Getting To Know...Stephen

Last week we introduced you to our Regional Director, Mike, who heads up all of SALVE’s operations here in Jinja. Working closely alongside Mike is Stephen, our community worker. Despite his job title, Stephen is involved in every aspect of SALVE’s work, although his real passion is for community education.

Stephen, S.A.L.V.E.'s Community Worker

Stephen was born and raised in the Jinja area and like Mike is determined to provide a better future for the next generation than what he experienced. Stephen’s mother was very young when she gave birth to him. As she was still was still in school she left Stephen in the care of his grandmother. Later she married Stephen’s stepfather but as is the case with many stepchildren, he was not fully accepted by his mother’s new family. And so he grew up being very self-sufficient, lacking any proper guidance, love or support. He would leave the house early in the morning and struggle to find food and small jobs to earn money.

Stephen takes centre stage at the S.A.L.V.E. staff meal out! L-R Emma (Comms), Laura (Intern), Stephen, Harriet (Home Care Helper), Janet (Intern)

Stephen has a very clear vision of the future that he wants to see for his community and for the children of Jinja. Through community education programmes and empowering the youth, Stephen hopes that the local communities will learn to be self-sufficient and that the children living on the streets of Jinja today will be the leaders of tomorrow by guiding and counselling others and ensuring that the cycle is broken. Having worked with street children for a very long time in many different capacities, he recognises that the street children of Jinja are lacking love and support in the same way that he once did. Many of them have left home because of violence, disobedience or splitting of families. He believes that SALVE can help to reconcile children with their families, rehabilitate them from street life and provide education to empower them to lead the way for the next generation.

Stephen with one of the S.A.L.V.E. children, Ronald

In other news, we are very pleased that baby Peace has now found a great home in one of the nearby babies’ homes that will take very good care of her over the next few weeks while we still wait for her HIV test results to come back. Her condition is continuing to improve and with an in-house nurse on hand over the next few weeks, hopefully she will rapidly regain strength.

Come back next week for more news from Uganda!

Laura and Janet