Dear friends and supporters of the MiekFoundation
First and foremost, a heartfelt thank you to all who support the MiekFoundation so generously in the past year! 2024 was a good year for the MF on many dimensions. We are fully committed to continuing the journey in 2025 and further expand our impact on all dimensions.
In parallel we kept strengthening our Dutch team by inviting Wilma Hospers to become a member of our Board. Together we are now further professionalizing and stabilizing our little organization so we can be even more effective and efficient!
A FEW REFLECTIONS ON THE PAST YEAR
Like in previous years, we expanded the group of girls we support in the boarding school program. Our partners of Health Child focused on admitting new girls at Secondary school level. We learned that girls that completed Primary school and who we got to know at Safe Center are best positioned to join our program successfully. Initial school results of the newly admitted girls look very promising.
All girls have great hopes and dreams for their future! To help them shape their future, we scaled our coaching/mentoring program. Throughout 2024 our very experienced coach facilitated sessions that helped the girls shape their future dreams and plans.
Early 2024, the first girl graduated from Secondary school and moved to technical school, a major milestone! She is doing very well and is starting her first internship in Kampala! We expect another 5 girls to move to higher education early 2025, hopefully including at least 2 who will move to university to study medicine and accountancy. We will do whatever we can ‘to make their dreams come true’.
Our Safe Center kept developing very well. We built a second building so we can host larger groups of children. The construction has now finished, allowing us to support groups of up to 100 girls and boys during weekends and school breaks.
We are still facing challenges getting qualified teachers to the island at reasonable costs. The launch of a new ferry connection to the mainland has made that a little easier as the travel time to the island has come down considerably.
Another milestone in 2024, was the launch of the first two groups of 20/25 women that we support in building businesses, to get them out of poverty. This program is run by our partners of 100WEEKS. We have high hopes that we will see a wonderful series of entrepreneurial initiatives develop soon and that, like in other countries, most of the women and their families will find their way out of poverty!
LOOKING AHEAD TO 2025
We will further scale both our School Program and the Safe Center. Our friends of Health Child, together with local partners in Bussi, are selecting the next group of girls to start at Boarding school after the summer break in February.
We will further shape the coaching/mentoring program to make sure the girls turn their dreams into a realistic growth and development plan. Exposing the girls to potential follow-up schools, to people that work in certain sectors and encouraging them to get some real life experience through volunteering work is part of that.
We are currently helping a group of ~5 girls with their applications for higher education. Most likely 2 girls will move on to university, the others will move to diploma/certificate education. This marks the beginning of a new phase for the Foundation. In the next years we expect a significant group of girls to move to higher education. This will require us to think about what Universities/schools we want to cooperate with and what partnerships we will develop. This is an key step to increase the girls’ future chances on the job markets and their independence.
In 2024 we increased the capacity of our Safe Center to allow more Secondary School children to participate. We will keep shaping and innovating the curriculum (esp. Life Skills, practical skill building) to keep up the energy and excitement of the children that come to the center and avoid drop-outs as much as possible. With our coaching/mentoring coach, we will also add support on mental well-being. Also, we plan to involve parents (esp. mothers) more closely in the program.
100WEEKS is now supporting two groups of 20/25 women each, with the objective to get them out of poverty within 100 weeks. Every week the women get non-conditional cash and an afternoon of training. Also, together they run saving groups that they leverage to fund investments in their emerging businesses. Experience shows that typically ~75-80% is out of poverty after 100 weeks. We have high hopes that we will get similar results at Bussi so that we can contribute to the lives and livelihoods of an even larger group of families.
LAST BUT NOT LEAST
2024 Has been another wonderful year for the MiekFoundation and for the impressive girls of Bussi, who need and deserve our support so much! We owe a huge thank you to our partners ‘in the field’. Without the support of Betty and Dinah of Health Child, the team of 100WEEKS, our coach Emma and our local team in Bussi, we could not do what we are doing!
We are immensely grateful for the wonderful and very generous support that so many of you have given us and we sincerely hope that you will continue supporting us in the new year so that together we can help the girls of Bussi and their families make their dreams come true!
We are fully committed, energized and passionate to grow our impact in 2025. One of our highlights will undoubtedly be our visit to Uganda in April!