02-13T22:15:00.000-08:00

The United Nations declared that October 1st was a day to honor the elderly and create awareness to the challenges that they face, especially those in the developing world. Children’s Sure House Older Person’s Program planned for the special day by participating in meetings with other senior citizens groups from around Uganda, the Minister of Gender, and his cabinet. As a result, a day of celebration was held in Kayungatown, Kayunga District. CSH promoted the event on Radio 1 and members of the CSH Older Person’s Program traveled to Kayunga where they performed traditional music and dance.

Meet James

2009-02-06T06:15:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of James. He is one of the students in Primary 1 at Children’s Sure House. On an average day, he wakes up, takes care of his chickens, washes himself, eats breakfast, walks 1 km to school, attends classes, then comes home, eats lunch, fetches water from the well, washes again, eats some supper, and goes to bed. He has lots of friends and enjoys playing volleyball.

James currently lives with his Aunt. Both of his parents recently died of AIDS. He is just one of the 850 orphans and vulnerable children that Children’s Sure House provides with free education and other social services. Social workers from the Dutch FBO, Livingstone, and Uganda Christian University have been working with CSH to assess the needs of the James and other children in Kiwangala who have been infected and affected by HIV and AIDS.

Older Persons Program

2008-08-22T00:09:00.000-07:00

AIDS has devastated Kiwangala and its surrounding parishes. In some families an entire generation has been wiped out. The elderly are traditionally cared for by their families if they become too frail. However, in many families only the grandparents and grandchildren are still alive. However, they are unable to care for themselves or their homes. Children’s Sure House has reached out with donations of food and household items like sugar and soap to individuals within the surrounding villages. They have even built new houses for families whose homes have crumbled from neglect. Now CSH plans to alleviate the long term suffering of the population by introducing programs that promote self-empowerment.

CSH’s Older Person’s Program will work together with its Home Sustainability Program to assist the older persons so that they continue to be productive in their homes and community.
This collaboration will develop the following activities to aid the elderly:

1. Provision of psychosocial counseling services.

2. Free education for the family’s grandchildren from Children’s Sure House and promotion of the Ugandan government’s Universal Primary Education policy.

3. HIV/AIDS sensitization through outreach.

4. Income generating activities through small-scale industries and
the use of locally available materials.

5. Persuasion of elderly property owners to lease out dormant land.

In addition, Makerere University’s Faculty of Social Sciences has partnered with Children’s Sure House to conduct field work on the livelihood of vulnerable members of the elderly population in the Kiwangala area.

This is a typical home in Kiwangala village. However, this woman cannot maintain the upkeep on the structure. The mud walls are caving in and rain leaks through the grass roof that has gone unthatched.

These are the participants of the CSH Older Person's program. They are caregivers to their orphaned grandchildren who are pictured below.

For most of his life, this boy lived with his grandmother in the house in the background. Recently, CSH was successful in mobilizing the community to build the family a more secure home.

Building a Firewood Saving Stove

2008-08-21T01:53:00.000-07:00

In Kiwangala the majority of the village can only afford to cook on firewood or coal. Recently, collecting firewood has hurt the area's environment. The primary 7 class has built a firewood saving stove at headmaster Moses Kiwala’s home as a demonstration to the community. They have designed the stove out of bricks and clay so that wood burns more efficiently.

Below is a description of how CSH built their model stove:

This is a tea kettle set to boil in the existing cooking area. It was not much more than a campfire.

The students first dug a shallow pit, six inches deep, adjacent to the wall of the cooking wall. The depression was three feet long by two feet wide; the expected area that the stove would sit upon. Bricks were then stacked into place to create the general shape of the stove.

The new stove has two top burners for sauce pans. A passage way connecting the two opennings allows heat to circulate within the stove. There is also a small ventilation hole poked into the back wall that also promotes heat flow.

This is the hole where firewood is fed lengthwise one piece at a time into the stove. The bricks retain the heat so very little wood has to be burned for the stove to get hot.

Local clay was mixed in water and then used as mortar to fasten the bricks permanantly into place. Then the entire stove was covered and sealed with the leftover clay. The stove had to dry for about a week before it was ready to be used. However, that didn't stop the Primary 7 class from celebrating immediately after construction was complete.

Uganda's Ministry of Energy has also produced several good designs for firewood saving stoves. You can find them here.

Farmers’ Update

2008-08-20T04:06:00.000-07:00

The farmers of Lukindu village are getting ready for August’s planting season. Before dawn, every Friday they drowsily meet at the village borehole to fill up their jerrycans and then trudge up the hill to John Ssentongo’s model farm to irrigate the fourteen nursery beds that they have planted.

