Today I visited a new-to-me project in Uganda. It’s located in Gomba, a fairly rural district, about 2 hours west of Kampala.
I’d been told about the project by a friend from church back home, and last Saturday I met Prossy, the founder, whilst she was in Kampala. She shared about her work, and her own personal story, and I was so inspired I determined to go and visit the project in person – hence today.
Prossy is the youngest of 13 children, and despite, or maybe because of that, she was fortunate to receive a full education through to qualifying as a social worker. NB I say ‘despite’ because oftentimes I’ve seen family situations where the oldest get to go to school, but by the time it’s the turn of the younger ones, the money has run out. And I say ‘because of’ in acknowledgement that by the time it was Prossy’s turn to go to school, the older ones would have been in a position to earn money, and gradually there were less mouths to fill and so more could go towards school fees.
Getting back to Prossy – she qualified as a social worker, and did that for a few years but over that time became more and more aware that children whose parents had died due to HIV/AIDs were becoming cast out of society due to some misplaced beliefs in HIV being a curse from God for previous wrong doings, and that when the parent dies, the curse gets passed down to the child.
Knowing this to be a total untruth, Prossy started pushing back against it through trying to educate the adults, and to a large extent has succeeded as many less children are now being cast out in the area. But that didn’t solve the problem of the children who had been orphaned. And so, at the age of 24, Prossy started the Hope for a Child Orphanage.
She now has 43 children under her care, and they range from age 2 to age 16. She has a small team of local adults who assist her in running the home, and she has managed to get support from her networks to pay for 10 of the children to attend school. The other children are taught by Prossy at home under the shade of a mango tree.
Prossy and the children live in a rented house, and a generous benefactor has steadfastly supported them in covering that cost for many months, enabling them to rest assured that they have a roof over their head. However, the dream is to either build their own home on land that they have managed to purchase, or buy the house that they already live in from the landlord so that they can be free from any rental bills. Also, on the land they do some cultivation, to grow their own crops as much as possible and so bring down the food bills. Eventually Prossy would like to start some small businesses which can then enable them to become self-sufficient.
My visit to the H4C home today was such a joyous and humbling experience. From the enthusiastic welcome, it was just such a beautiful day. Being shown round by the children, and watching them warm up from shyly considering this strange pale-skinned person who spoke with a funny accent to being relaxed with beaming smiles and laughter – it was a very special time.
They live in very modest surroundings – each of the 4 bedrooms has between 8 and 12 children sleeping in it, averaging 3 children per mattress. The children each have a task to do to help with keeping the place functioning well – from fetching water, to sweeping the yard, to stacking the mattresses, to finding firewood. But love pervades, and it was wonderful to see the older children looking out for the little ones, and happy huddles of adoptive siblings just relaxing together.
Two of the oldest children are preparing to leave the orphanage soon. Nicholas is training as a carpenter and in 6 months will finish his qualification. All that stands between him and starting work in that field is the money to buy the tools of the trade.
The other young person soon to leave is Rita who has 2 more months left at college where she is training to be a tailor. She showed me some of the clothes that she has made, and they are very good. Her prayer is to get a sewing machine so that she set up as a tailor in the nearby trading centre.
Prossy is a very inspirational young woman. She is determined to get to a place of not being dependent on outside funds, and so her focus is very much on trying to muster up ‘seed money’ to help her develop some income-generating projects. God is very much at the heart of all that she thinks, says and does, and prayer is on her lips, and the lips of the children as a natural reaction to every moment – whether in thanks and praise or as a request.
I don’t know what the long-term purpose was for today’s visit in the bigger scheme of my involvement and God’s plans for Prossy’s work. But I do know that it was a day that I shan’t forget, and I thank God for giving me this day.
NB – if any of you readers feel nudged in any way to want to know more, explore more about getting involved in helping raise seed money, supporting a child to go to school etc, please do message me direct. No pressure though!
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