Since March, 2007, the over $150,000 raised by the Ugandan Orphans Fund has:
* paid school fees and given scholastic materials to 164 orphans and vulnerable children whose parents were killed by the Lord's Resistance Army or died of AIDS
* started 8 Income Generating Activities - bee keeping, goat, pig & chicken raising, oxen ploughing, tailorong/weaving, paper jewelry making, orange tree seedling planting
* built a vocational school for 286 students at Barlonyo, site of the February 21, 2004 massacre of 300 villagers by the Lord's Resistance Army
* trained 157 formerly abducted returnee-mothers as tailors and given them a sewing machine to start their business
* paid tuition to university, nursing school and teachers college for 12 Aboke girls who had been held captive by the Lord's Resistance Army for 8 years from 1996 to 2004
Thank you all SO much. The work goes on.
With your continued support, these good Ugandan people can rebuild their communities after over 2 decades of Lord's Resistance Army terror. They just need our help.
Background
In December, 2006 the Children of Hope Uganda program was started in Lira, northern Uganda to help the orphans victimized by the brutal Lord's Resistance Army. This conflict has afflicted the Acholi people for over 20 years. Villages were burned and children stolen by the LRA to be child soldiers or bush wives. Funding for the initial trauma healing training for these children was given by Bill and Rosemarie McMechan, two dedicated Canadian Quakers.
These young people, traumatized by LRA atrocities, want only to move on with their lives and go to school, but they can't afford the school fees.
Here's where you can help. $118 keeps a child in Primary day school for one whole year. $485 will keep a child at their studies in a Secondary boarding school for one whole year.
In March, 2007, I met Esther Atoo, the dedicated Director of the project, and the original 43 children. They would gather on Saturdays for a hot meal, games, counselling and to receive school supplies and encouragement. Esther and her social worker assistant, Doris Apio also make school and home visits to check on the welfare of these children.
By November, 2008, 121 more children were added to the project for a current total of 164 children. Esther travels to the 15 Primary schools and 16 Secondary schools to pay school fees for the children, ranging in age from 10 to 18, from grades 6 to 10
Esther now gathers the children at the start of each term in Feb. May and Sept to distribute scholastic materials. A Ministry of Education official, who is a Director of UOF, greets the children and encourages them in their studies.
Can you help?
http://OprahsAngelNetwork.org/stories/524-in-uganda-trauma-transforms-teacher