The farmers have combined their skills and efforts into a co-op where they will share their agricultural knowledge and reap the fruits of their labors.

The seeds sowed include cabbage, tomatoes, carrots, peppers, onions, eggplant, greens, and flowers.

They have been experimenting with a variation of designs to fully utilize the strength of the soil. Most seeds were planted in traditional rows bordered by banana tree trunks and shaded from the sun by banana leaf shelters. Some plants will be grown circularly around a dirt hill with a manure-centered cap. Water is poured over the top and runs down the side to provide a nutrient rich snack to the seedlings.

They will donate the seedlings grown in Children Sure House’s nursery beds to 15 families in September. The benefiting families will be instructed in nursery bed care, receive the harvest, and learn seed saving techniques to sustain their nurseries for future planting seasons.

Ambrose and Tony

2008-08-09T05:13:00.000-07:00

Two of Children’s Sure Houses’ teachers will not be coming back this semester. They have left Kiwangala for Kampala to further pursue higher education. Both Tony Ssali and Ambrose Kasiita will be studying at Kyambogo University. Ssali will be earning his B.A. in Economics. Kasiita will pursue his Bachelor's in Development Studies. They have been with the school from the beginning. They were the pioneering class of primary students that came to class when CSH first opened its doors in 1993.

Kasiita’s father died of AIDS in 1988. His mother managed to teach him the essentials of Primary 1 and 2 from home, but could not afford to send him to a real school. Likewise, Ssali’s family was too impoverished to pay school fees.

“After my father died, I really wanted to study.” Remembers Kasiita. “When the chance came that Children Sure House was offering free education God was answering my prayers.”

Kasiita had shown so much promise in Primary school, but at the time CSH had no Secondary section. Fearing that Kasiita’s potential would be wasted, headmaster Moses Kiwala personally tutored him while they waited for the Secondary school to be constructed.

Kasiita and Ssali eventually completed their Primary and Secondary studies at Sure House. Kasiita’s Economics in "Uganda Ministry of Education University Qualifying Exam Paper 1" received the highest score in the entire country.
After graduation they returned to teach.

“ I couldn’t have left Sure House because I had been helped,” said Ssali who has been teaching Primary and Secondary school since 2006.

Kasiita started teaching Primary school and Secondary Religion classes since 1999. He was promoted to head teacher in 2003.

Both teachers aspire to return to Children’s Sure House and Kiwangala village when they graduate from University. Ssali wants to continue to develop the CSH organization economically. Kasiita also has similar plans.

“We need to develop here.” Said Kasiita. “If we, the people who have been here in Kiwangala for many years can engage ourselves, we can bring the right stuff. They gave me free education so I needed to help the people in the villages with no money and who have lost a parent like I have.”

“I have Sure House on my heart,” added Ssali.

Godfrey's Solar Dryer

2008-08-09T02:44:00.000-07:00

Godfrey Katamba, a Senior 3 student at CSH sells snacks to other students from his canteen. He's more than just an entrepreneur and definitely more than a teenager with an after-school job. At a young age he lost both of his parents and two of his siblings to AIDS. Godfrey’s canteen allows him to support himself as well as his brothers and sisters.

Some of Godfrey’s most popular items are sweet bananas. However, they don’t always get eaten in time and he has to throw them away. That is until now. Godfrey has developed a solar fruit dryer that uses the sun to preserve his left over fruit for quite some time.

Below are plans for a solar dryer like Godfrey’s.

The Seeds Have Been Planted

2008-05-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday, the fruits and vegetables planted by the students in the Children’s Sure House nursery were ready to be transplanted. It seemed only fitting that members of the community’s local church be the first recipients. Cabbage, carrot, and melon seedlings were given to seven families. The progress of the plants’ livelihood will be followed closely by CSH as part of its Home Sustainability initiative.

The program is meant to introduce more variety of nutrition into the village of Kiwangala. By donating plants to its neighbors and then tracking their growth, CSH hopes to create a new network of farmers. The group will be instructed on new methods of agriculture CSH’s model farm.

A Model Farm

2008-05-08T06:51:00.000-07:00

John Ssentongo’s home in Lukindu-Kiwangala, Uganda has been called a Garden of Eden. The fruit is in such abundance that it is literally falling off the trees. Anyone who visits Ssentongo, a key player at Children’s Sure House, is expected to take home with them as many avocados and papayas as they can carry.

