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1. Focusing on Education and Vocation for Africa's Girls and Young Women. Focusing on primary and secondary education opportunities for the young people of Africa, especially girls, can dramatically reverse the declining fortunes of the continent. By fostering their education and vocational opportunities, we can postpone their having children too early and too often, raise the potential of their career paths, and raise the income level for themselves and their families (which provides a higher income for the family, community, and country).
2. Vocational Training. Simply giving orphans food and/or rudimentary shelter does not help in the long run. By providing free education and Vocational Training, we are working to create a perpetually SUSTAINABLE community instead of one continually stuck in poverty. The training we offer is in a wide variety of skills, trades, and professions. Some of them include:
- TOURISM: Africa's tourism potential is largely untapped, and we want our children to have a firm grasp of the global economy. Learning to speak other languages, training to be a tour guide (of our cities and our amazing National Parks), learning hotel duties and management, and all the associated micro-industries surrounding tourism will help our children be prepared for starting their own businesses or working with an established company.
- COMPUTERS: We already have children who are extremely talented with graphic design. We are beginning to teach web design, basic software usage, and blogging, of course! We believe we can train a generation of computer-literate children with enough savvy to get a professional job anywhere in our region.
- ANIMAL HUSBANDRY & AGRICULTURE: Our economy has been traditionally based around our animals (cattle, pigs, goats, etc.) and our crops (coffee, tea, casava, potatoes, and more). We want to teach our children these valuable skills not only to continue our traditions, but to give them practical training in established economical practices. It's far easier to work on a tea plantation than find a job at a graphic design company. Our goal is to give them skills in as many fields as possible so that they may choose their careers.
- MEDICAL FIELDS: We have many volunteers who assist our doctors in the clinic, go on our mobile visits to the rural areas, work in our pharmacy, assist medical teams from other countries during their trips, and generally learn basic medical practices. We want to give our students field experience as well as the knowledge they are helping their people in tremendous ways.
- TAILORING: Many of our women and children gravitate to tailoring -- it's a skill that is immediately practical and can be economically rewarding in a short period of time. We have purchased sewing machines and give regular workshops on tailoring. We also operate a tailoring business so our widows, young women, and students can make an immediate profit.
- CONSTRUCTION: With East Africa's construction business booming, another practical job skill is construction. We need laborers, engineers, architects, carpenters, drivers, and more! We have a brick-making machine, which has become another revenue-generating item. We want to purchase a lorry truck so we can deliver our bricks to construction sites in the region.
- FOOD SERVICES: Restaurants, cafes, specialty shops -- training our children in practical ways to get a job (perhaps while they get their Masters Degree at Kampala International University?)....
- AND MORE: Fishing, Manufacturing, Weaving, Bee Keeping, Baking, and many, many more.
3. Medical Access.
We operate a clinic and pharmacy at the main offices in Jinja. With a nurse, clinical worker, and part-time doctor, certain medical services, HIV screening and counseling is available at the clinic and pharmacy.
Rural areas are severely lacking in services and HIV/AIDS awareness. Nearly every family in the rural villages has a someone who is sick or has died from AIDS. We operate a mobile clinic (our ambulance, stocked with supplies and medication) to provide limited services in 63 different villages. With the mobile clinic, we are able to provide limited medical services, offer counseling, and provide home-based care for people suffering with AIDS.
Education continues as a primary weapon in the fight against HIV/AIDS. We conduct a rural HIV/AIDS awareness program in the villages, explaining what the disease is, dispelling myths, and teaching safe conduct.
Awareness programs are provided at the community level, to schools and institutions, and at the personal level with individual counseling and home visits. Music and dramas by people living with HIV/AIDS and educational films are also used.
We recruit and train community-based representatives to continue the work in the villages. The local person continues the educational outreach. They follow up with counseling and meet the needs of those who HIV screenings return positive. They provide medical and counseling assistance to those with AIDS in their homes. Community-based representatives train relatives and friends in home-based care for those in the late stages of AIDS to administer the type of care such patients require.
4. Family-style Transitional Villages. Many of our orphaned children live in the streets or in the IDP camps. In order to grow and thrive they need a stable environment with a family atmosphere. Unfortunately (due to the AIDS crisis), there are not enough grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, or cousins left to care for all the orphaned children.
In these cases, we bring the children into a home and match them with trained parents so they can have a family to care for them. These families are joined together permanently; they are a real family.
Instead of a perpetual "welfare-style" situation, we work with these families on a four year plan. Our program is a transitional, accountability-based program. It is designed to:
- Take the poor and destitute out of the streets and IDP camps;
- Pair orphans with trained widows and/or married couples;
- Show them a better way through Education and Inspiration;
- Equip them with the training, tools, and skills they need to succeed;
- Help them purchase their own home.
5. YOUR INVOLVEMENT. We can't do this without you. Whether you are a corporation, a foundation, a rock star, or just a "regular" individual, the fact that you're reading this means you want to help in some way. Stop wanting to help and start helping!
We encourage you to read this page to find out how.
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