pictures

Kaci and David explaining the birthing kits, Kaci passing out snacks to the village kids and a rainy day at the school.

Well, we have internet at our house again, but it very slow. Still it is a huge blessing not to have to drive 30 minutes or more into town to sit at an internet cafe for 3 hours and only be able to send 2 emails out.
We had the opportunity to meet and great family that is in Uganda for a visit. Their daughter is here on a longer stay and they helped us distribute birthing kits in the village this week. They were great and we really appreciated their presence.
We were able to put together 50 kits with the help of a supporter in the states and distribute them in the village. Thank you Brandi for helping make this happen. I have posted pictures of some of the houses and women that we saw.
I will give you an update on the school project in the next blog. We have received funds for the testing of the children for HIV/AIDS as well as funds for the repairs so we will be able to start on both of those things.

school sponsorship

Click on the pictures to see them enlarged. All of these kids need school sponsorship. Please see the blog below for more information.

Here is the information on the school that we are helping and had previously told you about in one of the blogs. The name of school is Christian Friends School. We are considering renaming it.
We were at the school most of the day on Friday. 6 of us went with one being a new acquaintance here from England. She had been here for awhile and had not seen the real Africa, spending most of her time in and around Kampala. We were there doing the social work of cataloging the children and taking pictures. We were only able to complete through P-2. That was 94 of the 150 children and here are some of the findings.

47 boys and 47 girls
11-AGE 3, 17-AGE 4, 11 AGE-5, 12 AGE-6, 14- AGE 7, 18-AGE 8, 3- AGE 9, 6-AGE 10, 1- AGE 11, 1- AGE 12. We still have about 56 more of the older kids.
45 Double orphans (both parents dead), 18 single orphans (one parent dead), 31 with both parents.
25 children always pay the school fees. ($4.50/term) 2 children pay sometimes, 67 are never able to pay school fees. Monday was the start of the exit testing for the year. It is required to pay about $ .60 per child to get the test. 59 of our children could not pay. We made up the difference, but insisted that they help with the garden and bring in mulch for it and they did. We heard of another school that requires the children to bring in homemade bricks if they cannot pay. There is really no free education in Uganda. These kids are as poor as it gets. We found out that for many of our students, the porridge they get at lunch is many times the only meal they get that day. It has very little nutrition in it, but it does fill them up with carbs. Some of the children walk over 3 miles one way to come to the school.

Staffing
We started putting together a basic budget for the monthly reoccurring costs.
* We want to have 5 qualified teachers at $120.00 per month. Plus 5 teachers aids at $40.00 per month.
* A qualified head master at $240.00 per month.
* A school secretary at $40.00 per month
* 2 cooks/cleaners at $40.00 per month
* A grounds/gardener at $40.00 per month
* Pastor Joseph as our Chaplin and counselor at $60.00 per month
THESE STAFFING REQUIREMENTS TOTAL TO ABOUT $1285.00 PER MONTH
Nutrition
We want to increase the nutrition of the children’s 1 meal so we want to serve them beans and rice 3 times a week and beans and porsho (cornmeal) 2 times a week. This will cost us about $.15 per meal. 150 kids and 15 staff cost about $450.00 per month. We will also build a water purifier for the kids so that they can have a drink of water during the day. I swear they don’t drink any water at all. Dehydration is a major issue in all of Africa. Clean water is hard to come by.
Health Care
We want to insure the children and staff. Our friend Gerry Noble is an owner of a health insurance company called MicroCare that is totally changing the way health care is done. He will be able to create coverage for the school children and staff for about $50.00 per year per child and staffer. That totals to about $690.00 per month.
These 3 things total to about $2425.00 per month. These totals do not include teaching aids, paper, pencils, books, uniforms, and backpacks, wood to cook the lunch with ECT…
Our hope is we will be able to sponsor all of the children at a dollar a day.
If we do, we will able to rock the world for these students and the community.
We have uploaded pictures of a lot of the students. We will finish them all soon. Please consider to commit and sponsor a child.

Start-up costs
At this stage the school doesn’t have one single book. Not for the students and for some of the classes not even the teachers. No library either. The students don’t have proper clothes, shoes, school supplies ECT. We put in our last blog about the school the costs of repairs, desks and so on, but that didn’t have in it the costs for supplies, uniforms, shoes or books. These are costs that we are tallying and will have them posted in the future as well.


SPONSORSHIP

You can choose a child and begin donating $30 dollars a month towards the schooling and care of the child. The money will go towards the things that the school provides. Maintaining uniforms (tee-shirt and shorts for boys and skirts for girls, flip flops), 1 nutritious meal a day and maybe a morning snack, Health care, and a decent education with qualified teachers and teaching tools.

