Help vulnerable children go to SAMaritan Schools!

Still in Lockdown….

When I wrote my last report no-one could have imagined what an impact the coronavirus pandemic would have worldwide. I never envisaged the impact it would have on my own personal situation, let alone the devastating impact that it is having in Uganda and the consequential restrictions on our Stichting Kinderhulp Afrika (KHA) projects.

The Ugandan nation has now been in lockdown for over 14 weeks. Schools and colleges remain closed and unfortunately no date has yet been set when the children and students will be allowed to return. General movements are still restricted, and social distancing is in place, although this is almost impossible due to the over-crowded conditions that most families and communities live in. The motorbike taxis, boda-bodas, are permitted to transport goods but not passengers and this has led in part to huge increases in the costs of daily living. Food prices have also rocketed following more stringent border controls, and to add to the challenges a plague of locusts has decimated crops!

 As a consequence, the economic crisis in Uganda is growing by the week. The continuing lockdown is fueling uncertainty about when things will improve, and many people are struggling to make ends meet and already going hungry. Fear of further economic problems and major health issues are looming and increasing anxiety across the country.

KHA is doing everything it can, and our attention has now switched from pre-coronavirus activities to providing emergency help to families in need. As there is no social security network or government financial support in Uganda, those not at work receive neither salary nor financial benefits. KHA set up a Relief Fund to provide our local staff with 70% of their normal salary and we are very grateful that generous donations have enabled us to meet our goal to be able to pay salaries until at least September.

Our immediate focus is now on the Ugandan families who are looking after the children who are on the KHA sponsor programme. An audit has revealed that around 100 of the 300 families concerned now need additional support as a direct result of the pandemic. These families are often taking care of several children as well as 'our' sponsor children, and money and food are starting to run out after so many weeks of lockdown. We have therefore also launched a Relief Fund specifically to help these families. If you would like to help out please consider making a donation via The Samaritan Day Care and Kindergarten (SAM) project on GlobalGiving: www.globalgiving.org/42553 or directly on website: www.kinderhulp-afrika.nl/en

Should you want to help these families out in a very generous way then on Wednesday, July 15, GlobalGiving is hosting a special Bonus Day for donations over $100, £80, € 89 . These donations will receive at least a 30% match. Bonus day starts at 9 a.m. ET in the USA, 14.00 hrs GMT in the UK and 15.00 hrs in Europe till midnight, 4:59 hrs and 5:59 hrs respectively.

For more infomation see: https://www.globalgiving.org/leaderboards/july-bonus-day-2020/

Not all doom and gloom!

I am delighted to tell you that, despite the coronavirus crisis, we have run a very successful campaign on GlobalGiving through a microproject to raise funds towards the costs of buying an innovative new education programme for SAM and the Samaritan Primary School, namely the Jolly Phonics Literacy & Grammar Programme.  We have already raised a total of £1,300 (€1416), which is well on the way to our goal at £2,200 (€2340) to purchase one package of the programme materials. The money raised so far has been ringfenced so that once our school can re-open and funds allow, we can purchase a first package of materials.  Ideally, we would like to buy 2 packages, so we will be continuing to fund raise and hopefully circumstances will enable us to repeat this microproject in 2021.  If you are interested in learning more about the Jolly Phonics approach to language teaching and our project to use it at SAM please go to:  https://www.globalgiving.org/microprojects/fund-jolly-phonics-literacy-and-grammar-programme/  and https://www.jollylearning.co.uk/

As I promised in the last report, we will post an update on the SAM project page as soon as the schools can return, this will hopefully be before another quarterly report is due!

I hope you will continue to follow and support the work we are doing in Uganda, and if you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact me at jill@kinderhulp-afrika.nl, I would love to hear from you. 

Thanks again for your interest and support.

In the meantime stay safe and keep well.