Dear friends, family and supporters of the MiekFoundation
A huge THANK YOU to all of you who supported us so generously in 2025, another year of impressive progress for the MF. Both the changes in the ‘fascinating’ world around us, as well as our great partners in Uganda motivated us to continue our joint journey and to keep expanding our impact.
REFLECTIONS ON OUR IMPACT AND PROGRESS IN 2025
A major highlight in 2025 was our visit to Uganda in April! We had a super exciting and inspiring time meeting the girls who are in our boarding school program, their wonderful parents, the teachers in the Safe Center, and the exceptionally motivated ladies in the 100WEEKS groups where the first businesses have been founded. It was very impressive and humbling to see the progress that has been made since we visited. Also, the increased ownership and participation of the local community in the initiatives was wonderful.
Early 2025, at the beginning of the new school year, we welcomed a new group of 11 girls in our boarding school program. Like in previous years, our partners of Health Child focused on admitting new girls at secondary school level. Initial school results of the newly admitted girls look very promising. All girls are in good health and highly motivated.
During our visit, the girls shared their hopes and dreams for their future! Some want to become doctors, some dream of being teachers, others would rather become lawyer, journalist, bank director or pilot 😊! To support them in shaping and realizing their dreams we continued the coaching/mentoring program.
Another 3 girls graduated from secondary school early 2025! Two went to nursing school, whilst one girl managed to get admitted to Makerere University (highest rated and international university of Uganda!) to become an accountant. All of them had a great start and are exploring Kampala students’ live. These girls are developing into great role models for the younger ones! In the coming years, we expect a significant number of girls to graduate from secondary school and move on to the next level to make their dreams come true.
In 2025, we launched a Giving Back program for the girls in the bursary program. The purpose is to help them think about how they could give back to their communities and families. All (!) participated and took wonderful initiatives during the school holiday breaks. Some served at the local health center, a few launched a clean-up program on the island, others helped the elderly, several older girls supported the little ones at the Safe Center and the local school. It is wonderful to see how seriously they take this initiative and how motivated they are to give back, each in their own way.
Our Safe Center kept developing well. The Safe Center supports ~100 girls and boys during weekends and school breaks. The focus of the curriculum remains on extra support for the basic school subjects (math, language, physics) as well as life skills to strengthen their resilience and self-esteem. Although our local partners have managed to find new teachers in the past year, we are still facing challenges identifying sufficiently qualified teachers and motivating them to come to the island given the logistical challenges. Several parents have again supported the Safe Center in all sorts of ways, a great sign of the true commitment of the local community to secure the impact and continuity of the Safe Center on Bussi Island.
Also, our 100WEEKS groups made impressive progress in 2025. Our dedicated partners of 100WEEKS support groups of ~20 women to get out of poverty by building their own businesses. During our visit, we saw the groups in action and visited some of the new businesses. A few ladies started shops, others bought extra animals to scale their farming activities. One of the groups jointly developed a groundnut processing business. Many ladies seem to have discovered their entrepreneurial talents and seem to be on a promising track to get their families out of poverty within the 100 weeks that they get support.
Our friends of AFRIpads have supported us in a great way by providing sanitary pads for girls visiting the Safe Center as well as several women in the 100WEEKS groups.
LOOKING AHEAD TO 2026
We will keep scaling our School Program (another group will join in January at the start of the new school year bringing the number of girls in the program to ~60) and the Safe Center. Our partners of Health Child as well as our local Bussi Island partners will continue supporting us in the new year.
To make sure the girls develop and shape their dreams it will be important to keep shaping our coaching/mentoring and Giving Back programs. The older girls (esp. those who have started higher education) will play increasingly important roles in the program as inspirational role models for the younger ones. To support them in this, Health Child have developed the ‘Girl pull-up Girl’ program, in which small groups of girls work together and support each other in learning and development. This program is being launched as we speak.
Given that in the coming years larger numbers of girls will graduate from secondary school, we will likely have to expand the number of higher education schools that we cooperate with. This will be an important and exciting next phase for the MF. Our partners of Health Child will be important to help us find the right opportunities that fit the needs and aspirations of the girls, whilst keeping the costs under control to secure long-term viability of the program.
We will keep shaping and innovating the Safe Center curriculum (esp. Life Skills, practical skill building) where helpful and possible to keep up the energy and excitement of the children that come to the center and avoid drop-outs. With our coaching/mentoring partners, we will also keep supporting the children on mental well-being and involving their parents (esp. mothers) in the program.
100WEEKS will keep supporting the business building groups with the objective to get out of poverty within 100 weeks. The first groups will graduate early 2026 and we hope to launch the next groups in 2026. We are confident that our groups will be as successful as groups elsewhere, i.e., that ~75-80% will be out of poverty after 100 weeks. That would be a great contribution to the lives and livelihoods of a large group of families.
In 2026 we will also continue our journey to strengthen and professionalize our MF team as well as our internal organization to secure we can deal with the further growth and complexity we will undoubtedly face in the coming years. The Dutch CBF organization is helping us lift the organization to a next level.
FINALLY
2025 has again been a wonderful year for the MiekFoundation and for our Miek-girls of Bussi and their families. We live in complicated times geopolitically and our girls and their families need and deserve our support more than ever before! We should and will not complain about how the world around us is changing, but double down on our efforts to make a difference! 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!
THANK YOU for the very generous support that so many of you have given to the MiekFoundation. We sincerely hope that you will continue supporting us in the new year so that together we can help the Miek-girls of Bussi make their exciting dreams come true!
