Splashing, graduations, weddings and marathons...plus we are looking for volunteers!

There are lots of great things to update you with from S.A.L.V.E. at the moment...

Uganda

First of all we want to say huge congratulations to Juliet, who is on our team of staff, and who recently had her graduation party from University!

We also want to welcome Lailite to our staff team as a home assistant!

The children have been enjoying a wonderful time on their holidays between first and second term of school. Lots of fun and games were had as well as a chance for the children to go and visit some of their relatives where possible.

We had especially good news for Hassan who has managed to be re-united with his mother who he lost touch with aged four when his parents divorced. It was wonderful for them to find each other again - and he got to meet his new half-brothers and sisters too!



UK

It's been a busy time for us in the UK too. We've had lots of incredible people taking on the Nile in the UK to make a Splash for S.A.L.V.E. and help to raise money for us, from Kate in Brussels, to Fiona in Chesterfield to the Manchester crew who took up the challenge yesterday (is that really a Nile crocodile in the UK?!). A huge thank you to you all for your efforts and good luck to all of those yet to swim!


Another huge congrats has to go to the amazing Kathryn Ellis who got round the London Marathon in style for S.A.L.V.E. in an impressive time of 4 hours 36 minutes - from all of us on the S.A.L.V.E. team, well done!


Another big thank you has to go to Becca and Jeremie who have been long term supporters of S.A.L.V.E. - so much so that they didn't forget us on their special day and did an incredible collection for us at their wedding! Thank you so much!!


Also a big congrats to everyone who took part in BUMMIT hitchhike from Sheffield to Poland with Sheffield rag. You all did so well and we are so proud to be one of the charities you have chosen to support this year!


Volunteer

Finally, just to let you know that we are currently looking for two amazing interns to go out to Uganda and help us in our work from September to February - check out the details on how to apply here.

If that's a bit too far to go - there is something you can do in the comfort of your own home to make a huge difference! We have entered the Co-operative's My Revolution Competition and are currently at 2nd place in our category (first place wins £5000 ... 2nd place wins nothing) and we have 20 days to get to number one! Please help us by voting and by asking your friends and family to vote too - £5000 would make a huge difference to the work we can do in Uganda this year!

Thanks again for your support,
Lots of love from the S.A.L.V.E. Team

School visitation time, and all sorts of updates and news from S.A.L.V.E.

Ugandan update:

This week was time for school visitation time for a lot of our children. This is a chance for our children to show us their schools, for us to get an update from teachers on the children's progress and for the S.A.L.V.E. family to enjoy some good food together :)


Good news is that we are getting a lot of positive reports on our children's progress - and we now have several prefects and class monitors amongst our ranks!

The Salve team has also been working hard to try to find a good (not too expensive) space to rent for our women's group in Mafubira - and the good news is we think we have somewhere now. This will mean a better, cleaner environment for the womens lessons!



We have also been doing a lot of work in our local town of Bugembe and are working alongside the town council there to try to stop the growing number of fulltime childrenliving on the street
in the area.

We have also taken in a lovely new girl called Faith (aged 11) who needed to escape from some members of her family wanting to harm her.


UK update:

Things remain busy as ever in the UK as we try our best to raise awareness about our work in Uganda and continue our big fundraising drive towards getting land and a home of our very own.

We are looking for sponsors for two of our wonderful children - Junior Masolo and Faith. Please do get in contact if you might be interested (£35 a month) = info@salveinternational.org


We've been out talking to the wonderful hitchhikers from Sheffield Rag who will be going all the way to Poland this Easter with us as one of the charities they are supporting (and have already raised money for us from their baby hitchhike last year!). Thank you so much for all you are doing for us!

We are busy preparing for our Spalsh for S.A.L.V.E. in April (a chance to swim part of the Nile here in the UK!) - Events are cropping up in Manchester, London, Sheffield, in some schools and even Brussels! Find out more about swimming or even going one spalsh further and coordinating your local swim!


And we are supporting the wonderful Kathryn Ellis in her London marathon run for S.A.L.V.E. on 17th April!

Do get in touch if you have any other ideas on where we could go to speak about our work or some good fundraising ideas? info@salveinternational.org

And the good news is our online shop will be up and running very soon .... A great idea for mothers day this year!

