Hello everyone!

So welcome to the next installment of the blog, detailing all of our work from the last week in June. Thankfully it has not been as hectic as last week which means this entry should be considerably shorter than Esther’s last week…or that’s what I’m hoping! I always seem to be able to waffle on for pages and pages but hopefully you’ll be interested in reading it all; we’ve certainly enjoyed doing it.

After the busy week that we had last week we were totally ready for a slow, relaxing weekend. Saturday morning was spent at the market and around town, stocking up our room for a week’s cooking. It’s always interesting coming home and displaying all our fresh fruit and vegetables – we could open our own stall in the market! We finally let our feet touch the ground on Saturday afternoon which may have been a mistake as we couldn’t find the energy to pick them back up again! We let ourselves enjoy a cat-nap and then ventured down to a gorgeous café/restaurant right on the banks of the Nile where we enjoyed a well-deserved drink. It was lovely sitting there, reflecting on the week’s work and having the time to think in such beautiful surroundings. I’m always amazed by the wildlife you can see when you are curled up in a wicker chair watching the river: birds darting in to the river to catch fish, enormous dragonflies by the hundred, and frogs jumping around your feet. Sometimes I forget I’m in Africa whilst I’m in the midst of all this work but going down to the Nile and watching the amazing sunset I remember where I am and I am so happy that I chose SALVE International who have sent me to this incredible continent.
Anyway, Sunday we decided to go and explore an extreme sports camp, Adrift, somewhere outside of Jinja where we heard there were the best bead necklaces around. I know what you’re thinking – you went to an extreme sports camp and looked at bead necklaces!? Rest assured we are planning on doing something ‘extreme’ at some point but are yet to decide what we are brave enough to attempt! The necklaces were beautiful and have given Esther some great ideas of how to expand the market at Joy School. We then went to a 5* hotel very close to Adrift and decided to spend the day lounging by the pool, enjoying the sun. It was very relaxing up until a group of South African men, working at Nile Breweries, decided to start chatting to us. They were fun to start with, and the gold-toothed, gold-chain-wearing ring-leader delighted us with tales of his son back home. He commenced to show us a picture of his son but we were somewhat distracted by the inappropriate photos that wove in between pictures of the son he missed so dearly! He then asked us what we were doing that evening and we managed to evade the question but then, spurred on by his friends, he picked Esther up and threw him over her shoulder whilst she was trying to have a civilized conversation with one of our Trustees! We shouldn’t have been too shocked as the African men seem very interested in Muzungu women in general but this seemed slightly further than the average ‘you’re beautiful’ greeting on the street! We laughed about it later but were a little annoyed that our day by the pool was tainted! We ended the day by having an ice-cold beer overlooking another section of the Nile and so returned home refreshed, ready for another week’s work.



Unfortunately this week’s Street Clinic was cancelled as Stephen had made a prior commitment, much to his and our disappointment. However, we spoke to Mike on the phone on Monday night and he had come across Moses in the centre of Jinja so arranged with him to meet us on Tuesday morning at the post office. We were excited about this prospect as we thought we could talk to him, find out what he’d been up to, what his intentions were for the future (either returning to SALVE or his hopes for perhaps taking a vocational course), and possibly asking him to take us to where all of his friends on the streets hang out. We were disappointed when he didn’t show up, both for him and for the other children we could’ve potentially helped through him. But we have come to expect this kind of disappointment in our work here and are hoping that we will see Moses again someday. All it will take is for him to decide to help himself and we desperately want to see that happen.


On a lighter note, although probably not for the children sitting them, Joy School is in the midst of mid-term exams. We have every confidence that the SALVE children will do fantastically well. They are working hard and have their heads down in silence every time I have looked in on them. Because of a lack of resources and funding they have to copy the exam from the blackboard as well as writing their answers and so the tests take an extremely long time to complete. It has been disheartening for me to see the termly budget, whilst creating and running an admin programme for them on the computer, that they have made a loss. This, however, makes me want to work even harder for them and find funding to turn their fortunes around. Watch this space.


