Women and Girls Education & Empowerment in Uganda

At The Angel Projects, it is always our policy to listen to the voices of the local community members who we serve and allow them to tell us what they need.  We then problem-solve to find solutions to meet their needs. We never want to come into a place as foreigners and tell the local people what we think they need; we believe that method is ethnocentric and ineffective.

Our Elderly Project was birthed out of a need brought to us by community members in Rubuguri, Uganda, who saw that many of the elderly in their area were suffering due to a lack of support.  These were people who had gotten too old to work and support themselves, and they either had no family or at least no family members in the area.  In Uganda, there are no governmental or societal supports for the elderly; so, essentially these people were on their own with no resources.  In response to this need, we started our Elderly Project through which we're able to provide these people with food and other essentials, healthcare, assistance with cleaning and bathing, and companionship. Basically, our staff members who work for our Elderly Project give these valued community members back their dignity and bring them hope.

Recently, we were made aware of a sad situation taking place in our own backyard.  Lois, a student in our scholarship program, was missing a lot of school, and her grades were slipping. One of our staff members visited Lois at home to investigate why this was happening and whether there was anything we could do to help. It turns out that Lois lives with her grandmother, and she was missing school because she was taking care of her grandmother and working in order to provide food for her. There was no one else in the family who could help them. To us, the solution was obvious: we enrolled Lois' grandmother in our Elderly Project so that our staff members could take care of her and provide food; this meant that Lois was able to return to school and to be fully present while she's there, not worrying about her grandmother back at home. In this situation, we were able to bring hope not only to Lois' grandmother but to Lois as well, who is actually a very talented student with big dreams for her future. 

In every situation and in every project we start, we have found that listening to the locals and strategizing together is the key to success and change. We are meeting their actual needs, rather than what we imagine their needs to be, and we're providing them with a chance to have ownership in the projects. Our mission and goals mean more to the community when they're involved in the process of creating them, and they become more invested in seeing growth and in helping to make the projects successful. We want to thank all of our generous donors who support our projects; we know that without you, we would never be able to make these incredible changes in this community.