Saturday, July 26, 2008

CHILD SPONSORSHIP-Making a difference in little ones

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy." Matthew 5:7
Thank you friends, for supporting children in our community to go to school.
It is now one year since we registered this program to sponsor children, especially orphans and poor children with out an opportunity to go to school. 35 USD monthly support is enough to pay tuition for one child in primary school and buy school uniform, books and pay for medication, in case it of need.
When we came in to this community, the first sight was the poor children loitering the streets in search of food and shelter. Many children lost both parents through AIDS and Malaria.
With no hope of going to school, children resorted to go to Kabale streets begging for food and shelter. It is a common scene to find kids fighting for food leftovers thrown into the garbage bins. Many of these boys end up being thieves and girls learn prostitution at early stages, just to earn a living.
We started to mobilize resources to take these poor children to school, though it became increasingly difficult with the growing demand.
Last year when we registered the sponsorship program, we were overwhelmed by the support of friends from Oklahoma and San Antonio that registered through Whitney Sanders and Darlene Draper to support some of the children.
Today the number of sponsored children has grown to 35 children.
All the registered children have showed a big improvement in their academic life and spiritual lives.
Our staff work hard to help the children develop into future godly leaders.
They visit the children school to be sure the children are working hard.
They visit the children homes to assess the situations the children grow under and how to help the parents and caretakers to improve on the standards of living. Children have now learnt how to prevent some diseases, especially water borne and air borne diseases that normally come as a result of poor hygiene.
The two volunteer staff also work hard to organize the office and to keep accounting and files in good order. They make sure every money that comes in goes to help the well being of the children. They help pay school fees and buy for the children the school necessities. They also help children with medicine in case of sickness.
Twice every month on Saturdays, other volunteer teachers, prepare children lessons for the center days, where children come and learn different things ranging from academic, spiritual and hygiene, to behavior, discipline and skills.
The center days coincide with the AWANA children discipleship meetings for every Saturday at 2:00 p.m. All the children in the program attend AWANA, and so they come for center days, ready in their AWANA uniforms.
The two teachers who teach our children in the center days, are qualified teachers and are members of our church. Together with the social workers, they have made a commendable job in the lives of these children.
As we get more funding for this sponsorship program, we plan to set aside some little payment for these teachers and staff to motivate them for the kind of work they are doing.
Thank you friends for making a big difference in these children; they have learnt a lot.
Many other children in our community don't go to school and are in need of support. Please pray that God will provide more resources to help take more children to school and give these children a future as we aim to transform our community.
For more information, please contact Whitney Sanders at:whitney-123@hotmail.com