Dear friends of the MiekFoundation,
HAPPY EASTER to all of you from all of us at the MiekFoundation!
We hope all of you are in good health and are well despite all Covid challenges. Also in Uganda, Covid is still determining the lives of many with large parts of the country still in lockdown. The majority of schools are still closed and as a result of the severe economic crisis, even more families have lost their income. In our Christmas note we wrote to you about the restart of the MF. Since then we have made great progress thanks to support of so many of you! In this newsletter, we would like to give you a short update of what we have been doing together with our partners in Uganda as well as highlight the new sponsor opportunities we have developed.
Supported by our wonderful partners Andrew Musoke and Patricia Mucheri, we started a close cooperation with a local NGO, HealthChild (led by executive director Betty Walakira). HealthChild focuses on supporting the self-sustainability of local communities in Uganda by creating safe and secure environments for children and their parents, so that girls can experience a safe and fruitful childhood and grow to become responsible and productive adults in their communities. Jointly we selected the Bussi Islands (an archipelago of small islands in Lake Victoria) as the community we will support. The main purpose of our cooperation is to secure the access to high quality education for the girls of Bussi.
The MF wants to develop long-term and sustainable relationships with our local partners, the local communities, the girls of Bussi and of course our supporters (you!).
Jointly, we prioritized 3 initiatives:
- Schools: First and foremost, early 2021, HealthChild together with local community leaders, selected the first group of girls that will go to the St. Thereza Buyege primary school and the St. Henry’s S.S. Buyege secondary school. Both are high quality boarding schools with an excellent track-record both in terms of academic performance as well as personal development and values. Last month the girls of the most senior grades and their parents came to the school for the start of the new school year. A memorable moment! A few of the younger girls will start only in a few weeks because of Covid. MF will support the full primary and secondary school education of all girls, from the beginning to the end. In doing this, we focus on quality and real impact, rather than quantity!
- Safe Spaces: Together with the community of Bussi Island, we will develop safe spaces that address specific extra-curricular needs of girls on the island like sexual education (to prevent unplanned pregnancies), arts & crafts, music and additional lessons in for example grammar and math. Together with HealthChild, we are now designing the curriculum and are arranging the practicalities (e.g., securing the right location and contracting staff). We expect the first safe space, ideally for about 40 girls, to open around summer.
- Agriculture: As we wrote in our Christmas note we also aspire to launch a pilot to support mothers in developing their own agri business by providing them with small pieces of leased land, allowing them to independently grow crops like soybeans. The money they earn would allow for more independence of the mothers as well as for additional income for their families which they would (partly) use to pay for school fees so that their children could go to school rather than stay at home to work. Given the significant resources required to develop this initiative successfully and with real impact, we decided to postpone this until after summer.
The long-term commitments we made to the girls of Bussi and their parents require significant financial resources. We are very grateful for the support that so many of you have given in the past months. This has allowed us to make real progress, THANK YOU!!!
Many of you have joined the community of friends and family of the MF which is fantastic. We continue doing the work with a lot of energy, happiness and optimism, inspired by the wonderful memories of the very special girl after which this MiekFoundation was named!
We wish you and your loved ones happy Easter!
With love,
The MiekFoundation
