Let's help these kids help themselves by raising enough money for the Mengo Bakuli Boys' Brigade to start their own chair and tent rental service to accompany their band!!
The 40 boys of the Mengo Bakuli Boys' Brigade orphanage put together a band that is hired to give performances at local events. The money earned with these performances is used to pay the boys' school fees, however the band does not raise enough to keep all 40 boys in school.
More often than not, when the boys are hired to give a performance they are asked if they have chairs and a tent to rent out as well. The boys have never had enough money to buy the chairs and tent that would provide another continuing source of income, keeping more boys consistently in school.
In this segment of Little Victories, I want to raise enough money to buy 100 chairs, a tent and a storage facility for the chairs. Each chair is only $10 so by raisng $2040 we will have enough to buy 100 chairs, a tent and a storage facility.
The money these chairs will bring in annually is enough to keep 6 boys in primary school or 3 boys in secondary school and Tonie Mubiru, co-founder of the Mengo Bakuli Boys' Brigade and Ugandan Coordinator for Little Victories, in Law School for a year.
This chair & tent rental service will not only help fund the education these boys need to better their current life situation, but by giving them the tools to help themselves as opposed to simply giving them money for tuition we are helping them build a sense of self-reliance and resourcefulness, and a strong work ethic.
PROJECT INTRO:
I was in Kampala, Uganda volunteering for 2.5 months in 2007. While I was there I was introduced to an orphanage called the Mengo Bakuli Boys’ Brigade. The orphanage was started by two young men, Tonie Mubiru and Abbey Lataaya, who were orphans themselves. The orphanage is located on the land of Abbey’s grandmother who is also the grandmother of several of the younger boys as well. The boys put together a band using old, discarded and donated instruments. They taught themselves to play and wrote several songs. There are not enough instruments for all 40 boys to play so some perform dances and acrobatic tricks to accompany the band. The band is hired to perform concerts at local events around Kampala and the money earned through this is used to pay the boys’ school fees.
I spent a lot of time with these boys playing soccer, chatting and giving informational sessions on topics such as puberty and HIV/AIDS prevention. I also spent a lot of one-on-one time with several of the boys helping them with homework, teaching them basic computer literacy, etc. After getting to know the plights of these boys so well and seeing how desperately each one of them wanted to go to school, I couldn’t leave and not continue to help them in some way. The band does raise quite a lot of money for the boys but it is not enough to keep them all in school so many of the boys remain without the education they require to better their life situation.