Drama Club is still going well. This week I gave them a prop each and they had to make their own story around this piece of equipment. Because of the limited amount of things I had with me some of them had an empty mosquito repellant canister and a pair of washing-up gloves! As you would expect they came up with some weird and wonderful stories, about kings and queens, snakes, and English football teams (Manchester United, of course). I’ve started writing the script for Noah’s Ark and am really excited about the energy and enthusiasm I know they’re going to put into each of their roles. I wish you could all come and see the final production but I will make sure I take lots of photos so that you can be just as proud of them as I know I will be.


The Joy School students are also putting a lot of effort into the beads project, as is Esther. After seeing the incredible beads at Adrift she has decided that the product range will not just include paper beads, but also coffee beans and a number of different seeds. We continue to be astounded by the helpful nature of so many Ugandan locals and she has managed to find someone who is going to drill holes in each of the seeds. She has spent many a time this week wandering around the streets and the garden with her head down, looking for seeds that have fallen off bushes and trees, much to the amusement of the Ugandan public and the staff here at the Guest House. She has worked out the budget and profit margin and has started making an unusual brochure that will reflect the recycled feel that the project values. This will detail all of the different products ready to sell in the UK. It is so exciting to think that these products, which the children and soon the community have put so much time and effort into, will be selling and making a profit that will benefit them so much.


I have spent a bit of time this week explaining all of this and our other projects in the monthly Intern Newsletter which I’ve really enjoyed doing. I think it will be good for all of our supporters to read in detail all about the children’s progress as well as what we’ve been up to here and it has also been useful for me to reflect on each of the different areas we’ve been working on. I can honestly say that every aspect of my work I’m really enjoying and know that I am doing it for an incredibly worthwhile cause. The street clinic has definitely made me realise this – seeing the difference between those currently living on the street, dirty and alone, and the confidence and happiness of the children SALVE has already helped is something really special.


As ever, living at the Guest House has been entertaining, both for us and for the staff! As well as Esther’s search for seeds outside we have amazed them with our Muzungu cooking. We managed to shock them by making pizza bases on a gas stove and confuse them by making a huge salad – they don’t understand any meal that is cold, especially a meal without any form of heavy complex carbohydrate! In turn, they helped us with a coconut that we purchased blindly from the market, not really considering the huge amount of effort that would go in to breaking it open. Kindly, the night-watchman offered his services and spent a long time brutally hacking away at it with a long, vicious-looking knife, much to our surprise and delight. Unfortunately, the coconut inside was hard to carve out but we thanked him for his valiant efforts all the same. We continue to be both annoyingly hard-work and a constant source of amusement for them – we like to keep it balanced!

We have heard from our UK Team, Helen and Nicola, that the interviews for the next pair of interns are happening this weekend. This fills me with mixed emotions. I am so happy that SALVE will continue to grow and gain new skills from new people, enabling them to branch out in lots of different directions. However, I am also a little jealous that I can’t stay, as I’m sure Esther is! We have had so many amazing experiences already, both with the people and the country itself and we have so many more to come. It’s going to be great for the children to experience new people (although it will be difficult for me not to smuggle all the children home with me in my suitcase) and I am certain that the next pair of lucky people working with SALVE will have an amazingly life-affirming time here.

I think that’s all for this week – as I knew I would I have rambled on for much longer than you no doubt expected! I hope it has been interesting and that you will come back to read next week’s entry from Esther, where I’m sure there will be lots more exciting tales to tell. Thanks for reading,

Lots of love,

Caitlin
xxxxx

Hi everyone,

As the sun sinks lower in the sky and a pungent smell of varnish wafts through the open windows from the bedsteads being made in the back garden, here I am all sticky and dust covered, resting my weary feet after another long day’s work. Caitlin is already reclining in a deckchair in the garden with a book and I will too soon but first here’s a bit about our last week...

