Over the last year we have been designing the all important framework for Child’s i Foundation’s mission:

Prevention / Care / Placement with family

BUT we still needed answers to some vital questions before we go out to Uganda to set up the project in November:

  1. Do we have the full support of the Ugandan Government?
  2. Is the idea of preventing abandonment just a dream?
  3. Can foster parents actually be found in Uganda?

The answers to these three points will make or break our charity and so, just 2 weeks ago, I went out to Kampala to find out. If the answer to any of the questions is “No” then our plans will crash.

So last Monday saw me nervously waiting to see Uganda’s Commissioner for Children – he decides the overseas charities that are to be allowed to work in Uganda. I outlined how we planned to work and waited for the official reaction:

“I like these ideas – no one has tried prevention before – we think this could be very good – we like your emphasis on fostering – we support Child’s i Foundation’s plans.”

The Commissioner explained the procedure for the formal application but we know we will be approved by the Ugandan government. A Yes!!

Next was a visit to Mulago hospital, Uganda’s largest and busiest, but now showing its age and clearly struggling to cope with an immense workload of sick people. Our small team of social workers, me and a senior doctor have designed a new project that could offer help and friendship to mothers known to be unhappy and stressed and at high risk of abandoning their babies.

Then Faith Kalanji – the senior social worker – said;

“We have a teenage mother on the wards who urgently needs support. An HIV/ AIDS orphan herself, C. was left alone in the world by her baby’s father just days before she was due. She has already tried to abandon her new born baby boy out of total desperation. Can Child’s i Foundation help prevent it from happening again? Can we help her NOW?”

Of course we must try, I replied, and immediately asked our partners in Home-Start Uganda to help us to give C. all the support we can. That was over a week ago and she and her baby are still together, she’s contentedly breast feeding him, and now saying that nothing will now separate her from her son. This has taken time and love offered by a great volunteer and financial support to buy food and clothes for the mother and baby. But it looks as if we are succeeding in preventing this tiny baby boy from losing his mother or even being just thrown away to die.

Another Yes!!
And, lastly, I have found some great examples of wonderful foster families being found for teenage street children – with a 75 % success rate- and I am sure that we can do it for the babies we will be working with.

A third Yes!!
My trip was exhausting and nonstop – but what encouragement it gives us to get started as soon as possible. Help us raise the money and, together, we can do the job – we can save lives.