A HOPE AT A BETTER LIFE BECAUSE YOU GOT INVOLVED.


How to sponsor a child.

On the list below there are names children and pictures to connect them with.
Choose a child and respond to us at OCF Uganda through this blog or email us at www.orphanchildrenfund@gmail.com. Tell us the child’s name and age and we will hook you together with those child/children. We will send you reports and as soon as they can speak and write English with the help of staff the child will send you a letter thanking you. We will send pictures and report on a regular basis.

How to make the monthly donation.
You can send a check to 5753 Republic of Texas, Austin TX 78735 designate it for “school sponsorship” with the child’s name , age and number or we can help you set up a monthly debit from your credit card. Please let us know.

College student's research paper

I, (David) was emailed by a young man in college who is doing a research paper on “Disease in Africa.” He wanted to know a little about us and what we think is going on in Africa concerning disease. This is what I told him.

Every disease known to man is here and pretty common. There are many infections and parasites because of the poor living conditions and lack of medical care. 80 percent of the population lives many miles from a clinic and further from a hospital. That may not sound far for someone with a car, paved roads and a few dollars in your pocket, but for the average African with no transport of any kind, dirt paths at best and no money it is a different story. No free health care. Death is common place here. Most people have been to hundreds of funerals to bury their relatives and friends. In many families most of the adults under 50 are dead because they are the ones that are sexually active. It is only the old that seem to be safe from AIDS. HIV is everywhere and the statistics that are posted and bragged about are not true. Everyone we talk to here that are in the know, doctors, lab techs, reporters ECT. believe it is at least 20-30%. Everyone here knows many people that are infected and hide it because of the stigma attached to the disease. It has been reported that Ugandans are the most sexually promiscuous group of people in Africa.

Malaria is the main killer, killing hundreds everyday. The only answer is to kill the mosquitoes and the only thing that works and is cost effective is DDT. Every first world country with a mild climate had malaria at one time or another and it was eradicated by using DDT. Malaria costs the world $20,000,000,000 every year. With wide spread use of DDT it would cost $10,000,000,000 over 2 years to completely wipe out malaria. DDT is proven to be safe if used correctly. Don't believe the horror stories, they are lies made up by the pharmaceutical companies to sell drugs to treat it. There are billions of dollars made from malaria every year. Some believe that they use malaria as population control. Go figure. It is always about the buck.

I think that if the 1st world countries really wanted to eradicate disease in Africa or other 3rd world counties, they would have done it already. 1st world countries pour millions of dollars into Africa every year to have the money stolen by some government official, used incorrectly or just plain wasted by the organizations that are supposed to be doing something besides buying expensive Land Rovers and drinking coffee all day long. The other side is that business wants to make money from disease. If they brought the disease level to where it is in first world countries, they would have to deal with a population explosion this world has never seen. They would have to deal with 10 billion mad Africans with no water, food or electricity. Basically no infrastructure of any kind to support the growth.

We came here with the intention to help cure these problems in the romantic way by giving and helping everyone we could. After being here for awhile you realize we must help these people help themselves. We have created a hand out culture here. I call it the “Welfare Society.” They want the white man to save them and he can’t. I came out of the business world in Middle America not the NGO or charity world. I see things a little differently than a lot of people do. The only way to cure the issues in Africa is to raise the economical level of the people of Africa. Doing honest business and creating millions of jobs is the answer. Get the average person off the dirt floor and on to concrete and into a bed, clean water, good nutrition and proper sanitation. Raise their level of living and you will cure a lot of the disease. Training sound business principles. Stamping out corruption. Giving a hand up, not a hand out. I don’t know if this is what you wanted to hear or not and it may not get you an "A", but from where I come from it is what I see.
David

Some things to think about: Things here are definitely different than in the western world. Our ideas of how things are in Africa, sitting in our homes with A/C, heat, running water, pantry stocked with food, electricity, a roof that doesn’t leak, proper flooring and windows watching CNN, Fox , CNBC, CBS, NBC, or ABC isn’t really real life. It’s not reality. Not that we are experts by any means, but studying about it in a book or hearing about it on the news doesn’t give you a clear picture of what is really going on here or what is needed to change the situation.

Power outages

Wanted to give you all an update on our power situation. As many of you know we have been without power a lot this past month +. Today the power company will start scheduled rolling backouts (like we haven't been having them anyway, just not on a schedule) Anyway, we will have power every 3rd day so if it takes a couple of days to respond to your emails you know why. The internet is still down at our house, so we can't make phone calls either. If you call and leave a message we can hear it and then email you back or try and call on our cell phones. Othewise if you need to get in touch with us immediately you will need to call our cell phones. 011256 774095969 or 011256 774679339.