It’s been a very busy one, the busiest for me in fact and I think we would both agree that our feet have hardly touched the ground since last Sunday.

But before I start here’s some more photos from Bujagalli Falls the other weekend... the impressive rapids and three sweet children washing their clothes amongst other villagers who had come down to do the same and splash around and polish up their dust-caked bikes.

(and a funny sign I couldn't resist photographing)

So after a relaxing Saturday in which Caitlin and I had our weekly swim and succumbed to having a dress each made in town from some of the cheerful Ugandan fabric that lines either side of the main street, we found ourselves back at the school the next day to join in their Sunday service. It was taken by an Australian couple who seem to be touring half the world visiting schools and other small projects they have been sustaining for some years. They have been supporting some of Joy School’s children through their education and it was wonderful to see the way in which they were received there and how the children listened so intently to all their stories about bone-shaking bike rides and chickens and eagles and trees that needed propping up after storms…things they could really connect with, and made quite an entertainment with the school’s director Mary’s dramatic translation!

Later on that day we met Mike and Robina and baby Caren at a nice hotel overlooking the Nile for a thank you dinner for them looking after us so well in the SALVE home. They made us feel rather scruffy by turning up all dressed in a suit and beautiful dress and Caren all covered in pink ribbons but it was moving to see how much this meant to them. It was lovely to see them all again not for work and Robina had bought all the photos from their pre-formal wedding “introduction” the previous weekend in which Mike was formally introduced to Robina’s parents. We had lots of time to do this as it took about an hour and a half for the food to finally arrive (typically Ugandan but it’s never yet been this bad!), and the one waitress (probably the cook too, and I surmise also the one who went out to catch the fish and kill the chickens) gave Mike chilli peppers which was the one thing he hadn’t wanted and were passed on to Robina who dutifully ate them and hoped they wouldn’t give poor Caren a nasty shock next time she had a drink. And yet it was all worth it but I imagine we won’t be going back there in a hurry.

Monday was an early start with our first street clinic in a while. Steven, our interpreter, turned out to be a natural at this job and we’re very lucky to have him. Caitlin mentioned about his past last week and how this has made him the lovely, caring person that he is now. It is inspiring to see how he has made his terrible past something so positive and constructive in shaping his longing to help those experiencing what he did and to show them the love he never received. It’s also encouraging to see how he takes a lot of initiative when speaking with the children, asking them about themselves and their situation, explaining about what we could offer and relating back to us with very little prompting. Whilst I had imagined it would be some extra work working though someone else, it has taken a lot of weight off our shoulders and has also introduced us to some new slum areas in which to search.

On our first day Steven took us down to the railway on the edge of Jinja, where the poorest of the poor have their shacks and scavenge for leftover food from the rubbish tips and also from spilled goods alongside the railway line and unloading lorries.

These children had scraped up a small pile of maize to take home to their families. Sadly we discovered that all the children we met here were from Masese, the slum community we mentioned in earlier blogs, and whom all had families to return to at the end of the day. Whilst it is so difficult to tell such an obviously needy child that we cannot help, the main thing about the street clinic is remembering that we must save the precious few places in the SALVE home for those who are the most desperate; usually those with nowhere to go at night and who face the potential dangers of violence, rape and neglect on a daily basis.

We went back to the town and visited the most frequented rubbish dumps, finding a handful more children picking morsels and pieces of plastic and metal that they could sell for recycling. It turned out that these, too, including some older boys hanging around a back-alley (who turned out to be very friendly and helpful and directed us towards some potential places for finding younger children) were all from Masese.

We said goodbye to Steven and trudged home wondering if we would have better luck the next day and feeling somewhat disheartened, knowing that there were many who need our help, if only they knew of us or if we could find them, but where?

Tuesday started off equally frustrating, as we re-visited the dumping sites, even finding some new ones; the park where we knew the children slept and hoped there might still be some lurking in the long grass or under the hedgerows, and back to the railway. Again, the only children we could find were from Masese.

