FamilyCares is partnering with LEAD Uganda to educate orphans in Uganda. LEAD Uganda finds forgotten children with innate talents and molds them into leaders. They provide bright, motivated AIDS orphans, former child soldiers and child laborers, with the 21st-century skills needed to lead Africa into the future.
Uganda, located in eastern Africa, has 1.9 million orphans. Some of them have been child soldiers, abducted from their villages and forced to fight; some are street kids and some are struggling to raise their brothers and sisters after their parents have died. Education is the route to transforming their lives, and your family can help.
These children are desperate to attend school, but schools are not free in Uganda. Children need uniforms and supplies. These items are beyond the reach of poor families and orphans. LEAD Uganda pays for school fees for AIDS orphans and former child soldiers, with the goal of getting students into elite Ugandan schools. Their program is work; students are now attending top schools.
Your family can help in the following ways:
- Collecting T-shirts or dresses (ages 8-18)
- Contributing laptops (PC & Apple), consumer DV video cameras or digital cameras – they can be used but should be in good condition
- Collecting paperback books (ages 8-18)
- Making a contribution or sponsoring a child's education
Steps Involved:
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Talk to your children about what it is like to go to school in Uganda (See facts, map and resources below). Discuss why it is important to go to school, the fact that schools in Uganda are not free, that these children are desperately poor and lack basic necessities.
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Decide how your family will help. It could be as simple as looking through your own closets to asking other families to contribute the following items:
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T-shirts – i.e. team shirts and camp shirts that are often only worn for one season. Dresses and skirts - African girls do not wear pants. Please send children's sizes for ages 8-18 only . Do not send stained or ripped shirts or dresses.
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Laptops, video DV cameras and digital cameras - perhaps your company or your family has used (but in good working order) items that they no longer need. Outside the Dream will be conducting a workshop this fall to give university bound students marketable skills. Laptops are especially needed. Place all adaptors, cables and instruction books in a zip lock bag and send with the equipment.
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Paperback books - English is the official language in Uganda. Books for ages 8 yrs to 18 years are requested. Books should be in good condition. At media rate, you can mail 10 lbs of books for $4.84, 25lbs of books for $9.84 and 50lbs at $16.84. Bookmarks - If you send books, your family can include homemade bookmarks made of cardboard or paper. Bookmarks with stickers, drawings or phrases encouraging kids to read are fun and easy to make and fun for the Ugandan children to receive. Enclose letters and/or drawings from your family members in your package.
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Consider making a contribution or a commitment to support a child's education. Your children can help raise funds by doing chores, holding a tag sale of household items, setting up a lemonade stand or collecting cans and bottles to redeem.
- $5 feeds a child at school for a month.
- $10 buys books and supplies; helps keep a child in school.
- $25 boards a primary school student.
- $50 boards a high school student at a good school.
- $100 boards a high school student at a top school.
For more details, visit www.leaduganda.org.
- Mail items to:
LEAD Uganda
202 Saint Marks Ave. #4
Brooklyn, NY 11238
For more information, photos of children in the LEAD Uganda program and a recent newsletter go to www.leaduganda.org.
Education in Developing Countries
Education in developing countries is not free. Poor families are not able to pay for fees, uniforms and supplies. Orphans and children living on the street rarely attend school consistently. Consider the following facts gathered from UNESCO, UNICEF and CARE:
- 125-140 million children worldwide do not receive even an elementary education.
- 60 percent of them are girls.
- 1 billion people live in absolute poverty living on less than $1 per day
- 15 million children worldwide are AIDS orphans 2 million children have died in the last decade from war and violent conflict
- 300,000 plus child soldiers are exploited in over 30 countries
- 250 million children – that is one out of six work as child laborers
Education benefits not only the child and her local community, but our global community as well. Your family can help make an education for a Ugandan orphan not just a dream but also a reality.
Uganda
Resources
The World Fact Book at www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ug.html
Unicef- Africa's Orphaned Generations at www.unicef.org/publications/africas_orphans.pdf
