A new face in the S.A.L.V.E. home

Bead Making in Mafubira

This week, Isma, a 10 year old boy who has recently been talking to the team during the street clinics agreed to come into the S.A.L.V.E. home to begin the rehabilitation process. By being in the house, Isma will be immersed in an environment of change. Hopefully with some patience and love, he may be able readjust to a life at home and leave the streets behind him. This time of adjustment and transition is crucial for his future. During this time, he will be prepared for the possibilities of acceptance or rejection that come in hand with the reintroduction with his family, and sensitized to living in harmony with the S.A.L.V.E. family. He’s a quiet self-effacing boy but is slowly becoming more confident as he begins his new journey.

In other news, the bead making project is now in full swing which is just wonderful to see. The women in Mafubira have picked up the skills very quickly and have rolled and glued thousands of beads already. They are currently stringing them up, ready to be varnished, and we hope that by the end of next week, we will have some beautiful finished necklaces ready for wholesale in the UK. They also seem to be really enjoying the workshops. Quietly chatting and laughing, there is a real sense of team work and spending time with them all is very therapeutic and peaceful. We’re going to interview them soon and gather their thoughts about the project as a part of our evaluation, so we will update you with their thoughts soon.

Our tourist education project is now fully underway too. People in the tourist hotspots have been very receptive about having our leaflets displayed in their venues and I even overheard someone talking about the information they had read in an internet café! There seems to be a genuine interest in the situation of street children amongst tourists, so we hope that these leaflets will provide visitors with the best information of how to help. Next week, we are going to get some collection boxes made too, and hope to create some extra revenue for the S.A.L.V.E. project.

I also attended Nakanyonyi Primary School in Bugembe on Thursday, and assisted teachers in Primary 1 and 2 with their lessons. We’re hoping to create links with the local schools, as education is key to the S.A.L.V.E. mandate. Being at school is a lot of fun, and next week I’ll being leading my own classes in English and Maths, as will Emma at a different school in the area, so we’re looking forward to attempting some fun creative methods of teaching. Learning is magical and we hope to make it so for the children we teach…

So all is good here and it’s great to have Isma in the S.A.L.V.E. home. Hopefully this is just the beginning of a new life for him.

More news from sunny Uganda next week,

Imogen and Emma xx

Wowee! What a busy and productive week for the SALVE team!

Last Saturday was visitation day for the children at Magwa school and so we all got up early and met there to see the children, their school and teachers and share some lunch. All the children are doing well. Tiff especially so, he’s a good head and a half taller than me… must be all the posho. The children getting along OK at school, Blessing especially so. She excels in science and would like to be a doctor. I certainly learnt a thing or two from her biology book so I think she has a good shot.

Tuesday took Imogen and I off to Kampala in search of materials to start the bead making project. We went to the enormous Owino market to pick up coloured paper. Its incredible. A huge warehouse full to bursting point with old paper for recycling- posters, newspapers, magazines books- it all gets bought a used for numerous different reasons from packaging to bead making. A lesson there to be learnt about effective recycling I think. Anyway, we were successful in getting all our beads, hocks, paper and strings and made it badly to calm Jinja in one piece with filthy black feet to tell the tale!

Bead making has started this week and has really taken off. Thirteen women are participating and are really keen to learn a skill. Rose, our trainer is hugely impressed with how quickly they’re learning. I think their enthusiasm and quiet concentration speaks volumes about the lack of opportunities for people in Mafubira to earn a living despite their ardent longing to do so. We hope to have some things to ship back before Christmas and would love to have the women making their own designs as soon as they are qualified so we hope the products will be diverse, personalised and made with love.

Tourist education has also hit the ground running (finally) this week. The leaflets have been printed and look great and I took them around to all the hotels, backpackers hostels and rafting companies at BUjagali Falls just outside Jinja. The reception was great. People were really interested in the project and lots offered to have collection boxes in their restaurants or bars. Next week, we’ll drop some leaflets around the cafes and shops in town and start getting some boxes made so we can collect loose change too. With any luck, this project will really raise awareness about both street children and SALVE in the community and among tourist who pass through and also collect some revenue.

So yes, a great week, lots of success and lots to work on next week.

Emma and Imogen

Beads beads beautiful beads

Some good progress had been made this week with the new bead-making project we are setting up with a group of young adults in Mafubria, a very impoverished town near Jinja. Housing is very cheap there, so a lot of people move to Mafubira from rural areas in search of work. Unfortunately work is difficult to come by in Uganda, so many end up unemployed and destitute and are often enticed into a life of crime. This project aims to empower people by providing training so that they can produce products to sell both in Uganda and the UK, and become self-sustaining members of society, with the means to care for their children. Our workshops with a local trainer in bead crafts will begin next week and we hope to have a lot of beautiful traditional Ugandan jewelry which will make perfect Christmas gifts.

