Dirks fabulous adventures in Uganda: evaluation of a new partner for the foundation

The foundation Stiftung Licht für vergessene Kinder supports children who are in need like i.e. orphans. As the foundation has a relatively small budget to support projects they are looking for partners to collaborate with. It’s got to be a reliable one that shares the idea of creating a real home for orphans, who is willing to accompany the children through their lives, supporting them in school, helping them to find a place for an apprenticeship so that the kids will hopefully be well prepared to live a good live when they’re grown up.

Last week we had the opportunity to visit a potential future partner that runs an orphanage in Lira, which is about 100 km away from the Eco Farm. The Orphanage was founded by a foundation named God Helps Uganda. It is run by a Swiss couple named Urs & Ursula. Finding a place that is run by Swiss people seems like a dream come true to us. It’d make it a lot easier to communicate with them and we could also hope that their value systems match ours.

We met Urs in café in Lira. The café was a surprisingly modern place (in comparison to all the other places I had seen in Uganda by now), run by young people. They even had real Espresso (uhm, ok, let’s say something like a triple or quadruple Espresso, I couldn’t sleep that night after), Cappuccino etc. and very nice and huge cinnamon rolls plus some other nice things that had been nicely presented and served.

finally, a nice cup of coffee

And – surprise – they even had a WLAN installed so I finally got to check my e-mails and post some of the blog-entries that I had written since I arrived in Uganda!

In the middle of the room was a big table that was occupied by a group of people that had been taking a class there.

Then Urs came an we introduced ourselves, told him about our plans to finding a new partner for the foundation and what the values of our foundation are. Then he described his foundations work in Uganda, the home that they had built and their future projects. We were all pretty happy as it all sounded just as we had imagined. Urs then offered spontaneously to show us around at the orphanage which we did enthusiastically. So we paid the bill and took off.

We were very surprised when we arrived at the facility. It was a pretty large place with a solid wall and a fence around it. My first impression was that it looked a bit like a prison from the outside but the houses on the inside looked nice. It was very tidy and the buildings were in a very good state and obviously well maintained, the dormitories also looked nice, with solid furniture and not too many kids in one room and they had even a sitting room in each of the houses. They had electricity, water, a kitchen, bathrooms, toilets, a garden, space to play, a nurse station and and another area of the same size just next to this area so they even have enough room to expand and for their future projects.

During our visit we also met his wife and most of the employees and some of the kids who live there. Whoever saw us came and greeted us. The girls and also women would even kneel down here which I personally find pretty embarrassing.

The home management and staff really seemed to take care of the kids. They provide a home, give the kids some structure, teach them to prepare meals, do the washing or to handle money (they provide some pocket money to buy little things like sweets but also toothpaste etc. in a mini shop on the court) and many more so they are really being prepared for a life once they leave the institution.

We discussed a lot and took some pictures. We then agreed on spending one or two days within the next few weeks to sketch out a proposal of a future collaboration that the board has to decide on.

I was very happy when we left. It all looks good, just the way it should be in our eyes. I’m looking forward to meeting Urs again to work on that proposal.

One of the three main buildings (the small wooden house is the shop where kids may buy things with their pocket money)