While most Ugandans have subdivided and sold off their land, the Ssentongos have been farming the same five acre plot since the 1950s. The homestead is completely self-sustainable. It provides the majority of food for the family. The surplus generates income, feeds the students and teachers at CSH, and supports the diets of his neighbors.

Ssentongo is keenly interested in developing his property into a model farm where members of the community can come to exchange ideas on better agricultural practices. Below is an overview of Ssentongo’s proposal.

The Program

The Home Sustainable Living Approach Program is an initiative of Children’s Sure House to lead homes, the community in its operational area, and Uganda at large to sustainability.

CSH works to create self-sustainability in the country by harnessing the potential of individuals to develop themselves, their households, and their communities. CSH partners with groups at all levels, including local, national, and international organizations, in the developmental process.

Objectives:

1. To improve food security through introducing new techniques of farming and other income generating activities. Income generation schemes are demonstrated to the community to empower them with knowledge and inspire them to create their own projects.

2. To provide consultancy services to community groups and individuals in their efforts to attain socioeconomic development. CSH will carryout and promote research on government programs, development agencies, and civil society programs that influence policy formulation.

3. To offer technical services in the fields of environmental protection, and agricultural development.

Home Sustainability
The Home Sustainability Program is intended to transform homes through farming, environment conservation, income generating activities, and education. The program will be demonstrated in model homes throughout the community.

Farming:
Most homes in Uganda depend entirely on agriculture for food consumption and income. Currently, many families eat only once a day. The meal usually consists solely of matoke, a type of plantain banana, or posho, a cornmeal product. Other vegetables must supplement staple foods to create sufficient nutrition. Better farming methods must be put into place.

Seasonal staple foods and cash crops must grow alongside long life fruit trees such as jackfruits, avocados, papaya, mangoes, and oranges. Homes must be encouraged to grow a nutritional variety of vegetables. Improved breeds of plants and animals must be introduced to farms to stimulate higher production. Organic farming and agroforestry should be applied to preserve the fertility of the environment. Better irrigation systems and affordable methods of water harvesting should be introduced. Produce preservation and value methods should be practiced to completely capitalize on the harvest.

Environmental Conservation:
Human activity has tempered the environment causing harsh climate changes. Steps must be taken to bring back a safer environment. Deforestation has contributed to global warming and soil erosion. New trees must be planted and firewood-saving stoves should be used; use of chemical fertilizers and over grazing should be discouraged.

Home Small Scale Industries and Income Generating Projects:
Daily expenses of basic household items burden homes. If there is knowledge of soap, candle, and cooking oil production, then families will have a better chance of sustaining themselves. If a surplus is created, then the products can bring additional income. To maximize profit, income generating projects will use locally available, raw materials.

Home Sustainability Living Approach Program-
Proposed Demonstration Model Home at Lukindu Kiwangala

Size of the Land: 5 Acres
Agricultural Division of Land:
1. Farmyard: ½ acre. This area is occupied by houses and a compound. The compound will be used for box gardening and other demonstrations that could be used in an urban environment.

2. Coffee and Banana Plantation: 2 acres. Coffee and bananas will be maintained by agro-farming fruit trees such as avocados, jackfruits, and bark-cloth trees. In addition, ten beehives will be kept there.

3. Vegetables and Other Seasonal Crops: 2 acres. Vegetables such as pumpkins, cabbages, carrots, eggplants, green pepper, onions, corn, cassava, sweet potatoes, and other seasonal crops will be grown. Their seeds will be harvested so that the surrounding community can partake in the next planting season.

4. Fish Pond: ½ acre. When construction is completed, local fish will be farmed here.

How to Build a Tippy-Tap

2008-05-08T06:00:00.000-07:00

Many community members in rural Uganda suffer poor health because they do not possess the knowledge of adequate hygiene. Serious illnesses can easily be halted with simple prevention strategies. Washing hands with soap and water, especially after using the toilet, is one of the most effective ways to stop the spread of disease.

In Kiwangala, where Children’s Sure House is located, the toilets are basic pit latrines and there is no access to running water. The combination creates a thriving breeding ground for shigella, campylobacter, amebiasis, giardia, and even intestinal worms. These bacterial and protozoan complications are serious enough on there own, however, a high population of Kiwangalans' immune systems are already compromised by HIV. The consequences of infection could be potentially devastating.