Having heard about the police’s involvement with street children, we decided to go to the police station and ask for advice on where to find them. After waiting a long time we were eventually shown to a caring yet over-worked lady officer who mentioned that the police partner with a couple of social organizations including CRO and that we should ask there. There was no more we could do there but it was encouraging to note her concern and encouragement of what we are doing.

After our allotted time for the street clinic Caitlin and I set about trying to find a birthday cake for Tiff (a SALVE child) whose 15^th birthday (the exact date no one knows) we were celebrating. After much searching we discovered these were in short supply and set about finding a fish and chips with lots of exciting looking bright red paste that called itself tomato ketchup.

In our hurry we glimpsed something dirt-coloured moving along the ground in one of the side alleys. Usually invisible to the naked eye, our more highly-tuned senses alerted us to the fact that we had glimpsed the rarely-dusted street kid. It turned out we were in luck.

He told us that his name was Junior and that he was 11 years old. We couldn’t communicate any more with him and substituted with an assortment of whistles and owl hoots and belly rolling (on his part) while we waited for Mike to arrive, who we managed to get on his mobile and who turned out to be in town not too far away. In the meantime a suspicious shopkeeper turned up and, discovering the situation, became very helpful and offered to translate for us. He relayed back to us that Junior’s parents had divorced and his mother had moved to Kampala where she had re-married and her new husband would not take Junior on. Junior had returned to Jinja to find a living on the streets. He sounded keen to be offered an education and a home, and from what we imagined his silent expression of wonder to mean, was overjoyed to have found a ticket to a new life.

But when Mike turned up we heard a new story. The two knew each other well and Mike greeted Junior with one of his big grins and a wrestle of a handshake. It turned out that the boy had been on the streets for some time and apparently had no intention of leaving it. He was heavily into drugs (visibly unnoticeable), a point which Mike confirmed with a tap on Junior’s back, which Mike later told us sounds hollow if affected by drugs. Apparently Junior has a grandmother in town but so far he has evaded taking Mike there for a required meeting before plans can be finalized, and has avoided the meetings Mike has tried to schedule in the past.

We felt a bit let down but at least he chose not to take our help rather than us being in the position of not being able to give it. It was a start though.

Next thing was a shakey bus journey to Tiff at Joy School, whilst trying to keep the fish and chips intact. They were still piping hot when we arrived and we got permission to take Tiff out of his class for a while. First everyone sang happy birthday to his embarrassment, and howled with laughter at the picture we had printed off for his card – something from one of the crazed evenings at the SALVE home -Tiff dressed as a well-endowed lady in a huge Afro wig!!

I realize I have already written far more than my portion for this week and Caitlin is busy cooking supper without my help so will keep the next half of the week brief – yet there’s still a lot more to say!

Community education research didn’t happen this week as it rained and then cheered up just after I rung Steven to confirm that we’d cancel it and he committed to something else – but I’m optimistic about what we can achieve with translation. It’ll open up so many more avenues, not having to be stuck with middle class, educated English-speakers. I’d loved to have spoken with this wonderful old lady the other day… many stories to tell I’m sure.

Last Friday it was really helpful to meet up with Joy School’s director, Mary, at last – after weeks and getting on for 2 months of her illness with malaria and having her phone turned off. But now I have had the opportunity to discuss the beads project and find out what it’s all about. As well as providing a wage for Joy school’s poor, orphaned and marginalized children (those without parents and relatives are housed there along with the SALVE boarders), the project was set up to encompass the community – particularly the mothers of the poor children, who, through their children and attending some of the workshops would learn a vocational skill. The other thing is to generate money to help pay for a new school building to replace the dilapidated construction of planks and holey corrugated iron that stands there now. The budget for this is way more than I could imagine the beads finances even making a dint in, but it’s a wonderful idea and I’d like to support it as much as possible…perhaps it will be possible to make a small difference if things come off with the UK market. Things are looking hopeful and if all goes according to plan we should be able to make plenty to cover material expenses and to give the children a substantial wage, enough to purchase their educational needs.

