TODAY August 2010 Volume 1, Issue 1
Uganda Trip 2010 “The Dusty Dozen” D. Thelen
Our Ugandan staff and nine of our US team get to know one another during their Nile and Murchison Falls team building experience.
Never in the history of Change a Life have so many come to see, learn, hope, cry, wonder, celebrate, mourn and share the special gift of life with our Ugandan friends. Our team is made up of the best volunteers money can‟t buy. We are an HIV Specialist Physician‟s Associate, a nurse midwife, a retired Merck VP, several current and retired Merck employees, a city planner, a
retired Wall Street venture capitalist, and an enterprising social director who also is the daughter of the President and Vice President of CALU. We bring a wealth of skills and enthusiasm, and we are about to experience life lessons that we will keep with us for the rest of our days. Our Ugandan Team meets us at the airport. In no time, we are off and running to meet students and work at the clinic in Nabbingo. First we head to Makerere University to visit Ruth, one of our sponsored students. She is one of our first university graduates and needs only to complete her senior research paper in social
work. Ruth is shy at first, but soon she eagerly describes her work with the World Health Organization and the Red Cross. We are encouraged by what she has learned and her practical experience. Next, Gary, Janet and Jean spend time seeing patients and learning the operations of the Nabbingo Clinic, which is serving our students and their families. We seek to understand its challenges and to facilitate a muchneeded expansion of services and facilities. Amy and Mikaela learn to cook Ugandan food with Julie, Fr Lawrence‟s family cook and a great source of information on Ugandan culture. Dave meets with Collins, our accountant, to share procedures and catch up. (see page 2)
Fr. Lawrence joins us from Sept 14 to Sept 27 As many are preparing for the Sept. school opening, the CALU team is getting ready for Fr. Lawrence‟s return visit. With a 2010 goal, the expanded diversity of our sponsors, we are delighted that Jackie and Greg Robinson are hosting an event for their friends from the African American community on 9/17 .
Old Tappan welcomes him 9/18 at the Grifonetti „s and at St. Pius X Church on 9/19 followed by the College of St. Elizabeth at 6PM on 9/20. Board members Kerry Chandler and Nancy Singer have planned events hosted respectively in Rumson on 9/24 and in North Wales, PA
CHILD SPOTLIGHT
on 9/25. Our previous breakfast welcome will be replaced by an evening gathering on 9/19, location TBD. Our Connecticut team is finalizing their plans. Call 732 899 8483 to host a gathering or for schedule info. Check www.changealifeuganda.org for updates.
Meet Grace Tabu and her sponsor Sandy Gallagher Longley. Thanks to Sandy, Grace is safely housed in the new dormitory at St. Lawrence School. Grace‟s family situation deteriorated last year when her mother, in response to an abusive home situation, left with her young baby leaving four other children in a precarious situation. With help from two other Change A Life sponsors, her two sibling Simon and Maria are also in the dormitory. We are working to provide a similar safe haven for the third sibling Henry.
Uganda Trip 2010 “The Dusty Dozen” We meet Karen, Nancy and Harry, our new arrivals, and are off to Murchison Falls for “team building”. Our Ugandan team has never seen giraffes or lions in the wild. A late night call of nature turns into a great story: we are all grateful that Gary thought quickly to run for the roof of his cabin when confronted with a first-startled, thencharging hippo!
A Model School
St. Lawrence School
Janet exams a pregnant mother.
As we visit families enrolled in Change a Life‟s microfinance program and the St Lawrence School in Migeera, we get down to business. The school has become a model school in the Nagasangola District with 502 students (120 are sponsored by Change a Life) and 17 teachers, plus 3 staff. The dormitory houses 60 students, thanks to our “Bucks for Beds” program. We now have a library, a secretary, a copy machine, a warden and matron for the dorm residents, an art and music program, and expanded demonstration garden and an empty computer room (no computers yet, waiting!) The latest hit on “Dancing with the Stars” could be our St. Lawrence School students with the rhythmic moves of their traditional dances. Next, the teachers played the student‟s soccer team in an exhibition game. Their soccer uniforms have CALU (Change a Life Uganda) on them. The school pride is palpable.
A hard working brick maker help his family with a microfinance loan from ChangeALife.
Quarters for Water The school still desperately
needs a well and rainwater cisterns to ensure permanent access to water for drinking, cooking, and hand washing. $22,000 from our “Quarters for Water” project will fund three collecting tanks and begin the well process.
Microfinance Next, we learn about the status of our 10 pilot microfinance projects. Scott (our latest arrival) makes astute business observations, which are helpful. He immediately sees the weakness in live stock projects where the pigs are all bought at the same time. The borrower can‟t payback loans until the pigs mature and are sold. The simple answer is to buy a few pigs at a time and stagger their development so when a pig is sold a payment can be made on time. He sees the strength of group approaches and varying the projects. Also parents who have not been educated in saving and budgeting, need to be taught about banking and good financial practices. On the plus side, the brick maker, the owners of the beauty salon and the retail shop that sells hair extensions and phone cards, the women raising chickens and pigs, sewing uniforms and selling charcoal have successful microfinance projects and are repaying their loans.
Health/HIV
seem to offer services that are not provided in reality. Our clinic building in Migeera has stood empty for 4 years and is 75% finished. We are committed to find funds to finish, furnish and staff it. Untreated HIV, TB, malaria and maternal health issues create an urgency to provide health care services to our people of Migeera and Nabbingo.
Future Priorities As our folks return home, we set priorities and plan to take action based on the needs identified by our Ugandan colleagues. It is clear that we are going to need to move to a whole new level of growth to continue to improve education, provide effective health care, expand our water efforts, and help develop markets and self-help economies so that our parents can sustain their families. The extended families headed by women, grandmothers with 12 children, grandfathers with 8, orphans with no one to rely on but Change a Life and their neighbors -- need us to take it to the next level. The “dusty dozen” has the talent and the drive to take our efforts further. I try to give, but I always receive more than I give. My spirit grows, but some days I feel off balance with the responsibilities. Then I get a boost from the extraordinary people who join us on our journey to change lives. I know we are on a mutual trip, giving and getting at the same time. Dave Thelen
The team members on our health committee visit clinics, to understand why patients seem to prefer private clinics over government clinics. The www.changealifeuganda.org government‟s clinics run out changealifeuganda@gmail.com of medicine regularly and