The Senior 3 class at CSH has decided to do something about the problem. They are building 20 low-cost hand washing stations, called Tippy-Taps, outside many of the latrines in the community. The structure is a post and lentil design with a small plastic jerrycan that hangs off the top beam. It is called a Tippy-Tap because when the jerrycan tips over water comes out and the user can wash his or her hands. A Tippy-Tap can be made cheaply and easily by recycling available materials found in the community.

Here’s How to Build a Tippy-Tap:

Materials- A jerrycan with a handle (a jerrycan is a plastic container used to hold cooking oil, motor oil, or paint), 2 pieces of wood for posts (approximately 1.5 meters long and 7 centimeters thick, a piece), 1 stick of wood to hang the jerrycan from (approximately 1 meter long, 2 centimeters thick), 1 stick of wood (same size) that will act as a foot pedal, a sturdy string or clothesline (1 meter), nails, two plastic bags, some medium-sized rocks, a small piece of wire (1/2 centimeter), and an old plastic margarine container.

Tools- A saw, a shovel, a hammer, and a knife.

Directions-

Start out by digging 15 centimeter holes for the posts to sit in. Space them about ½ a meter apart from one another.

Cut the wood to the post’s desired length, wrap the bottom parts with the plastic bags (this prevents the wood from rotting) and then put them in the ground. Fortify the stability of the posts by filling in the remaining space empty space in the holes with a mixture of rocks and dirt.

Next, unscrew the lid of the jerry can and poke a hole in the top large enough for the string to pass through. Tie one end of the string to the wire. Thread the string through the hole so that the wire sits snuggly in the underside of the lid.
Poke a hole about ¾ up the side of the jerrycan opposite of the handle. This is the spout where the water will come out.

Slide one of the slender pieces of wood through the handle of the jerrycan. Make sure that it can rock back and forth in the middle of the beam. If the stick is too big, whittle it down. Nail one side of the beam into the top of one of the posts so that the spout is facing you. Don’t nail the other side of the beam directly into the remaining post. Instead, hammer in two nails on either side of the beam. Leave enough space in between the nails so that the beam can be lifted up and the jerrycan can be removed periodically for cleaning.

Cut the top half of the margarine container off. Punch many holes through the bottom half and then nail it to the top of one of the posts. This is a soap holder. The holes in the bottom will drain water from the rain.

Dig a trench about ½ a meter and 1/3 meter deep long under the bottom of the posts and fill it with rocks. This will prevent the ground from eroding.

Finally, screw the lid back on the jerrycan and tie the end of the string to the remaining stick. Fasten it in a way that the tied end of the stick is lifted 7 ½ centimeters off of the ground. Step down on the stick, allowing the jerrycan to tip forward, and place your hands under the spout to wash them.

Here are some other Tippy-Tap resources on the Web:
The IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre provides some more background on the benifets of Tippy-Taps.
Tearfund International Learning Zone describes how to build a Tippy-Tap with strings instead of posts.
This is a video showing another Tippy Tap invention.

Seed and Light International Partners with Children's Sure House

2008-04-11T03:44:00.000-07:00

Seed and Light International, an American Non-Profit Organization, has sent over 10 lbs. of vegetable seeds to Children's Sure House (CSH)in Uganda. In 2005 the community of Nunspeet in Holland donated funds to CSH towards the purchase of land for agricultural use. The donation of seeds has stimulated the CSH agricultural project that will generate food and income.

With the help of students from CSH in Kiwangala, Masaka, a large nursery bed was sowed. Early flat dutch cabbage, mustard, red cabbage, honeydew melon, cantelope, pablano pepper, sweet pepper, pole tomato, silvery fir tree tomato, candy onion, and carrots were planted. As the vegetables grow closer to maturity, the students will transplant them in their homes.

Children's Sure House Older Persons' Program

2008-04-11T00:23:00.000-07:00

Childrens Sure House is an NGO engaged in reforming and transforming the communities where it operates. Our success comes from the fact that the projects for our beneficiaries are situated in those areas thus our deep involvement which helps us to be familiar with the people’s problems.

Initially we were solely concerned with the academic social and moral affairs of the children; we therefore fore sighted our mission also to help the older persons knowing that we could not have gotten far without dealing with both parties

It was seen to be more viable for Childrens Sure house to involve the older persons as much as it involved the young children.

Out of the seventeen villages in three different parishes where our scope of operation demarcated to operate we have held numerous progressive meetings since our inauguration in August 2006. In our mission we were dedicated to highlight the welfare and well-being of the older persons in this areas which we operate, to mention too; we have not turned down our efforts. We have emphasised the aspect of the older persons working together to deal with every one's problem.