During this week’s street clinic, we met the same four boys that we met last week and have been building good relationships with them. Slowly but surely, these children have coming to trust the Ugandan team and myself and Emma, and are becoming more open about relating their experiences and desires. The seeds for attempting restoration to their families have been sown and whilst we were unsuccessful in carrying out any restoration this week, as all four boys changed their minds at the last minute, we hope that in time we may be able to persuade some of the boys to be accompanied home and begin the rehabilitation process.

This week has been a bit up and down as we heard the tragic news that Frank Waswa, the boy we found badly injured on the street last week, and restored back to his family, passed away on Tuesday. It’s a tragic waste of life, that bears testament to the extreme poverty that exists here as his family were perhaps unable to afford medical treatment, but his mother who informed us of the news, was very grateful to us that he died at home.

Emma and I have also started working in two schools in the local area. Assisting the teachers in class, we hope to provide further links between S.A.L.V.E. and the local community as well as gaining an understanding of the education system here in Uganda. Class sizes are enormous here, unsurprising as over 50% of the population in Uganda are children, so the teachers are very grateful for the extra pairs of hands and have been very welcoming.

Our tourist education leaflets are now printed and we are going to distribute them to the tourist hotspots in the Jinja area. With the exceptional white-water rafting on the Nile, many tourists pass through the town and come into contact with street children here. Our leaflets aim to inform the tourists about the lives of these children, teaching them that giving cash handouts only exacerbates the problem and undermines efforts by organizations such as S.A.L.V.E. to help these children in a sustainable manner. Money keeps children on the streets and lures new children into this lifestyle.

So a productive week here in Uganda for the team. As the work of S.A.L.V.E. expands, we are becoming more known as new connections are made. Next week we will come back with photos so please watch this space 

Bye for now x

October already...

Wow its October already... time flies when youre in Uganda!

Street clinics started in their new location this week. Having a semi permanent place to hold them is a great help as it means we can have a concentrated session with the kids without interpution. This week we met with a small group twice and spent time tallking about their backgrounds and lives on the street in order to ascertain how to best assist them. Next week we'll start doing some counseling with them and hopefully some filming too.

The team also managed to restore a child called Frank to home this week after he was found badly injured on the street. He was chased both the police and fell into a drainage ditch breaking both legs. The team provided immmediate first aid care and the took him home to his parents for medical attention.

We've found a trainer for the bead workshops in Mafubira and will consult with the community next week with a view to starting production the week after. This community project is alot quicker to set up than the carpentry workshops and with good sales around Christmas time, will provide immediate revenue for the community.

It Friday afternoon here in Jinja and time for the weekend to begin. Its independence day this weekend so we're hoping for some good celebrations!

Until next week,

Inogen and Emma

New connections

This week has been a good one for behind the scenes work here in Uganda as we’ve been networking and making good connections with organizations that work in a similar manner to S.A.L.V.E. Recently a new member of Jinja Network, a network of NGOs, civil society and government organizations that advocate for children’s rights, we attended our first meeting on Monday. We hope that being a member of this network will mean that we can collaborate with other organizations that work outside the remit of S.A.L.V.E. so we can reach and help more young people together.

Today the S.A.L.V.E. team also went on a peaceful demonstration march with the Jinja Network in aid of raising awareness about child sacrifice, a practice that is devastatingly common here within witchcraft practice. Many children came along holding banners as we marched through the streets of Jinja with a brass band. A really good but baking hot day!

We’ve also been researching a new proposal for a community education project in carpentry, the aim of which is to provide people with skills they can lift themselves out of poverty with, so that younger generations may benefit and less children feel the need to take to the streets. We visited Mafubira, the village this will hopefully take place in, and the proposal is almost finished, so the team here will be waiting in earnest for the necessary funding.

Hassan has been at home this week, as he has come down with malaria but he’s on the mend and has been very chatty. He’s a really bright boy and a keen singer - we hope to be able to share some videos of his talents with you soon. And Junior is enjoying school and making good progress with his reading.

Next week, we have secured a venue in which to hold our street clinics. We are hoping to have a regular venue in which to meet the children so we can provide consistency and work at rehabilitation efforts through structured sessions. We’ll update you with more about this at the end of next week.

So a good week here and things are moving forward for the charity.

It’s really hotting up here so a swim in the Nile is in order this weekend.

Much love from sunny Uganda,

Emma and Imogen xx