The other thing we discussed was a funding proposal (to cover project costs and expansion) and by yesterday I was able to gather all the required information to send off an initial letter of enquiry to a grants making organization based in the US that funds developing country projects just like this… I know it gets a lot of interest and I don’t hold high hopes but I wanted to try. The difficult thing is making sure the staff don’t get their hopes too high.

Caitlin is still enjoying all her work with Joy School and comes back glowing each time with all sorts of stories about what the SALVE kids have been up to. Her recently-started after-school drama club sounds a great success, providing an outlet for a great deal of talented acting!

Amongst her lesson planning and teaching-aids making, Caitlin is also busy working on this month’s interns’ newsletter for SALVE and is being willingly sucked into the school’s administration system in creating and producing a computerized copy of the school’s budget.

Finally, unsurprisingly we had not heard back from CRO after the letter of intentions about our desire to do some work with them, and decided to follow things up once again with Elizabeth the manager. Once again, we were asked to come back next week, and in the meantime await her call to schedule the meeting. We have every intention of coming next week, with or without her call but something we are realizing is that “next week” never comes.

We’ll hopefully be able to update you on this in next week’s blog. That’s all for now, suppers ready. Post this tomorrow, Hope all’s well!

Esther xxx

A friend this week asked me to describe my experience so far in Uganda in 5 words. This didn’t take long for me to think about as the words were pretty obvious to me. But as I’ve thought about them more they seem to sum up this past week in Uganda incredibly well. The words are: beautiful, challenging, emotional, fun, and life-changing (yes, this is one word!).

The beauty this week came from our trip to Bujagali falls at the weekend which was breathtaking. After a bumpy ride on a moped (my Dad will be so proud!) all the way there we found that it was totally worth the pain as we overlooked the most amazing view of the Nile and its green banks. As we got closer to the waterfall (or seeries of rapids) we watched in awe as a number of white-water rafters cascaded down the rapids unscathed and both wondered if we’d ever be brave enough to take on rapids of up to grade 8! As with most places in Uganda everyone was so friendly and welcoming and we made the most of the recommendation from our UK Team to have a chapatti with avocado inside – very, very tasty! We were so refreshed after going; it was lovely having a break from being in Jinja and seeing a bit more of the surrounding area.

I would use the word ‘challenging’ (rather than frustrating or stressful as we would have described it at the time) to describe the beginning of our working week where we had one of the most ‘challenging’ two days out of our whole time here. Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong, from computers not working to offices being closed. One of the most testing things that we have come across in Uganda is the fact that deadlines and times are rarely kept to, and Esther and I are definitely ones for sticking to arrangements and schedules. However, it only took us 2 days (!) to sort everything out and we eventually printed the letter about forming a link with CRO and took it to the manager. Once again, we are waiting for her call!
I think we've also been the cause of people having a challenging week I'm sorry to say! We're still really enjoying living at the Guest House but will probably go down in history as two of the most difficult guests there have ever been...we had requested, amongst other things, boiling water, milk, breakfast at dinner time but only on certain days...but they've finally agreed to let us cook for ourselves on a gas stove which is fantastic, probably to make life easier for themselves! All the staff are so lovely and we are very lucky to have all of them.

As well as finally succeeding in effective communication (on our part) with CRO, we also managed to meet with the volunteer who will be helping us with our Street Clinic, starting on Monday. This is where the emotion came in to the week. He is a lovely young man called Steven whose own experiences in life led him on to the path of helping others. His mother fell unexpectedly pregnant when she was very young and Steven was left to fend for himself
whilst she finished school. She married a man other than Steven’s father and, as with a lot of step-parent families in Uganda, life wasn’t made very easy for Steven. I was so touched with the way he hadn’t turned into a bitter person but instead made the best of his situation and used it to help other people. Another man that Estherinterviewed during the week for her Community Education Project explained to her about both of his parents dying from HIV and his experiences of trying to find money to go to school. He seemed the most normal, down-to-earth person in the world, hardly affected by his tragic past. Of course this could have been a front for us but people
in Uganda seem to take nasty experiences on the chin so well and it just makes me look at some people in the West who turn a petty problem into the worst thing in the world. I think everyone should come somewhere like this; it makes you put your own problems into harsh perspective and realise we actually have it pretty good.

