Attending school makes a game-changing impact on a child's life and future. ULA supports the education of children, primarily orphans in these districts of Western Uganda: Mitooma (1), Mbarara (2), Isingiro (3), Rakai (4), Kyenjojo (5), Mubende (6), Kamuli (7), Tororo (8), Sironko (9), Nebbi (10) and the town of Port Portal (11). There is an ever-increasing number of orphans due to the AIDS pandemic and the population of orphans burgeons in rural regions – like Western Uganda – where poverty is most rampant.
Schooling & Aid for
Children in Need
Sharon Kukunda, Associate Director of ULA, who has been a credentialed primary teacher, manages ULA's support for children's schooling. She builds a personal relationship with each child, as well as teachers and school administrators. She monitors and keeps records of students' progress and well-being, and acts as a liaison between the children and their sponsors.
Additional Support Given to Orphans
Basic emergency aid gives these vulnerable children a head start. We at ULA ensure that they are provided with food, bedding, psycho-social support, and simply treated with much-needed tender loving attention and care. Donations are needed for ULA to construct homes for destitute caretakers of orphaned children. A decent 2-room cement house with an out-house for a caretaker and her orphans costs $1800 US! Such a home will give them a safe base from which they can transform their lives long-term.
ULA director, Turinawe Samson takes orphans under his wing in rural Western Uganda
Sharon Kukunda, ULA associate director, who is in charge of aid to children, offers porridge to orphans in Kanunga
... and in Birezi-beans, sweet potatoes, bread matooke (bananas) and eminyekye (yellow bananas)
Happy boys in their new clothes!
Orphans enjoying coloring books from ULAF board member, Rosy Aronson's The 64 Faces of Awakening
Rabeca and Najuma
tell of their new life loving school
Rabeca
“I am happy to say ULA has love for us, the children. I live with my father. Our mother left him because of his drunkard behavior. My father never wanted to take me to school because I am girl that should remain home cooking for my three brothers, and get married when I grow up.
I heard ULA staff educating him on importance of educating a girl child. They talked to him and they showed him that I am 'important with education.'
I am now in Primary Six. Had it not been for ULA educating my father on letting me go to school, I would be working somewhere as a housemaid. I am now seeing a bright future. I would like to be a nurse.
ULA also helps to support my father to go for rehabilitation to help him stop drinking alcohol … which he has done. This alcohol had chained him but now my father is a new person, with a new life. ULA restored my father’s life. Thank you ULA; you are my advocate!”"
Najuma
“Until recently I never went to school. My father died when I was still a baby. My mother has had cancer for years. A year ago the ULA community coordinator in our area visited my home to see my mother. ULA team in our community visits sick people … HIV positive people and those suffering from cancer. They supply them with nutritious foods to improve their heath, and teach them healthy eating habits.
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When the ULA people came to visit my mother, she asked them if they could help to sponsor my education. The coordinator promised to contact the ULA administration head offices. After few weeks, a ULA officer from Kampala came to our home. She collected data from me, my mother, and our local government officer. Two days later we received news that ULA would sponsor my education. I began going to school and am in primary four. Now I know how to read and write. ULA is helping me get the education I need to live my dream. I want to study and be a doctor.
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My mother has always been a poor woman and unhappy. She had lost hope in my going to school. But now, when I wake up and go to school, she smiles!”
