A great team of diverse skills joined forces in June 2015 at Kampala to train, resource, encourage and advise our partners in Kampala.
Our goal this year was to equip community leaders through training, plan future projects, and strategically release funds to prime cash-generating ventures.
Bridge Christian Ministries and the New Seasons School
The first 4 days was spent with Ps Haggai in his desperate but thriving work in the slum of Nateete. The New Season’s school is bursting at the seams and showing signs of wear, but with some great support from Butterfly Children’s Ministries and DIAS some great gains are underway.
DIAS is happy to announce the release of funds to build, supply and open the doors of a new retail pharmacy that will fund the salaries of teachers for the school. We are also funding an upgrade of the church facility, ensuring the regular flood of storm and sewerage that pours in will no longer occur.
Two training conferences were run, one was led by Patrick Hegarty, training community leaders from all over rural Uganda, helping them deal with the specific contextual and cultural issues that plague their situations. The other conference was run by the team: Jamie Baker, Nick Moore, Mark Page, Rodney Callanan and Andrew Stewart, equipping local leaders in the slums.
The female members of the team worked tirelessly in the school and supporting all the various activities so well. Peta McNaughton (Australia); Henriette Mediaas (Norway/France); and Emma Hammond (England) achieved great things.
Kyampisi Childcare Ministries and the Weema Project
This second phase of the visit was focused at Kyampisi Childcare Ministries and associated works in the rural parts of the region. At KCM, our partner Peter Michael is doing community development at the absolute ragged edge of human need. Child sacrifice and trafficking are being confronted and reduced, poverty is being broken and base needs met more and more.
The Tour of Hope is raising funds to complete the building of the Weema Clinic for treating women and children with health and maternity services. This facility is desperately needed.
In our time with KCM, the team spoke at multiple locations, trained hundreds of leaders, and conducted numerous meetings to develop small business roll-outs, site master plans and strategic plans. They also taught at conferences and churches, with one message being beamed nationally on radio and television. A lot of time was also spent meeting locals, designing school structures and policies … and more.
To help raise awareness of the atrocities of child-sacrifice and trafficking, the team rode in the inaugural tour of Hope – Uganda. Through mud and jungle we rode local bikes with the support of a village cheer squad on motor bikes.
Sickness among the team was a niggling issue but they all managed to press on. Each found their niche of usefulness and did a fantastic job.
Progress by our partners in Uganda: Peter Michael and Haggai… has been fantastic. Both are consistent and tireless local leaders who have enormous credibility and trust in their communities. We are confident of their future and continue to invest time and money into their ventures.