The fun has come in abundance from Joy school this week, as the name suggests!! Drama club started on Wednesday and I haven’t had so much fun teaching before. It was an initial lesson where we mainly played games but they threw themselves into it amazingly. At one point I had 50 girls and boys playing ladders, running all over each other’s feet but laughing so much that they couldn’t run properly. It was a bit of a challenge (there’s that word again!) trying to talk to them all in a group, especially the younger ones, about my plans for a production of Noah’s Ark so I think next week I will have one class and have them all the way through. I’ve got so many ideas and they’re all so dramatic and theatrical that I can’t wait to see the finished play! Esther has also had fun continuing making the beads and thinking about all the ways that she can create a market for them. She returned today with some amazing samples of necklaces to sell and it sounds like there is a massive potential for selling both here, in the UK and via SALVE’s website. They're also doing a funding application for the project andthis should, if it is successful, bring in quite a bit of money. So everyone is keeping their fingers crossed that this will all come together and be lucrative enough to help those poor students who can’t afford uniforms, books etc.

I hope you don’t think I’m being too dramatic with the term ‘life-changing’ but there’s no other way to describe what we’re trying to do here. We really hope that the beads project will change some lives into getting a decent education. I’ve been working on the brochure for the school and hope that this will also change the lives of its students when we get funding for, amongst other things, permanent and advanced buildings for the children and sponsorship for children who can’t afford to pay the school fees. The preliminary stages of the Street Clinic that have successfully come together this week may also mean that we can change some lives of those who seem to need it most – the children who sleep rough every night of their young lives and live in constant fear of perhaps not even surviving the night. So far we’ve been desperate to get going with this and change some lives but it onlyseems like this week there can be a real potential to do so. Esther's Community Education project should massivelyhelp the cause by changing people's attitudes to street children and therefore the way people treat them. It has been hard walking past street children every day and not being able to help them so hopefully Monday will be the
start of something good. We’re very excited and will be sure to keep you updated on our progress!!

So we've had a bit of a roller-coaster of emotions this week but that's partly what I love about being here - you never know what's going to happen!

As cheesy and cliché as it sounds, the last words I want to use are Thank You to everyone reading and supporting SALVE in your own way. I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s blog and that you will come back to read next week’s
entry.

Lots of love

Caitlin xxx

Hi -here’s a happy Esther sitting in her hotel room with a laptop right in front of her and all functioning properly albeit without internet. The Joy School director, Mary, has kindly lent it to Caitlin while she works on the school’s brochure and website and luckily for us it sounds like we’ll be having it for a while! We were very excited to watch a DVD the other night and found it such a novelty we were happy to sit through it again the following night...and since we forgot to return it on its due-back date today the temptation to watch it a third time seems to have passed us by.

The hotel has a few other luxuries such as plumbing and beautiful gardens where we relax and read after a day’s work and enjoy the rest of the sun. We do miss the bustling tracks of Bugembe and the children’s excited yells of “Oh-Mazungu-bye-bye”, their accompanying dances and the grins that could light up your mood in a smallest moment. However the lushness of this area alongside the Nile with its colourful gardens, restaurants and pools are something we are more than enjoying and feel very spoiled to have.
Last Sunday we unexpectedly found ourselves at the Source of the Nile, as on the way into town we bumped into a national marathon, which we discovered ended at the Nile’s source and that entry was free and all including street kids were making use of the opportunity!! Nothing amazing but a nice view down the river from a well-placed jetty and some very impressive runners. I don’t know much about running times but for those of you who do the winner took only 1 hour 3 mins or thereabouts to cover an amazing 21 k in the heat.
I feel that our biggest achievement this week has been to finally make contact with the manager of Jinja’s main street children’s service, Child Restoration Outreach. After various frustrating attempts to arrange meetings during earlier weeks to discuss how we hoped to partner with the organisation, we had finally been asked to write a letter of introduction and await the manager’s call to schedule a meeting. Needless to say this did not happen and finally Caitlin and I decided to go along and follow things up. The manager, Elizabeth, successfully managed to conceal her knowledge of this if she knew anything of it and sounded very interested, believing that our support would be of benefit to CRO.