S.A.L.V.E. Turns Three!

Happy birthday to S.A.L.V.E. - please celebrate our three year anniversary with us!

Looking back to our humble beginnings continues to fill me with awe at how far we have come in such a short time - which is entirely due to the incredible support we have found and continue to find along the way.

One of the huge highlights of our recent trip to Uganda for me has to be seeing the growing self confidence and self assurance of the children. From Emma getting a first grade in his Primary leaving exams - to all of the children singing, dancing and doing comedy skits in our talent show (perhaps too confident since they even did a skit where Moreen pretended to be me ... it turns out I have a very high pitched voice!).One of the excitements of January for the S.A.L.V.E. family is our yearly trip out - what better way to get the year off to a good start? This year we went to Mabira forest where we explored the mighty forest looking for monkeys, snakes and beautiful birds. The children loved learning about their natural heritage and I think we might even have one or two future guides for national parks amongst our ranks now!
The children are now all happily back at school - though they were lucky enough to meet Aunt Juliet (our lovely new staff member) before they went back.

So three years on from three people in a cafe with an idea of wanting to do something to provide support and love via education to those who need it most - we have an ever growing team of passionate staff and volunteers, 12 happy and healthy children with a safe home who enjoy school, 15 women learning new skills to earn an income they can invest back into their family, and many more children we have taken home to their family or supported along the way.

What's next you might ask?

- Carpentry and more vocational training opportunities in the community with those who need it most.
- More street clinics to allow us to help more children to leave the streets.
- More research into how we can continue to grow and improve the work we are doing and reach out to more of Uganda's most vulnerable people.

Key to all our plans to the future is buying our own land - a home for our growing family, and a place where we will be able to run vocational training courses and become a hub for the community. This is even more key since our landlord keeps trying to push the cost of our rent up.
Why not help us to make that dream a reality and make a Splash for S.A.L.V.E.? Perhaps by swimming a section of the Nile for such a good reason we might get some of the sunshine that goes with it? Fingers Crossed!

How to Help?

Nights on the streets in Jinja are a world away from the life we know here in the UK. When Nicola and Helen were first setting up S.A.L.V.E. back in 2008, there is one night that sticks out in their mind more than any other.

After a day spent meeting children on the street, they returned to their lodgings as usual. But whilst their day that had been filled with sunshine and plenty of hope for the future, there followed one of the wildest nights in living memory. A storm of huge proportions hit Jinja. The winds raged, lightening flashed and the thunder deafened. And as the shutters were battered against their bedroom windows, all Nicola and Helen could think of was the children they had left on the streets as they came home that evening.

This is one of the most difficult things about S.A.L.V.E.’s work; that however many children we help along they way, there are always more who we haven’t been able to offer assistance to, often due to circumstances beyond our control. And so, when we are unable to bring a child into our house and onto the S.A.L.V.E. sponsorship scheme, we look for other ways in which we can help them.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know that one way we do this is through our street clinics where we are able to offer support and counselling to those kids who are still living on the streets of Jinja. But if the circumstances allow it, another crucial aspect of our work is to reunite children with the families thy have left behind. Children take to the streets for a wide variety of reasons, and whilst it is logical to think that they left home because their families no longer want to look after them, this is often a long way from the truth. In fact, many children end up on the streets because they have been searching for family, but don’t know where to start and soon find they have nowhere to go. So whenever we can, we try to bring a child back together with their family. Sometimes this takes a good bit of detective work on our part, whilst at other times this can be very straightforward, as a child will often know where to find their relations but simply doesn’t have the means of getting to them.

This week, S.A.L.V.E.’s Ugandan team were able to help a child in just this way and are currently in the process of restoring a boy called Junior to his family. Junior has been living on the streets for three years now, and desperately wants to be back at home with his elder brother who we are currently searching for. Although this may take a bit of time, we are getting there slowly but surely, having recently traced his grandmother, who hasn’t seen him since he left home. With many other family members to care for, Junior’s grandmother is unable to take him in, but she was overjoyed to see him, and we hope that through her we will soon be able to get Junior back to where he belongs. We'll be sure to keep you posted on any developments in our search for Junior's family, so do come back to see how we get on.