For most of our time and efforts we have worked with these older people through the different projects that were mentioned in the project paper earlier thus empowering the older persons with the drive to participate and improve the relationship among them. the Fashion and Crafts, brush making, weaving, Ventilation bricks and floor tiles, bark cloth making projects have been instrumental bringing up the idea of working together and getting us deeply involved in their daily lives and therefore knowing them for what they are and homes they come from.

This involvement also culminated in over the last two years building three houses of elderly persons through our local means.

Our efforts were vaster and our helping hand reached far to the other grieving older persons, I would like to bring to our attention this lady as afore mentioned, we built her a new house after we identified that she was sleeping in an already fallen house but she could squeeze her self through the debrised entrance and to her bedroom, as long as she knew where her bed is she did not care if it could bury her one unfortunate day.
It was integrated into the activities of Children Sure House – Older Persons Project and LST (Livingstone) we built her a new house beside her old scare.

One other house is being built right now with the help of our long term volunteers Sebastian and Reuben from Livingstone Organization in Holland with the help of other volunteers from Britain called Suzie and Megan.

We are very appreciative for all the people who bequeathed of their money, time and energy towards this cause after seeing the need on the website of Sebastian and Reuben at http://www.lst.nl/ who also volunteered to take care of cleaning the house compounds, raised money upon the strategy and took care of her jigger problem where by they got rid of all of the jiggers that had attacked her feet.

I want to draw your attention once again, on one old woman called Maria Ndenzako. This old woman had nine children and all of them are now deceased. She recalls that she got her first child during the regime of Kabaka (king) Muteesa II of Buganda. (The first Ugandan President) implying that she had her first son in the fifties (1950’s)

Unfortunately all of her children died and she has no idea where the grand children are. Her house started falling apart and barely anyone could come to her rescue. Thank God that she had a piece of land where the new house is being built for her. The local authorities could not do anything for her for the reason that they say that the Central government does not support them with such welfare to such cause.

Mr. Martin Mpanga of Children’s Sure House realized the ordeal of this woman as he was doing his community development work and visited her dilapidated house. She basically slept like an animal and her body is eaten by jiggers. He involved the Childrens Sure House/Livingstone (CSH/LST) volunteers for help.

It would be very gratifying if this if this woman sleeps in this new house. This is the look of the new site for the house that is being built for her as compared to her old house. We believe that once this if finished she will be able to accommodate her grand children as well and live without he scare of being buried in the wreck.

“…Even if she dies after a day of sleeping in her new house I believe she will die a happy woman…” explains Martin Mpanga. Megan and Suzie have promised to work on her in order to heal the jiggers which may soon cause her death if they are not dealt with.
May our God of heaven bless you two folds for your prayers and contributions.

In all our work we looked up to observe different kinds of impressions, what vividly caught our attention was the willingness of the members to help despite their lack of amenities, this has made us conclude that if we sustain the government’s getting involved in these kinds of strategies our goal will be achieved. We were in close connection with the local leaders especially the Development Local leader, Mr. Jaburilu Matovu who in person physically participated in the building of the house.
In his own words he appreciated the noble work the Project is undertaking and called upon local members to mount the capacity to help other anguished members of the society. He did also reassured the Project leaders that the call to which they have been called is challenging though, but when they work together the tragedies will be long gone.
The councilor, Mr. John Bwankya Ntanda of Ngereko parish, a resident too; was always there in person to progress with us in our endeavors. In his own words he lamented how timely the initiative took its course because of the numerous bereaved older persons of their grand children in the parish and commended the government of the Republic of Uganda through the Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development for setting up institutional development through the Older Persons sector and also this inspired him to come and gladly partake in this noble work.

It was to our admiration too, to involve people in farming practices since most of the people there are farmers and exclusively depend on subsistence farming to get food and an undersized source of income. Most of the land is covered by the bushes which we want to get rid of some and put small sized plantations. In this therefore the masses can realize what wealth they have. Mr. Martin Mpanga masterminded the activity to revitalize the desire of our descended grand fathers who took up to massive agriculture to get food to feed them, with what we have we believe we can bring that back to light, later new methods will be employed for example we can distribute seeds to be planted.

Recently we have pinpointed an old man by the names of Wasswa who was been living in a wretched house for the last two years and we as Childrens Sure House felt that we should take the responsibility of constructing him a house. Regarding the fact that he had lost his twin brother a few months ago – made him heedlessly live his life from then. Efforts of constructing Wasswa a home have so already taken place with trips of sand and the foundation together with the construction process.