Unfortunately the way forward seems only through another letter of introduction, this time explaining our intentions in full. However she did mention that this would be followed up with a meeting with her staff who would discuss how best we could make this work. We’re optimistic about this and already have hopes for the huge amount of help and support this would entitle us to as individuals and an organisation if this were to come about.

We are keen to discover more about how it works as an organisation and to learn from its involvement in the community (we heard that it partners with the police in some constructive-sounding way and are very eager to hear all about this!)

Also it would help us enormously in our community outreach. I have already begun conducting interviews amongst the general community about people’s experiences of street children and attitudes on how best to deal with the situation with the idea of using the evidence to suggest ways in which the police are falling short of the public’s expectations. So far the data looks good. Everyone I have spoken to – from business men and security to boda-boda men lounging idly alongside the streets who are more than happy to chat – have been pro street children and believe that getting them off the streets through long-term solutions such as training and education is the way forward. The next step will be to gather info from the children themselves to discover the real causes for their lives on the streets. CRO’s input will be invaluable here, as it houses so many children all in one place! It will also be great to speak with the staff and get their (hopefully) expert opinions.

With all this we hope to locate the varying reasons for children’s disappearance from their homes and relatives to the streets, according to specific communities. The idea is to then provide support and guidance within each community to those who are the root of each specific problem (such as parents with poor parenting skills), through professional councilors and respected people of the local area.

The other thing that we’ll be using the interview data for is to discover what the children would find useful during their lives on the streets in terms of education and training opportunities. Whilst we cannot begin to provide such widespread support as an organisation, we hope that in partnership with others – and CRO will be a great beginning – that we can provide direction to certain sources of help.

Speaking of which... our registration as a CBO is coming on slowly...we hope to have this complete by the end of the month (hopefully) – this will be amazing to have access to a whole range of like-minded social organisations.

We’ve also started recruiting a Ugandan volunteer to help us really get things going with the street clinic until we find a full time worker to translate for us. Hopefully this will allow us to get twice the amount done as we make finding new kids for the home one of our top priorities. Now that SALVE’s current children are all at boarding school and have managed to re-establish relationships with relatives with whom they spend much of the holidays there’s a lot of empty space in the home! We’re excited to see how the family well grow... Hopefully we’ll be able to tell you more about this next week!

Things are coming on nicely with Joy school and it’s always nice to have the excuse to see the SALVE children there. Caitlin is getting on well with her English teaching and spends a lot of time making amazing teaching aids which keep the kids entertained – I’m sure they love learning in such an interactive and fun way.
Caitlin has almost finished the school’s brochure already, and is almost ready to start thinking about its website (a seemingly daunting task in my mind but she aims to transfer the info to the web once back in the UK so this will combat all problems with slow computers, power cuts etc.)

I had a wonderful surprise with the beads project today, turning up to be presented with a whole string of brightly coloured and shiny beads, stretching the whole width of a room! All varnished and almost ready to be made into necklaces and ready to be sold! It’s incredible that the quality is at least as good as those sold in town even though many of the children have only just learned how to make them. I’m extremely impressed and proud of them and just hope that we will find the market that they deserve...speaking of which, if anyone knows of someone who could sell these in the UK please let me know! We’d get a much better price there. You can contact me on salveinternationalinterns@gmail.com. Thanks!

All the best for now and hope you enjoy Caitlin’s update next week!

Lots of love Esther xxx