Het is inmiddels al weer meer dan twee maanden geleden dat ik halsoverkop Namibië heb moeten verlaten om hier in om midden in de Corona toestanden te belanden. 'Times flies when you are having fun' gaat in ieder geval voor mij niet op. Weinig 'fun' hier nu in Nederland en toch vliegt de tijd. Ik knipper met mijn ogen en er is weer een week voorbij. Jammer, ik had de African vibes het liefst wat langer willen vast houden.
Maar wat een waanzinnig mooie tijd heb ik gehad. Zoveel gezien, genoten, gelachen en geleerd.
En ik prijs me gelukkig, het gaat nog wel even duren voor het reizen weer mogelijk is en of het dan zo makkelijk zal gaan is ook nog maar de vraag.
Ik heb iedere week contact met Kate en Jeremiah, veel over de whatsapp maar eens in de zoveel weken bellen we ook met elkaar. Ondanks moeilijke tijden blijven Kate en Jeremiah altijd de positieve dingen zien. Ik heb daar heel veel bewondering voor, de kracht en het doorzettingsvermogen om, hoe dan ook, altijd door te gaan.
Op 27 mei 2020 bestond de Golden Hill Junior School van Mother's Heart Uganda al weer 3 jaar.
Helaas geen feestje dit jaar, wel een bericht van Kate.
Today marks exactly 3yrs of existence: Golden hill Junior school.
A story unfolding and transforming lives at the hill.
You were born out of a vision, as a part of maternal health initiative of
Mother’s Heart Uganda Education.
Education for a rural child.
To all our friends, volunteers, well wishers who have made everything move ,
we say thank you and may God bless you abundantly.
The hill has changed to a beautiful one,
standard classrooms, seats, flowing water, so amazing!
Thanks for joining hands to impact others.
Three years of evidence based action.
Golden Hill is growing heights
more and more on your way
The pics say it all !
Happy 3rd anniversary we are glad we are here.
Kate Mya
In februari dit jaar is er met behulp van een grote groep vrijwilligers uit Duitsland nog een extra schoolgebouw bijgekomen met 3 lokalen voor de kleuters.
Ook Uganda is in lockdown, geen intelligente, maar een complete. Al ruim 2 maanden en op 1 juni is deze complete lockdown nog eens met een maand verlengd. Dus de school is nog steeds dicht en de president heeft ook gezegd dat er voor zelf opgerichte scholen geen geld beschikbaar komt, maar dat deze wel verplicht worden om de staf salaris over de afgelopen maanden te betalen.
De afgelopen periode heb ik van verschillende mensen een donatie mogen ontvangen, waarvoor heel veel dank. Hiervan kan een deel van de salarissen van betaald worden. Maar dat is niet voldoende. Ook in Uganda moeten de scholen aan de Corona-voorschriften voldoen. Er zijn ook mondkapjes, thermometers en zeep nodig, maar ook eten voor de kinderen. Mocht je ook iets willen bijdragen om dit mogelijk te maken dan maak je heel veel kinderen en vaders en moeders in Uganda blij.
En mij ook!
NL73RABO0365661678 t.n.v. M.Poot o.v.v. Golden Hill Junior School.
Dit is een brief van Jeremiah waarin hij de huidige situatie beschrijft.
Dear friends, I am Jeremiah Mbulamani the founder and director of Mothers Heart Uganda a community based organization aiming at reducing maternal and child death in the local community of Mutoto in Mbale. I just want to thank all those who have been supporting us through various financial and material donations to see that we are able to achieve out set goals in changing our community.
This letter is basically to inform you about the situation in Mutoto community, the challenges we are facing and how it’s affecting us in the rural areas of Uganda. But also the good news how we are coping with the virus amidst great challenges due to the outbreak of a contagious Covid-19
At the time of writing to this letter, 31 may, Uganda has 421 Confirmed Cases | no death Cases according to health ministry of Covid-19.
The Covid-19 pandemic was confirmed to have reached Uganda in March 2020. On 22 March, the first case of COVID-19 in Uganda was confirmed. On the 26 April, the president of the republic of Uganda declared a lockdown of the whole country. These turned out to be dark days in most Ugandan lives.
Uganda’s stay-at-home in order to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus has left my community members fearful they will die of hunger rather than the virus.
In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic that is sweeping the world, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni issued clear rules: stay at home unless it is an emergency. With his directive, he stopped all passenger service and private vehicles and imposed a curfew from 7:00 p.m. until 6:30 a.m., which effectively makes the stay at home order mandatory.
The outbreak of the virus totally affected my community Mutoto Mbale, residents are a hand-to-mouth lot. Literally, they live off their ability to make it to town centers every day. A slight disruption in this routine meant people to go hungry at home and resulted to malnutrition of most children in households and fear developed in parents because they were helpless with no work and income to feed their families.
Like you know all public places including schools were closed by the government with the aim of controlling the Covid-19 virus but the good news is that the lockdown in the country is being eased slowly and gradually.
In my community we operate a nonprofit public school called the Golden Hill Junior School, as we look forward to open the soon we fear that expenses to run the school will exceed our income since at the moment parents are not working so we expect less income from them yet the daily expenditures to run the school are much hence this is going to constrain the school administration.
Our kind appeal goes to all our friends and well-wishers for a kind donation and financial support to meet utility bills, buy scholastic materials, support to buy sanitizers, temperature monitors, facemasks, food to feed the children while they are back at school. As we plan to reopen the school as soon as possible and we will be required to spray many times to keep the school environment free from the virus. We are also mobilizing some money to pay salary for project staff during this period of crisis where we are at hold until we resume active work after the lockdown.
Kind regards from the people of Mutoto, Mbale Uganda.
Yours in service
Jeremiah Mbulamani and Kate Mya
Directors
Mothers Heart Uganda Golden Hill Junior School