These are few very blurry photos off our phone ( my camera has died ) which we took recently of some of the women and children who beg on the street here.
These are some of the women and children we are helping and working towards doing more for.
The Majority of these families are from an area north in Uganda known as Karamoja... they are people who still live the most traditionally. They are a proud people with a strong, beautiful culture.
They are often prey to human traffickers in their communities and villages. Promises of better lives and an education for their child ( or themselves...) but often leads to them being forced to beg on the street or many other horrible things, in the city.
Many others have come to the city after complications from pregnancy have meant their husbands have rejected them... they come to the city hoping to find a way of supporting themselves and their children but end up on the street begging.
The majority of them live in make shift shacks in a well known slum area.
We have many dreams and ideas of how to help them and have been meeting with the local government of recent sharing some of our ideas. And hearing their frustrations with certain NGO's who think they are helping but are actually adding to the problem.
This was most beneficial to us and allowed us to have God reaffirm where we were heading.
Many NGO's come in quickly and just take kids off the street and either house them and they lose contact with their family or automatically return them to families... who may have sold them to traffickers in the first place...
The government loved our ideas but urged us to do things properly and not try and work outside the law.
There are days i get so INCREDIBLY frustrated that things aren't moving faster in our ministry... that we don't have more finances... that we still wait for approval for certain things... but I am reminded that we want to be an NGO that lasts... and makes REAL changes.... and that means doing things well in the start.
Our dream we shared with the government of our plans to help these children and women is the follow ( in short detail )
IMMEDIATE GOAL ( when finances allow)
- to start a feeding & medical program held in their slums every week ( to start with once a week... more when finances allow ) as apart of this will be a registration project - no one including the government has any idea how many are begging on the streets or why... we want to register them and as apart of this work out how we can help them best.
- To start our READ FOR LIFE program in their slum to give the children a reason not to be on the street
- To begin a free GOOD QUALITY school in their slums.
LONG TERM GOAL
- Our MBUYU VILLAGE - a large property where we will take those children who are orphans or can not return home & give them a safe and loving environment to grow and learn AWAY from the city and streets.
- On this same property we which to establish small plots with small individual houses, these will be given to women and their children who are from the slums who we identify as motivated to change their families future.
They will be able to live in the accommodation for 2-3 years ( still deciding on timeline) .... they will be given basics to help set them up ( seeds, furniture etc) and an area to learn how to grow own food.
Their children will receive a free education to start with at our school on same property.
During the day the women will learn skills training ( sewing, agriculture, jewelry making, business, etc ) and how to always at least be able to feed their family through growing their own produce.
We will ask for them to work for a few hours each day in our community farms ( the produce will be used to feed the orphans in children home and be sold to support the programs), this will in turn give them a small wage and we will help them by keeping some of that wage and putting it into savings for them for the time they live with us.
Over time they will have the opportunity to gain small loans or purchase at reduced prices things like chickens... goats.. cows .. materials... beads etc to allow them to come up with ways of supporting their family.
They will learn about handling money and good business. As they develop their businesses and are able to earn an income, according to each individual family they will then pay a very small rent fee which will build according to their income.
After the 2-3 years we would then help them with money they've been saving and we have put away to help them purchase their own small piece of land off our area and help them to see their business succeed. If they choose to remain in same area, their children will be welcomed to continue their schooling with us, but then the family will contribute towards school fees, according to what they are able.
Allowing this to be a cycle and helping them to help themselves, will allow us then to be able to then in turn take new women and families in and have the cycle continue.
This idea has been met with much approval so we continue to believe for GREAT miracles to happen to allow us to build our MBUYU village.
This is just a very brief view of our ideas.
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