Yes, we are alive

Yes we are alive and well. It has been awhile since we have been able to blog. We have had downed power and internet lines for the past 3+ weeks, but we are well.
David has done the blog for this week. We have some exciting things going on and some pictures as well after the letter. Thanks for being patient with us.
Jamie



Exciting news!!

Orphan/Children Fund has just acquired a village primary school in Bakka outside the town of Wakiso. The school is for children 3yrs to 6th grade. They presently have 150 students (38 double orphans and 37 single orphans and 75 really poor kids). All the children live with extended family members and with their parents. This is the local school for all the poor families. The tuition is only $4.75 per term (3 terms/yr.) and half of the students cannot afford that. The school is on approximately 2 acres with 3 buildings that were built 20 years ago. It has a beautiful setting and spectacular views but the classroom buildings are just awful and I mean bad. Most of us would not use them for a doghouse. There are no doors, windows, books, desks, equipment, toys, water or electricity. The kids go all day without drinking anything because of a lack of water. The floors are uneven dirt with major leaks in the roof and the rain just blows in and makes mud in the classrooms. Most of the caulk boards are crumbling plaster painted black. (You can see on the pictures below) The teacher has to pick and choose where she can write. There are 4 teachers and 1 cook/ bottle washer. They serve porridge cooked on 3 rocks in a 20 liter metal bucket. Only the older children are served lunch meal and the smaller kids have to go home for the day hungry. The teachers barely speak English and have no real teaching skills. They are paid $40 a month, so no wonder they are not qualified. 40 kids per class doesn’t help.
What were we going to do when we were offered the school? Of course you pray and ask for God’s will and then do what you can. OCF can do so much more for these kids with your help. The kids were well behaved and just happy to be alive. The school has had no outside or Governmental help and the headmaster, Pastor Joseph was ready to give up and close the doors before we came to meet him. When God closes a door He opens a window, and that is where we are now. We are looking through that window seeing God’s plans. We need your help, time and resources to change this school into something special.
What we want to do is bring in building teams to do the repairs to the buildings and teachers/ volunteers to teach the children and to train the teachers how to teach. A new term starts mid May, so summer break in US will be a perfect time for teachers and volunteers to come here. Anyone interested please contact us ASAP. There are local accommodations that are sufficient. We have put together some of the costs and scope of the repairs. We want to start a sponsorship of $35 per month per child for the children for school administration, school fees, packs, books, nutritious meals, health care and uniforms. We will require that the families contribute something toward the school fees. This may just be food, sewing, gardening or something they have. We don’t want to start another welfare culture. We must teach them to think and do for themselves. Give them pride, not take it away.
We have agreed to reimburse the pastor for the cost he paid for the acreage and buildings. That cost is 6,00,000 UG Shillings or $3600.00. We don’t have the funds to do that now, but he understands we will start raising the funds, so how about a little help with that? Our goal is to have the buildings repaired, all students insured with medical coverage, uniforms, books, desks etc. by the end of summer/1st of Sept.
We have started clearing a plot on the property to start a garden. We will be using this as a community project to show them how to use the farming technique, “Framing God’s way”. This is the technology that we will be using on our land in Nakasongola for our larger farm. www.farming-gods-way.org. It will also serve as food to feed the children with and ongoing science lessons.
Plant a seed and watch it grow. Change a life and give a future.
On another note we have qualified 34 orphans from the school that are ready to adopt. We also have a 2 month old baby girl that we have from the village that we took into our home as she was malnourished and we weren’t sure if she was going to survive. Her father was killed in a car crash before she was born and her mom died after giving birth. She weighed in at 4 pounds. She is available to adopt as well. Very sweet baby Mary.

Estimation for repairs

Roofing

Replace 50% and paint 50% 3880 SF total
1940 SF tin sheets $1164.00
1940 SF roof paint $550.00

Floors

2400 SF concrete $2000.00

Doors

17- 2’-8”X6’-8” solid wood doors
and locking hardware $1360.00

Windows

36- 3’X3’ bars only, wood frame
$1280.00

Bricks and Mortor $700.00

Plaster for Walls $1700.00

Paint $700.00

Tools $200.00

Misc. $800.00

Transport of materials $500.00


TOTAL for MATERIALS $10,954.00


Bring in Electricity $500.00

Wood Playground Equipment $2000.00

Kitchen Equipment $1500.00

150 Desks $3000.00

kids from school

kids from the school. They are holding their names and ages.
math lesson for the day