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

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