A month til Christmas?!

This week we began our film project, interviewing the new children in the home, as well as some of the children who are still on the streets, which has been a lot of fun. Ashiraff, who has been known to the team for some time and is one of the older boys on the street, has shown an interest and expressed a desire to help us with this, but the first day of filming on the street showed us that this might be a trial and error endeavour. We managed to get some good shots but the boys are a little-overexcited about it so it might take some perseverance before they are used to having a camera around. We’re going to continue taking the camera with us on the street clinics and hope to have some tangible and informative shots, ready to be edited in January when we are at home. Translating the interviews with the boys at home is going to take days!

The school term has now finished for Junior so he is enjoying some time at home with the new boys who are settling in well. I was at Nakanyonyi School in Bugmebe this morning and each year group are taking end of term exams so there was a very studious and serious atmosphere. Teachers and students alike are looking forward to the Christmas holidays. Here the build up to Christmas is nothing like that in the UK – I don’t think we’ve seen or heard a single piece of advertising and with the hot weather it’s difficult to imagine that it’s only a month away…The impending elections in April seem to be taking up much more time and energy, as the streets of Jinja are filled with rallies and matatus filled with people singing and shouting for their chosen candidate.

The bead making project is also going well and we were all really pleased to hear that the beads went down well at the Ceilidh fundraiser last week. Emma and I returned to crazy Kampala on Wednesday to purchase new materials, and during the week coming the women will be taught how to make new styles and shapes of beads, for necklaces of different lengths, bracelets and earrings, so we hope these might do as well in the future.

The boys at home also have a new bedroom as Stephen utilized his D.I.Y. skills and bashed a hole between the garage and the kitchen, converting the garage into a bedroom! All very exciting!

So yet another good week in Uganda :)

Imogen and Emma xx

Fact finding in Kampala

Two big pieces of news this week. The first is that we have two new additions to the S.A.L.V.E home. Asuman has been known to the S.A.L.V.E. staff for some time and was taken into the project this week. He's 11 years old and has been on the street for about a year. He's a very smiley, confident boy and drew us a great picture of an elephant this morning. Its great to see him settling into the home environment after having met him so many times on the street and Isma really appreciates the company. Waswa was also brough in this week and aboev you can see the three new recruits (from left to right Asuman, Waswa and Isma) along with our rather sad old football. Time to invest in a new one I feel! Assy and Stephen will be spending alot of time with them in the coming weeks to teach them some basic life skills- keeping themselves and their things clean, how to resolve arguments, how to help around the house. They may sound basic but its these sorts of small issues which can end up causing large problems. Imogen and I will also be spending time with the boys but on a less formal level as their command of English is pretty limited. We'll probably do lots of painting and football... theres lessons to be learned from these things I'm sure!

The second bit of news is that Imogen and I went off to Kampala this week to visit the Kireka women's group's bead project. We hoped we could learn some useful lessons from a project run along the same lines as our own bead project but established for a little longer. The group has been together for about a year and consists entirely of women from the north of Uganda displaced by the war and living as refugees on the outskirts of Kampala. Before coming togehter as a group the women were break rocks in a quarry on the edge of the city which we also visted. Not a nice place to be on a hot day. Through their own initiative in forming the group and the capital of the Diaspora project (who oversee the group and sell the products online and abroad) they have made a huge improvement to their lives. We were so impressed with the quality of the jewelry and came away with some good ideas for new designs. We were also able to have a good chat with the project manager who gave us some useful (if not the most exciting!) advice about how to manage the accounts and market the products. It really is wonderful to see how womens groups can turn things around for themselves and work so effectively together. They seem to be springing up all over Uganda and starting all sorts of projects from beads to gardening collectives to chicken farming groups. In a country where women have been so disempowered in the past its great to see them taking back control of their lives. From little acorns great oaks do grow...

Anyway enough philosophising for now!

Emma and Imogen

The fight against child sacrifice

This week has seen a hub of activity from Mike as he accompanied members of the Jinja network to the Ugandan houses of parliament in Kampala to offer MPs a petition and memorandum concerning child sacrifice. Child sacrifice is devastatingly common here in Uganda as witchdoctors frequently ask their clients for human blood to initiate people into the practice, along with promises of future wealth. The memorandum argues that the main provisions in the law for punishing the perpetrators of this devastating crime are rendered impotent in causing fear amongst people practicing witchcraft as so many child sacrifices have gone unpunished. The network has been working on this issue for some time and the memorandum outlines changes that urgently need to be made. Advocating for the rights of all children is an important aspect of S.A.L.V.E.’s work and it is great that our Jinja network membership is providing us with a collective voice.

In other news, a young boy called David was brought in off the street this week. Unfortunately, he ran back to the street within a few hours. Each child is different and the transition from the street to home life is wrought with difficulties for these young people. We hope we might be able to relate with him more next week and with some patience and understanding convince him to come to the S.A.L.V.E. home again.

The bead making is going wonderfully. We have now sent some beads back to the UK hopefully in time for sale at the S.A.L.V.E. Ceilidh fundraiser at the end of the next week. An online shop is also going to be created so you will be able to see and purchase the beautiful creations online too. In order to give ownership of the project to the women taking part, secretaries and mobilisers were democratically elected this week who will manage the stock-taking, time keeping and purchasing of new materials. It is important for the project’s sustainability that the women are taught how to manage the income we hope to generate, how to account for new materials and save money for expansion. Educating these women on these techniques is a large aspect of the project.

So another good week in Uganda. It is getting hotter and dustier here by the day…

Imogen and Emma xx

A calm week for the SALVE team in Uganda this week as new projects become firmly established and Isma settles into the home.

As we mentioned last week, the tourist education and bead making projects are fully up and running. Stephen is still attending the community education workshops in Mafubira 3 afternoons a week but the women are getting to a stage where they can manage themselves and next week will be discussing group responsibilites and voting for leaders. This is great as it means the project is moving more towards sustainability. They are also starting to finish necklaces which you can see above.

Isma seems to be settling in well. we have spent a fair amount of time at the house with him this week and he is becoming more confident and smiley. He's very helpful around the house and likes to play football in the yard when hes not busy with that. He's starting lessons with Assy this week to get him back into school mode. He and Junior get on like a house on fire too which is great- nice for them both to have some company of around their own age. They're both coming up to Bujagali Falls tomorrow morning for a swim and a look at the world famous rapids so let shope the sun stays out!

Emma and Imogen