Help Children with Learning Difficulties in Uganda

Hello dear Backup family!

Since in Uganda we say happy new year to everyone that we have not yet seen since 2019 started: happy new year!! We hope 2019 has started well for you, and that it will be an amazing year for all of us. We sure have some dreams that we would like to see come true!

One of these dreams has been a big one since the day we started this organization. As you may remember, we started our work on the floor. Literally. In 2016, our co-founders Ronald and Annemaaike sat on the carpet of a living room and began. In 2018, we moved to a spare bedroom of the same house, where we finally had a separate office space to work from. But, we quietly hoped that it would become possible to move to a REAL office, outside of our team member’s home.

That is why we set up our #GivingTuesday and end of year fundraising campaign with only one goal: an office for Backup Uganda. We were hoping to raise a year’s worth of rent ($1,000), so that we could move to a humble space that could fit our growing team. Somewhere we could receive visitors without them having to take their shoes off and move through a living room first.

#GivingTuesday came, and boy, we were nervous on that 27th of November. We had no idea that within ONE day, we would just be a few dollars away from raising the full amount needed! And we definitely had no idea that on the last day of 2018, we would have received almost twice the amount we set as our goal: $1,601.

It is hard to find the words to thank everyone who has made this happen (you know who you are). It may seem like something simple, a room with a table, chairs and a couple shelves. To us, it opens doors to incredible opportunities to grow what we set out to do: developing support for children with learning difficulties. We plan to add people to our team this year, and now they will have a comfortable space to help us become a bigger, more effective Backup Uganda.

So how did our new year start?! With moving day! Plot 6, Jivan Abji Road is our new address in Gulu. We are very grateful to Antioch Church for being willing to share a space with us and for being fun neighbours. Check out the photos to see the first, real Backup Uganda office! Please know that it is filled with all the love you have showed us since day one, and that you are always welcome to come visit us.

With love,

The Backup Uganda Team